Northeast
Ex-lawmaker George Santos faces 7-year prison sentence for federal fraud, identity theft
Disgraced former Rep. George Santos could face more than seven years in prison if New York prosecutors get their way.
Santos, 36, who became just the sixth House member to be expelled from the chamber and the first Republican, pleaded guilty to federal fraud and identity theft charges in August as part of a plea deal after having been indicted on felony charges.
The former lawmaker stole from political donors, used campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses, lied to Congress about his wealth and collected unemployment benefits while actually working.
Former U.S. Rep. George Santos arrives at court in Central Islip, N.Y., on Aug. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
GEORGE SANTOS ENDS CONGRESSIONAL RUN LESS THAN 2 MONTHS INTO INDEPENDENT CAMPAIGN
“No matter how hard the DOJ comes for me, they are mad because they will NEVER break my spirit,” Santos posted on X Friday in the wake of a court filing by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Santos has already agreed to serve a minimum of two years in prison and was expected to be sentenced in February but asked the court to postpone sentencing until he can make enough money from his podcast to pay the nearly $600,000 he owes in restitution and forfeiture.
Prosecutors alleged he had raked in around $800,000 from appearances on the Cameo app, with previous reports suggesting he was charging $350 a pop for videos featuring his drag alter ego Kitara Ravache. Santos previously denied ever dressing as a drag queen or associating with drag queens.
Prosecutors argued in the filing Friday that Santos warrants a significant sentence because his “unparalleled crimes” had “made a mockery” of the country’s election system.
“From his creation of a wholly fictitious biography to his callous theft of money from elderly and impaired donors, Santos’s unrestrained greed and voracious appetite for fame enabled him to exploit the very system by which we select our representatives,” the office wrote.
Prosecutors alleged Santos had raked in around $800,000 from appearances on the Cameo app as his former cross-dressing persona. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images/X @MrSantosNY)
EX-LAWMAKER GEORGE SANTOS OFFERING CAMEO VIDEOS WITH HIS DRAG QUEEN ALTER EGO
They wrote that he had been unrepentant for years and blasted investigations into his crimes as a “witch hunt.”
They also said his claims of remorse after pleading guilty “ring hollow” and suggested he has a “high likelihood of reoffending” given he has not forfeited any of his ill-gotten gains or repaid any of his victims.
The lawyers maintain such a sentence is in line with those handed to former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and other political figures facing similar financial crimes.
Santos’ legal team asked for a two-year sentence in a Friday court filing. His lawyer, Andrew Mancilla, said prosecutors were selling a false narrative to the court.
“The government wants headlines, not justice. This vindictive 87-month demand ignores sentencing norms for similar cases,” Mancilla said.
The freshman lawmaker was expelled a year into his first term in the House in the wake of a damning House Ethics Committee report that found he misused campaign funds on luxury items and OnlyFans, among other things. He had not been convicted of a crime at the time.
Disgraced former Rep. George Santos could face more than seven years in prison if New York prosecutors get their way. (Annabelle Gordon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
During his campaign, Santos claimed that he attended New York University, that he had worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and that his grandparents had fled the Nazis during World War Two. None of those claims were true.
Santos was once touted as a rising political star after he flipped the suburban district that covers the affluent North Shore of Long Island and a slice of the New York City borough of Queens in 2022.
Last year he failed in an attempt to relaunch his political career by running as an Independent in a neighboring district to re-enter the House.
Fox News’ Stepheny Price and Anders Hagstrom as well as The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Read the full article from Here
Maine
Mild temperatures and clouds on tap for Maine on Wednesday ahead of major cool down
PORTLAND (WGME) — Mild temperatures and lots of clouds will rule the sky on Wednesday before some light rain and snow showers overnight.
Enjoy the mild temperatures while they last as it is turning cold by week’s end.
Lots of clouds will rule the sky for the next few days in Maine. High temps will also sit in the low-to-mid 40s for the day.
Wednesday evening.{ }(WGME)
The next chance for some precipitation will move in Wednesday evening through the nighttime hours as mostly rain with some mountain snow.
Look for some fog and areas of drizzle overnight too.
Thursday morning.{ }(WGME)
Rain will head out early Thursday morning followed by lots of cold, Canadian air.
Highs will still run in the low 40s ahead of a cold front shifting through early Thursday evening.
Once that front exits, expect to not leave the mid 20s on Friday.
Wind chills will be in the negatives and single digits to start Friday morning.
Weekend forecast.{ }(WGME)
The weekend looks calmer, with a round of snow and rain likely Saturday night through Sunday morning.
Temperatures will be back in the 30s after a cold end to the work and school week.
Incoming cold air.{ }(WGME)
Lots of cold air is set to enter the United States next week in waves.
Temperature outlook.{ }(WGME)
The next 8 to 14 days showcase below-normal temperatures around New England.
BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT
Do you have any weather questions? Email our Weather Authority team at weather@wgme.com. We’d love to hear from you!
Massachusetts
At Massachusetts stores, the demise of the penny is adding up to one big headache – The Boston Globe
With little government guidance on how to lawfully undertake the transition, and loath to give up even a few cents by rounding transactions down to the nearest nickel, Maloney is instead trying to kick the coin jar down the road.
“We’re sort of hoarding,” said Maloney, who has run Julio’s since 2000, “so that we don’t have to deal with this problem.”
It’s a problem playing out in cash registers across Massachusetts and the country as the realities of a penniless future begin to present themselves.
When Canada phased out its one-cent coin a little more than a decade ago, it offered retailers and consumers a clear path forward, suggesting that cash transactions be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel — $1.61 and $1.62 become $1.60, while $1.63 and $1.64 become $1.65 — with sales tax applied before rounding. In Massachusetts, retailers say they have been given little such direction from the federal or state government, bringing about a patchwork of solutions as stores try to navigate the changing tides of change on their own.
“I didn’t really think it was going to cause much of an issue, but then it started causing an issue,” said Sara-Ann Turner, a cashier at Warren Hardware in the South End. The shop has begun rounding transactions to the nearest five-cent increment when customers don’t have exact change, which has left some shoppers feeling nickel-and-dimed when the sum comes down in the store’s favor.
The penny remains legal tender, with billions of the coin still in circulation — many likely sitting in jacket pockets, under couch cushions, and between sidewalk cracks. But the lack of fresh ones shipping out of the US Mint means that cash transactions will soon have to sidestep the one-cent coin. And even in an increasingly cashless economy, that’s no simple endeavor.
In a recent survey conducted by the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, 65 percent of members said they planned to take Canada’s recommended approach and round cash transactions up or down to the nearest nickel. The other 35 percent said they would always round down in the customer’s favor, a policy Dunkin’ has recommended for its franchisees. (The survey did not give respondents the option to say they would always round up.)

But any rounding policy stores choose risks running afoul of a tangle of bureaucratic regulations, said Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. Consider, for instance, a Massachusetts law that prohibits surcharges on customers who use credit cards over cash, or the federal statute that mandates food stamp customers be charged the same as those using cash.
“The sellers just need some guidance, number one, and number two, some protection,” Hurst said.
In a letter in early December, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and California Representative Maxine Waters sought answers from the heads of the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the US Mint, writing that the absence of guidance could “risk worsening inconsistencies in customer transactions, uncertainty in pricing approaches, legal compliance, tax calculations, and more.”
Late last month, the Treasury Department published a frequently-asked-questions webpage that pointed to the technique of rounding to the nearest nickel but ultimately passed the buck to states, which it said “will approach this issue differently based on unique considerations.”
Both chambers of Congress have introduced bipartisan federal legislation, called the Common Cents Act, that would codify for US businesses the same rounding practices as Canada recommended, but progress for the bills appears to have stalled.

And while states including Georgia and Utah have come out with basic guidelines for retailers — leaving rounding decisions up to individual merchants but clarifying that sales tax should be applied before rounding — Massachusetts has yet to do the same.
In a statement, a Massachusetts Department of Revenue spokesperson said the office is “considering what if any guidance is needed.”
The Massachusetts attorney general’s office said any legal changes to retailers’ practices would have to come from lawmakers.
“It’s more involved than any of us thought it would be on the first glance,” said state Representative Tackey Chan, who is looking into the penny issue.
Merchants may soon get some temporary relief, thanks to the Federal Reserve, which distributes coins to banks. This week, all seven of the Federal Reserve bank distribution sites in the Boston district will once again accept deposits of pennies from banks, a move the Fed said it made “to better support the circulation of pennies for commercial activity.” This may eventually allow banks to order the coins again, which could then allow supply to trickle down to retailers.
Amid all the unknowns, Julio’s isn’t the only one trying to put off the inevitable. In November, the supermarkets Price Chopper and Market 32 held a promotion in which customers could bring in pennies and receive double their value in a gift card to the grocers. The event amassed roughly 20 million pennies, or $200,000, according to director of customer service Michele McKeever — about $11,900 of which came from the chains’ 14 Massachusetts stores.

“We were hoping that we could buy some time and get legislation passed to give us clear direction,” McKeever said.
For stores that have already begun their own rounding policies, there can be growing pains as they explain the new system to clientele. Turner, the Warren Hardware cashier, said she dealt with one customer who grew particularly upset at being shortchanged.
“‘I work hard for these two pennies,’” Turner recalled the customer saying.
Andrea Pendergast, co-owner of the Cape Cod Package Store Fine Wine & Spirits in Centerville, is also worried about inadvertently driving away business.
“We end all of our pricing with nine,” she said, a common consumer psychology trick known as charm pricing. Rounding up to the next dollar, she knows, would “look, psychologically, from a customer standpoint, like maybe the prices are going up.”
While some retailers are concerned about the effects of rounding policies on their profits, research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond last year estimated that rounding to the nearest nickel would end up costing shoppers, not retailers, about $6 million annually. This was because, the researchers found, prices tended to end on digits that would round up.
Nevertheless, Maloney, the Julio’s Liquors owner, worries about the potential hit to his bottom line once his penny-pinching days run out. Choosing to always round down could cost him the equivalent of a part-time employee’s pay.
“I know everybody’s going to say, ‘It’s just pennies,’” he said. “I go, ‘Yes, but pennies add up.’”

Dana Gerber can be reached at dana.gerber@globe.com. Follow her @danagerber6.
New Hampshire
27 Places People Want at Seacoast Landing After the Mall at Fox Run Closes
The Mall at Fox Run’s time is coming to a close on January 31, 2026. That’s just a fact, no matter how unfortunate it may be.
This staple Newington, New Hampshire, spot has served up decades of memories for many, including family trips, hanging out with friends, and simply enjoying the latest shopping finds.
But while change can be sad and hard, the area is getting a reset with what will become Seacoast Landing, which, according to Seacoast Online, will be a “revamped commercial hub that would include a big box store, small businesses and restaurants.”
Mall at Fox Run to Make Way for Seacoast Landing in Newington, New Hampshire
The Mall at Fox Run is not just closing, but the whole area will be demolished. It really is the end of an era.
But where there once was an enclosed building with multiple stores, Atlantic Retail highlights that Seacoast Landing will be an “81 acre premier regional retail destination.” Meaning it will be multiple buildings to access, rather than just walking through to each one inside.
Red Post Realty even noted what’s proposed for the site, including multiple large anchor buildings, retail and office space, a medical building, pad sites, a new internal road network, and an outdoor pedestrian boulevard connecting Chick-fil-A to Texas.
Seacoast Online said that this massive project will reportedly cost north of $500 million.
What Stores and Restaurants Are at Seacoast Landing in Newington, New Hampshire?
The official announcements as to what places are coming to Seacoast Landing have not been made, but that will be coming soon. So keep an ear out.
Red Post Realty posted a Facebook video sharing a quick update on the project while also asking people what places they want to see come to Seacoast Landing.
The Facebook video garnered hundreds of comments, and we’ve compiled a list of some of the top ones.
Just note that none of these suggestions are confirmed for Seacoast Landing. Red Post Realty even noted that there are NDAs in place, so anything you hear about is likely a rumor until official confirmation.
Let’s take a look and dream of what the next phase of Newington could maybe include!
27 Places People Want at Seacoast Landing as the Mall at Fox Run Closes in NH
Here are suggestions of what locals would like to see at Seacoast Landing after the Mall at Fox Run is demolished. These are not at all confirmed, but rather they are ideas of what people are hoping for.
Gallery Credit: Sean McKenna
READ MORE: 17 Nostalgic Memories of Fox Run Mall in New Hampshire That’ll Take You Back
Some of the favorites based on the comments were definitely places like The Cheesecake Factory, Costco, and IKEA.
Interestingly, some of the suggestions already have other locations in New Hampshire, but there were places mentioned that can’t be found anywhere in the Granite State.
Some of those spots include The Cheesecake Factory, The Disney Store, and The Rainforest Cafe.
What spots will actually wind up at the new Seacoast Landing remains to be seen, but it’s certainly fun to wish your favorite places make the cut. Oh, to dream.
Remember When the Fox Run Mall in NH Had These 22 Stores?
Gallery Credit: Megan Murphy
-
Montana4 days agoService door of Crans-Montana bar where 40 died in fire was locked from inside, owner says
-
Technology1 week agoPower bank feature creep is out of control
-
Delaware5 days agoMERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach
-
Dallas, TX5 days agoAnti-ICE protest outside Dallas City Hall follows deadly shooting in Minneapolis
-
Dallas, TX1 week agoDefensive coordinator candidates who could improve Cowboys’ brutal secondary in 2026
-
Virginia4 days agoVirginia Tech gains commitment from ACC transfer QB
-
Iowa1 week agoPat McAfee praises Audi Crooks, plays hype song for Iowa State star
-
Education1 week agoVideo: This Organizer Reclaims Counter Space