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Christmas Wonderland at Tropical Park aims to spread holiday magic to kids of all ages — and our inner child

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:33 GMT

We’re getting in the holiday spirit right here in SoFlo. A new attraction in Miami is offering plenty of thrills and chills. Alex Miranda is at Christmas Wonderland at Tropical Park with the deets.Tonight my name is Jingles at this fabulous Christmas experience that invites South Floridians to come have fun, ride the rides and sen your request to Santa.“Mrs. Claus”: “It’s so loving and so magical. I’m so excited.”Wait, that’s not Santa’s Enchanted Forest.Alex Miranda: “People are wondering, right? ‘Cause they want to come, they’re like, ‘Oh, wow, it’s back!’ But no, it’s Christmas Wonderland, and so, what are they going to see?Tony Albelo: “It’s not about a comparison, not about a competition. It is a family experience, so we wanted to make sure that we had something for them, as well as something for the older kids and the kid in all of us.”Looks like Ole St. Nick dropp...

Police: Subject stole transit bus in downtown Miami, ditched it near Whole Foods

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:33 GMT

Police are searching for a subject who, they said, stole a Miami-Dade Transit bus in downtown Miami before abandoning it in the middle of traffic.According to City of Miami Police, the driver of the bus took a break in the area of Southwest First Avenue and First Street, near the Stephen P. Clark Government Center, at around 9:45 p.m., Friday.Investigators said the subject got into the vehicle and drove off.Police said the bus was abandoned on an Interstate 95 off-ramp located across from the Whole Foods near Southeast Third Avenue and Third Street.At around 11 p.m., 7News cameras captured the bus in the blocking one eastbound lane of traffic, causing some congestion in the heart of the downtown area.Detectives said officers searched for the subject inside of the Whole Foods but did not locate the individual.Officers, county officials and transit experts were seen in a grassy area near the roadway, as they try to determine how to remove the bus.Cameras also showed the bus driver spe...

Paxton: Bid to end tip credit puts jobs at risk

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:33 GMT

In the eleventh hour, Massachusetts lawmakers are considering bills to eliminate the state’s tip credit and add on a minimum wage increase up to $20 per hour. Such an unprecedented move will worsen economic hurdles facing restaurants and threaten the livelihoods of thousands of employees.As part of a so-called “grand bargain” signed by Governor Charlie Baker in 2018, Massachusetts has already seen a hike in the regular and tipped minimum wages each year.Restaurants, which employ the majority of minimum wage earners, are struggling to keep up.  Employment growth in the state’s restaurant industry has completely stagnated. Even before the pandemic, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows Massachusetts’ full-service restaurant industry experienced net job losses.Massachusetts has seen waves of restaurants close in recent years, citing ongoing pandemic struggles and restrictive government mandates. Owners of the recently-closed award-winning vegan restaurant True Bistro have said the risi...

How the ‘foundational’ 6-player deal between the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves featuring Aaron Bummer came together

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:33 GMT

The Chicago White Sox are in need of starting pitching and middle-infield depth this offseason.They made a dent in both departments late Thursday in a six-player trade with the Atlanta Braves.The Sox sent veteran reliever Aaron Bummer to the Braves for right-handed pitcher Mike Soroka, left-hander Jared Shuster, infielders Nicky Lopez and Braden Shewmake and minor-league right-hander Riley Gowens.“(Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos) put something on the table that I felt like was a step forward for where we needed to go — acquiring starting pitching innings and also improving our defense,” Sox general manager Chris Getz said Friday in a video conference call.“It now allows us to open some things up when it comes to acquiring free agents or future deals. So much of this is at the mercy of other clubs and the urgency of some of these free agents and when they want to sign. I think this is a foundational move for us.”It’s the f...

Lachman: The U.S. economy’s Achilles heel

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:33 GMT

After the September 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy triggered the Great Economic Recession, Charles Prince, the former head of Citibank, was asked why his bank kept lending on the eve of the worst economic recession in the postwar period. He replied, “As long as the music is playing, you have to get up and dance.”Fast forward to today, we have to wonder whether financial markets are dancing on the eve of another financial market crisis that could trigger a meaningful economic recession. This time, the trigger might be a full-blown regional bank crisis caused by the lethal combination of high interest rates and a wave of commercial property loan defaults.The importance of the regional banks for the U.S. economy cannot be overstated. According to Goldman Sachs, banks with less than $250 billion in assets originate half of the loans made to businesses and corporations for capital expenditures. These smaller banks also account for 60% of all U.S. mortgages, 80% of all commercial real es...

Artist Bashi responds to hate with music & film

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:33 GMT

Composer Kaoru Ishibashi, who performs under the name Kishi Bashi, is as musically eclectic as it gets: He’s studied film scoring at Berklee, he’s played jazz and classical violin, he’s toured with pop stars and played in celebrated indie-rock bands. But he’s done his most ambitious work with “Omoiyari,” a multimedia project that he’ll present at Berklee this week, as both a set of live music and a “song film” which he co-directed.The music is based on the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the film documents his visits to the camps and related locations. The Berklee show on Tuesday night will feature a screening of the film, followed by a performance of the musical piece.Bashi says he was first drawn to the topic after seeing an influx of anti-Asian sentiments during COVID shutdown. “At first everything I wrote was quite angry, aggressive and agitated,” he said this week. “But that is not really my brand of music. After hearing about the Muslim ban I start...

Editorial: Biden failing as steward of public money

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:33 GMT

When it comes to spending other people’s money, the Biden administration has only one setting: more, more, more.Lost amid recent world events and the $100 billion White House spending proposal for aid to Ukraine, Israel and elsewhere, was an administration demand last month that Congress approve $56 billion in “emergency” spending on various domestic initiatives.This request comes on the heels of trillions in previous spending that has triggered the highest inflation in four decades and resulted in soaring interest rates and $2 trillion in annual red ink. But it’s never enough. Yet as Americans struggle to pay elevated prices at the grocery store and the pump, President Joe Biden remains mystified that voters haven’t embraced “Bidenomics,” which clearly involves pushing the country to the fiscal brink in an effort to buy political support.The new spending is disguised as an effort to beef up disaster relief, expand child-care programs and subsidize rural internet service. But it als...

Graham: Rashida Tlaib’s lies skipped by ‘fact checkers’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:33 GMT

On Nov. 7, the House of Representatives (212 Republicans and 22 Democrats) voted to censure radical Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) because she has “levied unbelievable falsehoods about our greatest ally, Israel, and the attack on October 7.”One of those outrageous falsehoods was clinging to the false claim that Israel bombed the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. But guess what? Our professional “fact-checkers” haven’t located that lie … or any other nutty utterance, like her laughable claim that “from the river to the sea” isn’t a Hamas slogan about the eradication of Israel, it’s an “aspirational call for freedom” and “peaceful coexistence.”With Democrats, the so-called independent fact-checkers rush to correct Tlaib critics, and not Tlaib — just as they rush to correct Biden critics, and not Biden. Maybe those critics deserve correction — but so do Democrats, especially when they lie about alleged “war...

Orioles sign Jorge Mateo, 3 others to 2024 deals, tender contracts to remaining 13 arbitration-eligible players

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:33 GMT

The band is staying together.The Orioles entered Friday’s nontender deadline tied for the most arbitration-eligible players in MLB with 17. With a number that high, it was expected that at least one player — perhaps more — would be let go and become a free agent.Instead, Baltimore signed four players, including shortstop Jorge Mateo and outfielder Ryan McKenna, and tendered contracts to the remaining 13, including slugger Anthony Santander, starting pitcher John Means and outfielders Cedric Mullins and Austin Hays.Mateo was seen as the most likely candidate to be nontendered given his struggles in 2023 (.607 OPS), the Orioles’ logjam of young infielders and his projected salary of approximately $2.6 million. But Baltimore values Mateo’s speed and glove at shortstop, agreeing to a one-year deal for the 2024 season to avoid arbitration. The club did the same with McKenna, whose versatility as a right-handed hitter against lefties, pinch-runner and late-in...

Dear Abby: BF is stuck in the low-priority zone

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:33 GMT

Dear Abby: My girlfriend and I started dating a couple years ago after getting out of long-term relationships. We have kids from those relationships, and she is still in court over custody. We haven’t been able to buy a house yet, mostly because of the cost of the court battle, so we live apart and can’t spend as much time together as we’d like. However, when we do have the time, she usually wants her kids to join. She says she wants her kids everywhere with her.She has also told me I will never come first. I have custody of my son and want to spend time with him, too, but I think we need to spend time as a couple and make our relationship important. I feel both the relationship and the kids should be priorities, but not always one over the other.Recently, we learned a band we both love and grew up listening to is coming to our town. We were excited about going, but she wants to buy tickets for herself and her son, because he said he likes the band when he hears hi...