Massachusetts

BOSTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Saturday for the extradition of an American father and son wanted by Japan in the escape of former Nissan Motor Co. boss Carlos Ghosn.

Justice Stephen Breyer denied a bid to put the extradition on hold to give Michael and Peter Taylor time to pursue an appeal in their case challenging the U.S. officials’ plans to hand them over to Japan.

BOSTON (AP) — Leaders of the federal agency overseeing election administration have quietly weakened a key element of proposed security standards for voting systems, raising concern among voting-integrity experts that many such systems will remain vulnerable to hacking.

(AP) --- From a wood-paneled library in his Boston mansion, new climate envoy John Kerry is talking the U.S. back into a leading role in global climate action, making clear the nation isn’t just revving up its own efforts to reduce oil, gas and coal pollution but that it intends to push everyone in the world to do more, too.

BOSTON (AP) — One Twitter wag joked about lights flickering on and off at the White House being Donald Trump signaling to his followers in Morse code after Twitter and Facebook squelched the president for inciting rebellion.

Though deprived of his big online megaphones, Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach. The far right-friendly Parler may be the leading candidate, though Google and Apple have both removed it from their app stores and Amazon decided to boot it off its web hosting service. That could knock it offline for a week, Parler’s CEO said.

BOSTON (AP) — A storm packing a mix of heavy rains and winds knocked out power to thousands of homes across the Northeast region Christmas morning.

There were more than 7,000 customers without power early Friday in Massachusetts. State officials and utility companies had warned that the winds could knock down trees, bringing power lines down with them.

Winds gusted more than 60 miles per hour (96 kilometers per hour) in some areas during the early morning hours.

BOSTON (AP) — Some of America’s most deeply held secrets may have been stolen in a disciplined, monthslong operation being blamed on elite Russian government hackers. The possibilities of what might have been purloined are mind-boggling.

Could hackers have obtained nuclear secrets? COVID-19 vaccine data? Blueprints for next-generation weapons systems?

BOSTON (AP) — As he begins his transition to the presidency, Joe Biden is pivoting from a bitter campaign battle to another, more pressing fight: reining in the pandemic that has hit the world’s most powerful nation harder than any other.

The U.S. is now averaging more than 100,000 new infections a day, frequently breaking records for daily cases. Hospitals in several states are running out of space and staff, and the death toll is soaring.

BOSTON (AP) — Russian interference has been minimal so far in the most tempestuous U.S. presidential election in decades. But that doesn’t mean the Kremlin can’t inflict serious damage. The vulnerability of state and local government networks is a big worry.

One troubling wildcard is the potential for the kind of ransomware attacks now affecting U.S. hospitals. Russian-speaking cybercriminals are demanding ransoms to unscramble data they’ve locked up. It’s uncertain whether they are affiliated with the Kremlin or if the attacks are timed to coincide with the election.

BOSTON (AP) — Federal agencies warned that cybercriminals are unleashing a wave of data-scrambling extortion attempts against the U.S. healthcare system designed to lock up hospital information systems, which could hurt patient care just as nationwide cases of COVID-19 are spiking.

(AP) --- A fire was set Sunday in a Boston ballot drop box holding more than 120 ballots in what Massachusetts election officials said appears to have been a “deliberate attack,” now under investigation by the FBI.

The fire that was set around 4 a.m. in a ballot drop box outside the Boston Public Library downtown, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s office said.