Massachusetts

BOSTON (AP) — A steady snow that started in the predawn hours Friday could bring up to a foot of accumulation in some areas of the U.S. Northeast by the time the storm ends late in the day, while other spots were contending with a sloppy mix of sleet and ice.

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for most of New England and eastern New York, and a winter weather advisory stretching from Ohio into coastal areas of southern New England and northern Maine.

BOSTON (AP) — The websites of Ukraine’s defense, foreign and interior ministries were unreachable or painfully slow to load Thursday morning after a punishing wave of distributed-denial-of-service attacks as Russia struck at its neighbor, explosions shaking the capital of Kyiv and other major cities.

In addition to DDoS attacks on Wednesday, cybersecurity researchers said unidentified attackers had infected hundreds of computers with destructive malware, some in neighboring Latvia and Lithuania.

BOSTON (AP) — Gusty winds and falling temperatures plunged the East Coast into a deep freeze Sunday as people started digging out after a powerful nor’easter dumped mounds of snow, flooded coastlines and knocked out power to tens of thousands.

BOSTON (AP) — A winter storm lashed the Northeast with deep snow and wind gusts near hurricane force Saturday, causing coastal flooding and threatening widespread power outages while forecasters warned conditions would worsen as the day went on.

Parts of 10 states and some major population centers — including Philadelphia, New York and Boston — were pummeled by the storm. By late morning, more than a foot (30 centimeters) of snow had fallen on parts of New Jersey’s shore and eastern Long Island.

BOSTON (AP) — A refugee who survived the Khmer Rouge’s brutal rule has become the first Cambodian American mayor in the United States.

Sokhary Chau, a city councilor in Lowell, Massachusetts, was unanimously picked by his council peers to assume the legislative body’s top post on Monday. He also became the city’s first Asian American mayor.

BOSTON (AP) — Haseena Niazi had pinned her hopes of getting her fiancé out of Afghanistan on a rarely used immigration provision.

The 24-year-old Massachusetts resident was almost certain his application for humanitarian parole would get approved by the U.S. government, considering the evidence he provided on the threats from the Taliban he received while working on women’s health issues at a hospital near Kabul.

But this month, the request was summarily denied, leaving the couple reeling after months of anxiety.

BOSTON (AP) — Staff absences for COVID-19 tripled this month in London’s hospitals, and nearly 10% of the city’s firefighters called out sick.

In New York, about 2,700 police officers were absent earlier this week — twice the number who are ill on an average day. And on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, grocery worker Judy Snarsky says she’s stretched to her limit, working 50 hours a week and doing extra tasks because her supermarket has around 100 workers when it should have closer to 150.

(AP) --- Pfizer said Wednesday that a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine may protect against the new omicron variant even though the initial two doses appear significantly less effective.

Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said lab tests showed a booster dose increased by 25-fold the level of so-called neutralizing antibodies against omicron.

Pfizer announced the preliminary laboratory data in a press release and it hasn’t yet undergone scientific review. The companies already are working to create an omicron-specific vaccine in case it’s needed.

BOSTON (AP) — A nor’easter that battered the U.S. coast with hurricane-force wind gusts left 425,000 people without power in Massachusetts and forced the closure of bridges, ferries and schools in the region on Wednesday.

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency reported the widespread power outages Wednesday morning as areas along the coast experienced wind gusts of 80-90 miles per hour (130-145 kilometers per hour). About 90,000 people lost power in Rhode Island, according to National Grid.

BOSTON (AP) — Russia accounted for most state-sponsored hacking detected by Microsoft over the past year, with a 58% share, mostly targeting government agencies and think tanks in the United States, followed by Ukraine, Britain and European NATO members, the company said.

The devastating effectiveness of the long-undetected SolarWinds hack — it mainly breached information technology businesses including Microsoft — also boosted Russian state-backed hackers’ success rate to 32% in the year ending June 30, compared with 21% in the preceding 12 months.