26 Oct 2023

Gavin Newsom slams Maine Republicans over gun control after mass shooting

by | posted in: Politics | 0

California Gov. Gavin Newsom slammed Maine Republicans on social media for rejecting a gun control bill that would have required a 72-hour waiting period for firearm purchases earlier this year after a gunman opened fire and killed at least 18 people in Lewiston Wednesday night.

Newsom pointed the finger at Republicans, but Democrats have control of both Maine’s House and Senate. The June legislation’s rejection was bipartisan, failing in the House 73-69 with 65 Republicans and seven Democrats voting against and in the Senate 24-11 with all 13 Republicans and 11 Democrats voting against.

Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills had remained largely silent on the proposal. At a press conference Thursday, Mills condemned the shootings without mentioning gun control.

“They seriously could not fathom waiting 72 hours to buy a gun,” Newsom wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, in a post that also criticized Maine’s lack of laws to ban assault weapons, require permits to carry a gun in public or require background checks on all gun sales.

The California governor also repeated his calls for further gun control action from Congress. He has been vocal about calling out Republicans for not passing gun safety legislation, particularly after two mass shootings in his state left 19 people dead earlier this year.

On Wednesday night, a man shot and killed at least 18 people and injured at least 13 at a restaurant and a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, and then fled the scene. Law enforcement continued to search for the suspect, identified as Robert Card, on Thursday.

Card was described as a firearms instructor believed to be in the Army Reserve and assigned to a training facility in Saco, Maine, according to the Associated Press.

26 Oct 2023

Here’s how Gophers football can win the Big Ten West

by | posted in: News | 0

The Gophers’ 12-10 win over Iowa last week has rejuvenated Minnesota’s outlook to contend for the Big Ten West Division title.

With five games remaining, Minnesota is 2-2 in the Big Ten and enters Saturday’s home game as a seven-point favorite against Michigan State (0-4).

In the West standings, the third-place Gophers sit one game behind Wisconsin (3-1) and a half-game behind Iowa (3-2). But Minnesota holds the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Hawkeyes and fourth-place Nebraska (2-2).

This current situation sets up a plausible scenario for the Battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe on Nov. 25 to decide the winner of the West.

Here’s how that might shake out:

Wisconsin is a 14-point home underdog against No. 3 Ohio State (4-0) on Saturday, and Minnesota will be a big underdog when the Gophers play the Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium on Nov. 18. It’s not going out on a limb to assume Ohio State wins both games.

Let’s also predict the Badgers and Gophers win every other game on their schedules — all of which are against teams below them in the standings.

In that world, Wisconsin will be 6-2 and Minnesota will be 5-3 in conference play when they kick off at Huntington Bank Stadium two days after Thanksgiving.

For that rivalry game to be about more than the Axe, the Hawkeyes would need to provide a path.

Let’s project Iowa beats the three foes below them in the West standings but get tripped up at home by resurgent Rutgers (3-2). If the Scarlet Knights beat the Hawkeyes, Iowa would finish 6-3.

In this hypothetical, a Minnesota win over Wisconsin would put the Gophers in the Big Ten Championship Game.

With a Gophers’ win of the Axe, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin would have identical 6-3 conference records, and the Gophers would hold the three-team tiebreaker over their border rivals: winning percentage in games between the tied teams.

But a Badgers win of the Axe in this scenario would push them to the Big Ten title game in Indianapolis.

The likely reality, however, figures to be messier than that.

No team in the West looks like a powerhouse. For instance, Wisconsin needed to score 18 unanswered points for a 25-21 comeback win over Illinois (1-4) last weekend. And Iowa’s offense has not been able to move the ball in any game.

The Gophers will need to iron out their own inconsistencies; that was most glaring in how they coughed up a 21-point lead and lost 38-35 in overtime at Northwestern (1-3) in late September. Without that upset loss, Minnesota would clearly be in a much more advantageous spot within the division.

While the Pioneer Press opted to look at a straight-forward scenario for the stretch run, the Sickos Committee, a group of diehard college football fans, says it has found the opposite — complete chaos.

On social media this week, the group shared a way the division can reach a seven-way tie, with each program finishing 4-5 in the conference and 3-3 in the West. Parsing out how that one is reached and who wins the division is a murky ordeal.

Gophers’ manifest destiny?

Here’s a straight-forward — if certainly not easy — way Minnesota can win the Big Ten West Division:

1 — Wisconsin (3-1 in Big Ten)

No. 3 Ohio State (loss); at Indiana (win); Northwestern (win); Nebraska (win); at Minnesota (loss)

2 — Iowa (3-2)

bye; Northwestern at Wrigley Field (win); Rutgers (loss); Illinois (win); at Nebraska (win)

3 — Minnesota (2-2)

Michigan State (win); Illinois (win); at Purdue (win); at No. 3 Ohio State (loss); Wisconsin (win)

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26 Oct 2023

Duxbury mother accused of killing her 3 kids held without bail, committed to psychiatric care

by | posted in: Society | 0

A Plymouth Superior Court judge has found Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury mother accused of strangling her three children to death earlier this year, “at imminent risk for self-harm” and ordered her held without bail and committed to psychiatric care at Tewksbury Hospital for a six-month period.

“It is my opinion that she does require ongoing psychiatric hospitalization,” Dr. Karin Towers, a forensic psychiatrist retained by the court, testified during Clancy’s Superior Court arraignment Thursday morning. Towers said she had examined Clancy earlier that morning and found the defendant presented with a flat affect and reported “unbearable depression and trouble getting through each day,” feelings of worthlessness and regular suicidal ideation.

Judge William F. Sullivan was convinced and ordered Clancy held without bail and committed to Tewksbury Hospital for an extended six-month stay without the need for monthly evaluations. The arraignment was held in Tewksbury Hospital via Zoom video teleconferencing. Clancy could not be seen in the video.

Sullivan set the next court date for Dec. 15.

Clancy, 33, is accused of strangling her three children with exercise bands in the basement of their home at 47 Summer St. in Duxbury the night of Jan. 24 before jumping out of a window in an apparent suicide attempt. Investigative affidavits filed in a lower court and released Tuesday indicated she also cut her wrists and neck before jumping from the second-floor window.

On Thursday, prosecutor Jennifer Sprague cast doubt to the seriousness of Clancy’s suicide attempt and described the cuts as rather superficial. She also laid out arguments to head off any defense regarding diminished responsibility due to Clancy not being of sound mind at the time of the homicides.

Sprague said that notes on Clancy’s phone and in notebooks found at the house document her life and the lives of her children, but in these writings she always appears to know who she is, where she is and describes “no hallucinations or delusions.” While the writings do allegedly include suicidal or homicidal ideations, Sprague said, these disappear following her stay at the beginning of January at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Belmont.

Clancy was prescribed a medley of medications, Sprague said, and was taking three regularly by the night in question. Bloodwork examined after the alleged killings showed several medications in her system, though Sprague argued that the majority of these were in safe, therapeutic doses and the one that was found at a higher dose, Seroquel, is an antipsychotic and thus should diminish and not cause a likelihood of a violent outburst.

Clancy’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, said that he was at the house and “was able to see the blood that was on the floor, on the wall, on the windowpane” from his clients wounds and dismissed out of hand Sprague’s argument that it was just some “dinky cut,” as what he saw reminded him more of “arterial spray.”

What Reddington saw in the house, he said, was evidence “in every room” of a deep family love, with happy photos of the family and signs of the children’s creative output and education dotting the home.

This is a developing story.

Judge William F. Sullivan, center, listens as Plymouth Assistant DA Jennifer Sprague speaks during the Superior Court arraignment of Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury mother accused of killing her three kids, held via Zoom from Tewksbury Hospital on Thursday morning. Clancy’s defense attorney Kevin Reddington listens from the far right of the screen. (Screengrab / Plymouth Superior Court)

26 Oct 2023

Patriots’ first-round pick being helped by ‘mirror check’ and practice reps

by | posted in: News | 0

FOXBORO — It’s usually frowned upon to walk up to someone and ask, “Hey, did you gain weight?”

It’s not always a bad thing when addressing an offensive lineman, though. And for Patriots left guard Cole Strange, weight was an issue for the 2022 first-round pick as a rookie.

But Strange looked bigger in his return to the field in Week 7 from a knee injury, and it coincided with the Patriots’ best offensive line performance by far this season in Sunday’s win over the Bills.

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So, did Strange gain some weight?

“Yeah, a little bit,” Strange told the Herald. “I wasn’t trying to add too much because I wasn’t playing. So, it’s like if you’re just adding on a bunch of weight, then it’s probably just fat. But I was trying to gain the best weight I could.”

Strange said he felt “light” at times last year and that he was feeling better Week 7 against the Bills.

The Chattanooga product let up three hurries in that game.

“This year I felt a little bit more sure,” Strange said. “Like there are still dudes who are big and strong enough to move you out of the way, but I do feel a little bit better weight wise this year for sure.”

So, what exactly is the process for a 6-foot-5, 310-pound offensive line to add weight midseason?

“Eat as much as you can without — there’s a goal of weight that you try to get to,” Strange said. “You want to kind of slowly get there over time. Obviously you’re lifting and working out too. I’d say a mirror check every now and then is good. If I’m standing there and hitting one of those numbers, like I need to chill out, subtract the Little Debbies.”

It was mentioned to Strange that former Patriots offensive lineman Ted Karras would eat an entire box of cereal — with milk — every night to keep his weight up. Strange might give that a shot.

It’s better than the alternative he tried in the past.

“For a short period of time, and this is probably what led to me starting the mirror check because I was looking like a lard-ass, is I would get like a big bowl and put a bunch of Oreos in there and fill it up with milk and then eat it like cereal.

“I went to Trader Joe’s. They just have chocolates and cookies, and I got a bunch of that. And I was like, ‘I have to slow down on this.’”

So, now it’s back to chicken and rice for Strange. And maybe some nightly cereal.

It’s helped him immensely to be back on the practice field in recent weeks. Strange missed most of training camp with a knee injury suffered on the first day of padded practices. It even kept him out of Week 1. He was back on the field for Week 2 before suffering another knee injury late in the Patriots’ Week 3 win over the Jets. He started Week 7 but is still officially listed as limited on the injury report.

“The best thing you can do is taking mental reps and watching film and trying to stay locked in that way,” Strange said. “But there’s really no replacement for just going through those movements, for me at least. Some guys I think can watch film and don’t have to practice. They’re just good. But I gotta practice and even then, I’ve got to practice for weeks so I can get back into my groove. It’s tough not being able to do that.”