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How a home sale can be ruined by uninvited ‘house guests’

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:35:27 GMT

Question: We are waiting to put our house up for sale. However, we need help. Squatters took over a rental property within eyesight of our home. The house was vacant. It was for rent. The squatters moved in and changed the locks. This turn of events has the neighborhood in disarray. Evidently, the owner of the property has hired an attorney. Now we are waiting for the court system to evict squatters almost directly across the street. It makes no sense. Police moderated confrontations between the owners and the squatters.Our house will be vacant and on the market when the squatters are gone. We must sell our home. We have a deposit on an out-of-state house under construction. Timing is critical. We will lease a house while our new home is under construction. Finances will be tight. A legal drama with squatters is unthinkable. How can our seller’s agent protect our house from being taken over by squatters?Answer: Congratulations on thorough, proactive thinking while entering the real ...

Bridge: Sept. 2, 2023

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:35:27 GMT

“Simple Saturday” columns focus on basic technique and logical thinking.Entries are the means of placing the lead where you want it to be. As declarer, you may be short of entries to dummy; in that case, you may need to create some.In today’s deal, South’s bidding showed a balanced 23 or 24 points. Against 3NT, West led the ten of clubs, and declarer won and wanted entries to dummy so he could finesse in hearts. After Trick Two he tried a spade to dummy’s ten.FINESSEEast took the queen and returned a club. South won, led a spade to dummy’s ace and returned a heart to his queen, winning, but he was fresh out of entries to dummy. He took two hearts, two spades, a diamond and three clubs: down one.At Trick Two South should let the jack of spades ride. If West had the queen, South would be sure of at least nine tricks. When East takes the queen, South can get to dummy twice with the ace and ten of spades for two heart finesses. Again, the contract is ...

Dear Abby: I don’t want to hear her fantasies about the priest

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:35:27 GMT

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have been together for six years. Until about 18 months ago, my mother-in-law and I got along swimmingly. Unfortunately, that relationship has become troubled.Related ArticlesAdvice | Dear Abby: She offered no remorse for grabbing the spotlight at the engagement party Advice | Dear Abby: My friend’s personality changed, and now she’s stalking me Advice | Dear Abby: Should I consider this my husband’s strike three? Advice | Dear Abby: I want to leave my wife but I’m afraid she’ll hurt somebody if I do Advice | Dear Abby: I’m sick of explaining I have a plain phone, not an expensive toy The cause is her deep involvement with her church, indoctrinating our toddler with her religious beliefs and, finally, (ironically) her deep physical attraction to her priest. She believes this last topic is acceptable to confide to me. Needless to say, it has ...

Floaters: Our Reflection in the Rio Grande

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:35:27 GMT

The media was filled this summer with news of migrants blocked and wounded by orange buoys and sharp wire that the governor of Texas placed on the Rio Grande, the river bordering Mexico. A poll taken in August found that 51 percent of Americans approve of these hostile barriers — including four of every 10 Democrats. This is so even though it’s increasingly dangerous for migrants to try to enter the U.S. without going through official ports of entry. During the last three fiscal years, more people have died trying to cross the border than at any other time in recorded U.S. immigration enforcement history.The dead include hundreds of adults who’ve expired from heat, vehicle collisions during Border Patrol chases, and mishaps in rivers — mostly the Rio Grande and its canals. Children, too, have died in droves, mainly by drowning. But as current polling suggests, you don’t have to like Donald Trump to be hostile or indifferent to this suffering. Join Our Ne...

2 dead, three injured in multivehicle Hagerstown crash involving 4 tractor-trailers

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:35:27 GMT

Two people are dead and three others injured after a Friday morning crash on southbound Interstate 81 in Washington County, Maryland, involving four tractor-trailers and two passenger vehicles, Maryland State Police said.A preliminary investigation revealed that a Chevrolet Tahoe struck the back of a tractor-trailer that had started to brake due to traffic, causing a chain-reaction crash between three more tractor-trailers and a pickup truck just before 9:40 a.m.Wesley Merrick, 55, and Alicia Eve Cornell, 46, both of Wellsville, New York, driver and passenger of the Chevrolet Tahoe involved in the crash, were pronounced dead on the scene.Two additional passengers in the Tahoe, Wesley’s wife Carrie Merrick, 49, and Kevin Dye, 59, were injured in the crash and transported to separate medical facilities.A third person and driver of one of the tractor-trailers involved in the crash, Darrin Wayne Shank, Jr., 55, of Williamsport, Maryland, was hospitalized with injuries.Southbound I...

Labor Day Holiday Weekend Forecast

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:35:27 GMT

The long holiday weekend of Labor Day and the first weekend of September has arrived, and for September standards the forecast is looking great overall for South Florida.A very weak front will cross through South Florida this evening, which will usher in drier air. Before then for our Saturday, we still have enough moisture in place for scattered showers to move through.Across the metro, these passing showers will be most likely this morning and into the early-afternoon before it shifts toward the south and west and into parts of the Florida Keys for the afternoon. With an increasing breeze and northeast winds, temperatures will be quite seasonable into the low 90s for highs.Behind this front on Sunday, there will actually be a brief but slight dip in humidity levels. Given how oppressive it has felt standing outside, this slight drop should actually be noticeable, especially with the breeze holding persistent out of the northeast.For both Sunday and Labor Day on Monday, there will ...

Atomic age is over in Germany, Chancellor Scholz insists

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:35:27 GMT

Germany will not leave the door open for a possible return to using nuclear power now or in the future, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday.Responding to a suggestion from members of his own governing coalition that the country should not rule out restarting its shuttered reactors, Scholz told radio station Deutschlandfunk that “nuclear energy is over” and the issue is “a dead horse” in Germany.“The fact is that with the end of the use of nuclear power, dismantling has also begun” at the power stations that have been closed down, he said. “Any talk of resuming the use of atomic energy would imply building new power stations,” Scholz argued.“Anyone who wanted to build new nuclear power plants would need 15 years and would have to spend €15-€20 billion each,” he went on.Members of the the Free Democrats party, which serves as a junior coalition partner with Scholz’s Social Democrats, backed a policy statement calli...

Ukraine launches criminal case against oligarch Kolomoisky

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:35:27 GMT

Ukraine’s security services have formally presented one of the country’s most controversial tycoons with fraud and money laundering charges, as Kyiv renews its efforts to crack down on corruption.In a statement issued on Saturday, the country’s SBU agency said it had presented Ihor Kolomoisky with a “notice of suspicion” in the criminal case.“It was established that between 2013 and 2020, Kolomoisky legalized more than half a billion Ukrainian hryvnia [around $13.5 million] by moving it abroad using the infrastructure of controlled banking institutions,” the agency’s press service said. A pretrial investigation is ongoing, officials added.The Ukrainian-born Israeli-Cypriot national is the co-founder of PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest financial insitution, which was taken into state ownership in 2016 after regulators discovered $5 billion in missing assets. According to Forbes, Kolomoisky is worth an estimated $1 billion.Ukrainian P...

Russia declares Nobel Prize-winning journalist ‘foreign agent’

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:35:27 GMT

Dmitry Muratov, one of Russia’s best-known journalists, has been added to the country’s list of foreign agents, less than two years after the Kremlin praised the principled reporting that saw him awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Muratov, the former editor of now-shuttered liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was included in an update Friday evening to the Russian Ministry of Justice’s register of journalists, politicians and activists that Moscow claims are acting on behalf of hostile states. The designation of foreign agent, which has been repeatedly used on critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin and opponents of his war in Ukraine, means that Muratov will have to adhere to strict rules on political activity. It also bars him from engaging in public life. Any mention of him in Russian media or social networks must reference his status.According to Human Rights Watch, “in Russia, the term foreign agent is tantamount [to] spy or traitor,” and has been used ...

Westford Academy’s Paul Bergeron set for one last run

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:35:27 GMT

There’s very little Paul Bergeron has left to chance heading into his senior year as the defending Div. 1 Meet of Champions winner.Gone are his two biggest rivals – Sam Burgess of Framingham and St. John’s Prep’s Nathan Lopez – both of whom Bergeron pulled away from in the final mile on a chilly day last November on the 3.1-mile Devens layout. Bergeron bounded across the finish line for the win in 15:02.6 a week after finishing second in the Div. 1A meet to Burgess.Bergeron stands alone as the overwhelming favorite to win come November in his final cross country season before heading off to Stanford. And with a superb track campaign in the spring that produced two startling personal bests of 8:51.88 in the 2-mile and 4:10 in the mile, Bergeron’s stock has only risen.Under the watchful eye of Westford Academy head coach Scott Hafferkamp, Bergeron has packed in 75-80-miles a week consistently since the end of track and his workouts aren’t for ...