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Is saving money worth the potential of stigmatizing your home after a failed sale?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:36:09 GMT

Regarding your March 24, 2023, column titled “Successor trustees need to recognize the value of presale seller inspections” on The Mercury News and East Bay Times websites:Q: We had an identical situation in our family. My brother-in-law is the successor trustee of our parents’ estate. As a successor trustee, he thought presale seller inspections were “unnecessary.” He said the same statement in your column, “If the homebuyers want inspections, let them pay for them.” My parents made my brother-in-law the successor trustee because of his frugality. Well, his thriftiness got the better of him and us. We introduced the family home to the realty marketplace in Silicon Valley without presale seller inspections in late April. The multiple-offer bidding war lasted the better part of a week. In the first week of June, the homebuyers’ inspectors gathered for various inspections. In mid-June, the “winning” homebuyer canceled. All the offers received were noncontingent. There were no back-out...

¿Qué es el grupo Wagner y quién es Prigozhin, su fundador?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:36:09 GMT

(CNN) — Yevgeny Prigozhin acusó este viernes al ejército ruso de atacar un campamento de Wagner y matar a un “gran número” de sus hombres. Prometió tomar represalias con fuerza. Como respuesta, el Ministerio de Defensa ruso negó haber atacado a las tropas de Wagner, calificando la afirmación de “propaganda informativa”. Y el FSB también abrió una causa penal contra Prighozhin por sus amenazas, acusándole de llamar a “una rebelión armada”.¿Qué es el grupo Wagner?Wagner fue fundado por Prigozhin como una organización mercenaria en las sombras que luchaba en el este de Ucrania y, cada vez más, por otras causas que Rusia apoyaba en distintos lugares del mundo.CNN ha seguido a mercenarios de Wagner en la República Centroafricana, Sudán, Libia, Mozambique, Ucrania y Siria. A lo largo de los años, han adquirido una reputación especialmente truculenta y se les ha relacionado con diversas violaciones de los derechos humanos.Mientras que muchas tropas...

Rosie’s Gaming Emporium eyeing Manassas Park for casino-like operation

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:36:09 GMT

This article was written by WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.Rosie’s Gaming Emporium is looking to make a push into Manassas Park.Churchill Downs Inc., the operator of Rosie’s, announced Friday it is collecting signatures to initiate a voter referendum on whether the company could open a casino-like gambling operation in the Manassas Park Shopping Center on Centreville Road.The company runs six “gaming emporiums” in Virginia: in Dumfries, Richmond, Hampton, Collinsville, New Kent and Vinton. To expand into jurisdictions that have not already approved pari-mutuel gambling (also known as pool betting, by which bettors place wagers not against a bookmaker but against other bettors on the same event), the company must pass a voter referendum. In order to get on the ballot, Churchill Downs and Councilmember Michael Carrera – who submitted the petition to the Prince Willia...

El aborto en la historia: mucho antes del fallo de Roe vs. Wade, las mujeres interrumpían sus embarazos

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:36:09 GMT

(CNN) — Actualmente el aborto, al menos en Estados Unidos, es un polvorín político, legal y moral. Pero durante largos períodos de la historia, interrumpir un embarazo no deseado, especialmente en las etapas tempranas, fue un hecho de la vida poco controvertido, dicen los historiadores.Papiros egipcios, obras de teatro griegas, monedas romanas, biografías medievales de los santos, manuales médicos y de obstetricia, y periódicos y panfletos victorianos revelan que el aborto era más común en tiempos premodernos de lo que la gente podría pensar.Esta visión histórica sobre el aborto es importante, según Mary Fissell, profesora de Historia de la Medicina en la Universidad Johns Hopkins. Eso se debe a que las suposiciones sobre cómo se veía el aborto en el pasado colorean los argumentos actuales sobre el derecho al aborto. Esos derechos fueron severamente restringidos en muchos estados de EE.UU. desde que el fallo Roe v. Wade de 1973 que efectivamente hizo que el aborto fuera legal ...

Alligator charges at fisherman and it’s caught on camera

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:36:09 GMT

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, South Carolina (WYFF) — A man visiting Hilton Head Island with his family captured cell phone video of an alligator charging at a fisherman.It happened at Shipyard Plantation Tuesday evening.“It was about Tuesday night around 7 o’clock. My wife and three kids decided to go for a bike ride,” said Micah Kimberlin, who recorded the video. “We came across a couple people standing [near a pond], and then we see an alligator…this gentleman is fishing kind of far away, and it’s headed directly towards him. That’s when I started filming this alligator heading toward him.”Thankfully, no one was injured. The alligator re-entered the pond shortly after charging on land.The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources said it is likely that the alligator associated humans with food.“My opinion is it was probably an alligator that has been fed,” said Morgan Hart, alligator project coordinator for SCDNR. ̶...

Frontex considers suspending activities in Greece: Report

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:36:09 GMT

The EU Border and Coast Guard Agency is considering suspending activities in Greece following a controversy over the capsizing of an overcrowded fishing boat, Le Monde reported.During a June 20-21 management board meeting of the agency, known as Frontex, the agency’s fundamental rights officer, Jonas Grimheden, recommended temporarily suspending the agencies’ activities in Greece, according to the French newspaper’s report.The Frontex reaction comes in the wake of a migrant boat disaster off the coast of Greece that is one of the biggest tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea in years. Tensions have been mounting between the EU agency and Athens over the role that each party played in dealing with the tragedy.Critics say that the Greek authorities should have acted faster to keep the vessel from capsizing. There are testimonies from survivors that the coast guard tied up to the vessel and attempted to pull it, causing the boat to sway, which the Greek authorities stron...

EU countries bordering Russia on alert after Wagner insurrection

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:36:09 GMT

EU countries bordering Russia were on alert Saturday, with some beefing up their border security, after the Wagner paramilitary group seized control of a strategic Russian city and threatened to move on Moscow.The insurrection by the mercenary group came after its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin declared war on Moscow’s defense ministry in the early hours of Saturday morning, claiming Kremlin officials had killed thousands of his soldiers. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the move “treason” and vowed to “neutralize” the threat in a televised address.Estonia and Latvia have stepped up their border security in response, according to the countries’ governments, while Latvia suspended visa applications and entry to the country from Russia.“Visa or border entry from Russians leaving Russia due to current events won’t be considered,” Latvian Foreign Minister and incoming President Edgars Rinkēvičs wrote on Twitter. He added that there was “no direct...

Prigozhin’s insurrection may be destined to fail but it will weaken Putin

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:36:09 GMT

Jamie Dettmer is the opinion editor of Politico Europe.Yevgeny Prigozhin’s insurrection — or “march for freedom,” as he describes it — doesn’t look like it will turn into Ten Days that Shook the World. Indeed, the mutiny-cum-coup appears to share the half-cocked and poorly prepared characteristics of the failed putsch to oust the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.At least the KGB and Communist hardliners who tried to unseat Gorbachev had the good sense and fortune to begin their campaign in Moscow, understanding that whoever controls the capital, controls Russia. By contrast, the Wagner forces of paramilitary leader Prigozhin are 1,000 kilometers away in Rostov. Although there are reports his soldiers may have taken some military facilities in Voronezh, that’s still 500 kilometers from the Russian capital and there are now efforts to prevent him from proceeding along the highway to Moscow. Residents there are telling Russian media that the road is blocked south...

Transit officials, East Boston residents prepare for two-month Sumner Tunnel closure in July

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:36:09 GMT

East Boston is bracing for a summer shutdown of the Sumner Tunnel.The closure, which starts July 5, will last for nearly two months and has some residents expecting traffic torture. State and transportation leaders are giving a tour inside the Sumner Tunnel Saturday.“I don’t have to commute. I feel bad for those who do,” a resident said at the MBTA’s informational meeting about the closure last Thursday.For the last year, weekend closures have given drivers a preview on what to expect.“On a Saturday night, if we want to go for dinner, a 15-minute drive, usually, is an hour and a half just trying to get out of East Boston,” a resident said at the meeting.Some have raised concerns about how ambulances and other emergency vehicles will cut through the congestion.Staging extra ambulances in East Boston is one way MassDOT hopes will alleviate disruption as crews repair the nearly 90-year-old tunnel.Crews will be doing work on the tunnel that includes ceiling, roadway, walls, ...

Putin vows to punish ‘armed uprising’ by Wagner militia as Russia is plunged into crisis

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:36:09 GMT

(CNN) — Vladimir Putin is facing the greatest threat to his authority in two decades after the head of the Wagner paramilitary group launched an apparent insurrection, claimed control of military facilities in two Russian cities, and warned that his troops would head for Moscow.Staring down a sudden and staggering escalation of internal tensions that have simmered for months, the Russian president said on Saturday that those on “path of treason” or armed rebellion would be punished.“It is a stab in the back of our country and our people,” he said in an address to the nation, threatening a harsh response for those planning “an armed rebellion.”Putin was speaking after the militia chief and his one-time ally Yevgeny Prigozhin dramatically stepped up his feud with Moscow’s security establishment over the handling of the invasion of Ukraine, throwing the country into crisis with a series of military moves that seemingly took Moscow by surprise.After Putin’s speech, Prigoz...