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Mega Millions numbers: Are you the lucky winner of Fridays $140 million jackpot?

Are you tonight’s lucky winner? Grab your tickets and check your numbers. The Mega Millions lottery jackpot continues to rise after someone won the $395 million prize on December 8. Here are the winning numbers in Friday’s drawing: 5-23-26-38-44; Mega Ball: 25; Megaplier: 3X The estimated jackpot for the drawing is $140 million. The cash option is about $68.7 million. If no one wins, the jackpot climbs higher for the next drawing. According to the game’s official website, the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350. Players pick six numbers from two separate pools of numbers -- five different numbers from 1 to 70 and one number from 1 to 25 -- or select Easy Pick. A player wins the jackpot by matching all six winning numbers in a drawing. Jackpot winners may choose whether to receive 30 annual payments, each five percent higher than the last, or a lump-sum payment. Mega Millions drawings are Tuesdays and Fridays and are offered in 45 states, Washington D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets cost $2 each.

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Truck Stops Upgrade to Recharge Electric Vehicles (and Their Drivers)

Planning a long road trip? Now you can nibble on crudités and shop for home furnishings at a roadside service plaza while you wait for your electric vehicle to recharge. The truck stops that keep Americans fueled, fed and refreshed along major highways are spending billions overhauling their stores to keep up with changing consumer behavior, particularly the growing popularity of electric vehicles. Along with the addition of charging stations, these travel centers are being redesigned to accommodate longer stays, with renovated restrooms and showers, quick-serve kitchens, full-service and fast-food restaurants, and dog parks. The changes continue to transform the modern truck stop, a slice of Americana that took off in the 1960s amid the expansion of the Interstate Highway System. Over the years, truck stops were often perceived as grimy — and occasionally seedy. But today, they are more akin to a mini-Walmart, filled with energy drinks, iced coffee, and healthy snacks like sliced fruit and veggies. Across the aisle, you’re likely to find purses and puzzles, as well as phone chargers and birdhouses.

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In Israel, U.S. Aide Denies Talk of a Rift Over Gaza War

Days after President Biden said Israel was losing support for its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, the president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on Friday played down differences between the two allies after meetings with Israel’s top leaders. “We’re not here to tell anybody, ‘You must do X, you must do Y,’” Mr. Sullivan told reporters in Tel Aviv, the latest emissary from the Biden administration to visit Israel to discuss the war. His remarks came on the same day that the Israeli military said its soldiers had accidentally killed three Israeli hostages in what it described as an “active combat zone.” During fighting in Shejaiya, a neighborhood in Gaza City, troops “mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat,” the military said in a statement. “As a result, the troops fired toward them and they were killed.” The military said it realized the error during checks in the area and “suspicion arose over the identities of the deceased.”

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Two dead in Boston rollover car crash, one critically injured

Manohla Dargis A Thrilling Bounty I had a terrific movie year — you? I saw hundreds of new films with a variety of plots and styles made on every imaginable scale and budget. Some were from newcomers like A.V. Rockwell and others from the ever-new Martin Scorsese. Some you’ve heard of or will, while others scarcely made a ripple. Some were released by independents like A24 and the tiny KimStim; others came from tech companies and still others from what are now often called legacy studios, a vaguely eulogistic term that suggests influence but also obsolescence. The movies have ostensibly been at death’s door at least since the shift to sync sound, which isn’t to undersell the industry’s business woes. When the year began, it was still recovering from pandemic-forced shutdowns and slowdowns. “As 2023 Begins, Worry and Fear Linger After a Topsy-Turvy Year,” The Hollywood Reporter fretted, calling the ups and downs of the 2022 box office “dramatic.” Yet some Wall Street analysts were bullish on moviegoing. “We’re seeing a resurgence of interest back in the theaters,” one analyst told Yahoo in late January. I had just returned from the bounty at the Sundance Film Festival and was feeling bullish, too. As winter gave way to spring and summer, several of my favorite movies had been released in theaters and I had previewed several others at Cannes, where I had again been buoyed by what I had seen. At the same time, the drumbeat of worrying industry news continued when the Writers Guild went on strike on May 2 and several sure-bet blockbusters failed to charm audiences into theaters. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” was “cursed,” read one headline; “‘Mission: Impossible 7’ falls short of expectations,” ran another. The moaning in the trades gave way to klaxon horns when much of SAG-AFTRA went on strike on July 14. Two days later Barry Diller, who once ran Paramount, warned that the strikes could lead to the industry’s “absolute collapse.” Five days later, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” opened. That phenom dubbed Barbenheimer buoyed the box office, the strikes ended, and here we are. It’s tempting to repeat William Goldman’s axiom that “nobody knows anything” and leave it at that. Except that this year also reminded us of some things that we have known for a while, including that women directors can make any kind of movie, from the intimately scaled to larger-than-life productions that become monster hits. This year also reminded us that a mass audience will happily get out of the house for movies without superheroes. And, on occasion, it won’t show up for movies with them, which was evident after disappointments from both the DC and Marvel studios as “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Shazam: Fury of the Gods,” “The Flash,” “Blue Beetle” and “The Marvels” sputtered in theaters.

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Mass. dog that is a balm to everyones mental health needs forever home

A sweet and gentle dog who is a “balm to everyone’s mental health” will be the best way for you to relax this holiday season, according to the Dakin Humane Society in Springfield. Nala’s two puppies have already been adopted, so now its her turn to find a home as loving as her. The dog momma has been in foster care ever since she arrived at Dakin, and her foster has said nothing but nice things about her. “She is a very special sweet soul,” the foster said according to Dakin. “She will love to be with gentle calm humans or any age where she can get lots of pets and rest on comfy beds/couches and go for walks in quiet areas where she can sniff and explore the outdoors.” Nala has been in foster care with cats, other dogs and kids and has done well with all of them, according to Dakin. She is gentle with other dogs and does well with children younger than 5. Her kryptonite: loud noises. For those, she’ll just leave the room. So Dakin said Nala would do best in a mellow home in a quieter neighborhood. Nala also loves walks in the woods, is a fast learner and already knows “sit,” “paw” and “touch.” If you think Nala would be the perfect addition to your home this Christmas, click here.

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Arrest Violated County Officials Free Speech Rights, Judge Rules

Heated disagreements were not unusual at Board of Commissioners meetings in Trumbull County, Ohio, after Niki Frenchko took office in January 2021, becoming the only Republican on the three-member board. But the tensions erupted in July 2022, ending in Ms. Frenchko’s arrest after she continued to speak her mind during a public meeting. A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the arrest violated the constitutional rights of Ms. Frenchko, who had been criticizing the sheriff and ignored another commissioner’s order to apologize before she was arrested. “Here in America, we do not arrest our political opponents,” Judge J. Philip Calabrese of the Northern District of Ohio wrote in the ruling on Tuesday. Trumbull County, about 60 miles southeast of Cleveland, has a population of about 200,000 people. The commissioners are the administrative body for the county government.

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A Psychologists Tips for Having Tense Thanksgiving Conversations - The New York Times

The hum of conversation, the aroma of roasted turkey, the clinking of silverware on porcelain: This is how I remember last year’s Thanksgiving, spent at a dear friend’s home. I relished the inviting ambience until a conversation about the day’s cooking unexpectedly shifted to the topic of gender roles. It was then that my friend’s father, a revered patriarch in his mid-70s, wistfully mentioned how he missed the “good old days” when things were simpler and “people knew their place.” The room, filled with faces both familiar and new, grew silent. As a guest caught in this sudden shift, I faced a dilemma: Should I challenge his statement or opt for harmony over discord? For many of us, especially in our current political climate, speaking up in such settings feels risky. Yet the act of choosing silence might be affecting us more deeply than we think — to the detriment of our emotional and even physical well-being. Far from preserving peace, holding back our thoughts can leave us more unsettled and unhappy. Over time, this leads to increased stress and strain, not just within ourselves but in the very relationships we are trying to preserve. I’m an organizational psychologist, and a recurring theme has emerged in my research: People are reluctant to challenge or contradict others because of their fear of insinuating distrust or disapproval of the other person.

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Nightmare trade scenario would gift top Boston Celtics rival the east

The Boston Celtics may have no choice but to succumb to a Miami Heat team that will have traded for Kawhi Leonard in a proposed mock trade scenario pitched by Clipperholics’ Tyler Watts — one that would see another nightmarish Big Three formed in South Beach alongside Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. The rest of the proposal would send Tyler Herro, Caleb Martin, Kyle Lowry, two first-round picks, and two pick swaps to the Los Angeles Clippers and return Marcus Morris and Bones Hyland along with the two-time Finals MVP. As Watts explains, the motivation behind the deal for the Clippers would be to get a return on Leonard during a contract year. “Martin was impactful in their 2023 run to the NBA Finals, and Kyle Lowry gives the Clippers some added playmaking,” Watts prefaced before saying, “Two first-round draft picks and two swaps are light for a star like Leonard, but he too could inform the team of his desire to leave in the summer of 2024.” Such a deal would practically gift Miami the Eastern Conference, though. A contract-year Kawhi along with a Butler dying to finally break through the glass ceiling? That’s too dangerous for any team in the conference, including the Boston Celtics. Miami getting any big-name star to pair with Jimmy Butler is trouble for the Boston Celtics — but Kawhi Leonard would sting extra Not long ago, a Joel Embiid landing spot scenario envisioning the reigning MVP to Miami — a trade scenario that came courtesy of Sir Charles in Charge’s Michael Saenz — was also nightmarish for Boston Celtics fans, but that wouldn’t touch Leonard joining the Heat. The Klaw is a proven entity with hardware already on his hands. Embiid, Leonard, his teammate Paul George, or Damian Lillard would all shift the power balance in the east, but given the C’s reluctance to pull the trigger on a Leonard deal back in 2019 before he went on to win the Toronto Raptors a title, it’d sting extra if it was Leonard.

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Snow Closes Schools as Next Round of Arctic Air Moves East

A cold wind was blowing across the steppe, but Sapura Kadyrova didn’t see the point in bundling up. She was waiting to greet her son, who was arriving home from the war in a crimson government-issued casket. “So maybe I won’t be warm,” Ms. Kadyrova, 85, moaned. “Then just let me die.” All day long, she and her daughters had been greeting relatives, friends and neighbors who had come to pay their respects to her son, Garipul S. Kadyrov, who was killed near the front line in Klishchiivka in eastern Ukraine. “In February he would have turned 50, and he promised me he would be allowed to come home then,” Ms. Kadyrova told her guests. “Now I will only meet him in his grave.” In Russia’s big cities, the war can feel like distant background noise, with the latest iPhones on sale and things looking pretty much the same as before — save for ubiquitous army recruitment posters. While as many as 80 percent of Ukrainians have a close friend or relative who was injured or killed in the war, many Russians in urban centers still feel insulated from it.

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Will Audiobooks Survive Spotify? - The New York Times

Spotify may have made it easier than ever for us to listen to an enormous trove of music, but it extracted so much money in doing so that it impoverished musicians. Now the company is turning its attention to books with a new offering. It will do the same thing to writers, whose audiobooks Spotify has begun streaming in a new and more damaging way. We’ve read this story before. Tech platforms and their algorithms have a tendency to reward high-performing creators — the more users they get, the more likely they are to attract more. In Spotify’s case, that meant that in 2020, 90 percent of the royalties it paid out went to the top 0.8 percent of artists, according to an analysis by Rolling Stone. That leaves a vast majority — including many within even that small group — struggling to earn a living. The promise of the business strategy laid out in the book “The Long Tail” was that a slew of niche content creators would prosper on the internet. That has proved illusory for most of them. It’s a winner-takes-all game; too often the tech platforms aggregating the content and the blockbusters win it all, starving a large majority of creators. The result is a gradual deterioration of our culture, our understanding of ourselves and our collective memories. This is why regulation is so crucial. Before writing books, I worked at Google, leading three large sales and operations teams, and before that I was a senior policy adviser at the Federal Communications Commission. What I learned is that today’s tech platforms are different from the kind of monopolies of an earlier era that inspired our regulatory framework. Their networks can have powerful positive or negative impacts. We don’t want to regulate away the value they can create, but the damage they can cause is devastating. We need a regulatory framework that can distinguish between them.

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MassHealth to cover doula services for pregnant, birthing, postpartum people

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed as moot a dispute over whether a disabled woman could sue a hotel for violating a federal disability law even though she did not plan to stay there. The woman, Deborah Laufer, had sued hundreds of hotels whose websites did not say whether they had rooms accessible to disabled people, as required by a regulation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She typically asked the hotels to admit they broke the law, fix the issue and pay her legal fees. “As the sheer number of lawsuits suggests,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for seven justices, “she does not focus her efforts on hotels where she has any thought of staying, much less booking a room. Instead, Laufer systematically searches the web to find hotels that fail to provide accessibility information and sues to force compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.” The case before the court, Acheson Hotels v. Laufer, No. 22-429, started in September 2020, when Ms. Laufer sued Acheson Hotels, the operator of the Coast Village Inn and Cottages, a small hotel in Wells, Maine. The question the justices agreed to answer was whether “testers” like Ms. Laufer had suffered the sort of direct and concrete injuries that gave them standing to sue.

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Opinion | Antisemitism: A Guide for the Perplexed

In a season of widespread condemnation of antisemitism, many struggle to define it. I can imagine having this conversation with any number of people trying to understand this age-old phenomenon: Question: I’m having trouble making sense of some of the claims and counterclaims being made about what is, or isn’t, antisemitic speech and behavior. To be honest, it doesn’t help that so many prominent Jews have sharply different takes on the subject. Answer: Two Jews, three opinions. That sounds like a stereotype. It is. It’s also one of the few things that most Jews agree is true of us as people. OK, so in your opinion and a half, what is antisemitism? It’s a conspiracy theory that holds that Jews are uniquely prone to use devious means to achieve malevolent ends and must therefore be opposed by any means necessary, including violence. Is that the commonly accepted definition? No, it’s my own. A more widely cited definition comes from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which defines antisemitism, in part, as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” But the phrase “a certain perception” raises more questions than it answers.

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Boston Scientific gains FDA approval for Watchman FLX Pro LAAC device

“We are pleased to introduce U.S. clinicians to our newest LAAC technology, which is designed to enhance post-procedural healing, improve the precision of Watchman FLX Pro implants, and expand the size range of treatable appendages,” Joe Fitzgerald, Boston Scientific’s group president of cardiology, said in a prepared statement announcing the news. “These enhancements to our Watchman FLX technology will enable efficiency during implant procedures and allow physicians to optimize treatment for their patients.” “There is a rich history of safe use and low thrombosis rates in cardiovascular devices that utilize this thromboresistant polymer coating, and we have adapted that model to provide a more streamlined healing process that begins immediately following LAAC,” added Kenneth Stein, MD, Boston Scientific’s senior vice president and global chief medical officer. “We believe this evolution of the Watchman device also gives promise for a future with less thrombosis risk, which may eventually enable a simpler post-implant drug regimen for patients.” In September 2022, Boston Scientific gained approval from the FDA to expand the labeling of its Watchman FLX device to include an additional 45-day dual anti-platelet therapy (DAPT) treatment option. This allowed U.S. clinicians to choose between DAPT and short-term OAC plus aspirin following LAAC procedures.

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Reports Say Pope Francis Is Evicting U.S. Cardinal From His Vatican Home

Almost as soon as Pope Francis became the head of the Roman Catholic church in 2013, Raymond Burke, an American cardinal, emerged as his leading critic from within the church, becoming a de facto antipope for frustrated traditionalists who believed Francis was diluting doctrine. Francis frequently demoted and stripped the American cleric of influence, but this month, the pope apparently finally had enough, according to one high-ranking Vatican official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Francis told a meeting of high-ranking Vatican officials that he intended to throw the cardinal out of his Vatican-subsidized apartment and deprive him of his salary as a retired cardinal. The news of the possible eviction was first reported by the conservative Italian newspaper La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, which is close to Cardinal Burke and recently sponsored a conference featuring the prelate criticizing a major meeting of bishops convened by Francis. The newspaper’s report comes only weeks after Francis removed another vocal conservative critic, Joseph Strickland, the bishop of Tyler, Texas, after a Vatican investigation into the governance of his diocese. “If this is accurate, it is an atrocity that must be opposed,” Bishop Strickland said in a post on the social media platform X on Monday. “If it is false information it needs to be corrected immediately.”

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Massachusetts EMS providers blast Department of Public Health over new vaccine regulations

Happy Holidays, everyone. This time of year can be wonderful with all the family and friends in town. But it can also be stressful, and I hope you all are able to take some time to rest during this busy season. And with tomorrow being Christmas Eve, be sure to put to in a good word for my son, Carson, if anyone happens to run into Santa Claus. This month also marks open enrollment season for the Massachusetts Health Connector. This state program can help you find affordable insurance plans as well as connect you with MassHealth should you qualify. During open enrollment, anyone can sign up to try and find more affordable coverage. If you need assistance doing so, my office is readily available.

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Salmonella concerns prompt recall of 11,000 pounds of dried meat

A New Jersey-based food company — Fratelli Beretta USA, Inc. — is recalling more than 11,000 pounds of ready-to-eat meat products after concerns over Salmonella bacteria contamination, according to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. The potentially contaminated products include Busseto Foods brand charcuterie meats. The product subject to recall are 18-ounce plastic tray packages called “Busseto Foods Charcuterie Sampler Prosciutto, Sweet Sopressata, and Dry Coppa” with lot code L075330300 and “Best if used by APR 27 24.″ The products are sold as a twin pack with two 9-ounce packages. The products subject to recall bear establishment number “EST. 7543B” inside the USDA mark of inspection and “EST. #47967″ printed with the lot and date codes. The Food Safety and Inspection Service was told a sample collected by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture tested positive for Salmonella. The packages were shipped to Sam’s Club distribution centers in eight states, including Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. People who have bought the products, which were produced in October, should throw them away or return them to their place of purchase. The test was taken as a part of an ongoing investigation into a multi-state outbreak of Salmonella, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Salmonella bacteria cause an infection of the intestinal tract. Infections with Salmonella are common, according to the Mayo Clinic — most people develop diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps between eight hours and three days after exposure. While most people recover within a few days to a week, in some cases severe dehydration caused by the infection can require medical attention, according to the Mayo Clinic. Life-threatening complications can occur if the infection spreads beyond the intestines, the clinic said.

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Jim Montgomery explains benching Matt Poitras in third period

Look Park in Northampton, known for its concerts at Theater in the Pines, its playgrounds, summertime splash park and train rides now has a new winter attraction — an ice skating rink. In a Facebook announcement with photos of the rink on Wednesday, the park announced that they had built a 40 by 80 foot rink, located behind the garden house and accessed from behind the visitor center. Unfortunately, the rink isn’t open yet, due to the warm and rainy weather this week. The park asked visitors to to check its social media for when it will be open and closed. According to a list of rules posted to social media, hockey sticks and pucks will not be allowed on the skating rink. Mysteriously, the park also ended the note with a teaser. “Stay tuned for an exciting announcement coming soon!” they said.

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Boston's Seaport is getting a new super luxe movie theater

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is opening its first-ever New England location in the Boston Seaport on November 17. “This theater has been in the works for a long time, and to see it become this really unique space for Boston film fans to celebrate cinema together, we just couldn’t be more excited,” said Michael Kustermann, Alamo Drafthouse CEO. “Boston has an awesome movie history, it’s an amazing city, and we’re honored to add something to that legacy that we think our guests are really going to enjoy.” Photograph: Courtesy Drea/13 Photography Alamo Drafthouse Seaport will be a 10-screen theater with 780 seats, located at 60 Seaport Blvd. in the same development as Lululemon, Scorpion Bar, Tuscan Kitchen, Flight Club, Kings Bowling and Equinox. This luxury theater will run new movies and a curated selection of other programming. Each auditorium will be equipped with top-of-the-line digital 4K projection and dynamic surround sound and fully outfitted with luxury recliners complete with footrests. So if you don’t typically enjoy going to the movies because you are remembering the. Cramped seats at your old hometown movie theater, this is not that. Alamo promises guests a luxe experience. "We are thrilled to welcome Alamo Drafthouse to Seaport and be home to its first Boston location. It's a best-in-class theater that brings movies and dining together to create an all-around exceptional and fun experience for everyone," says Ariel Foxman, General Manager, Seaport Boston WS Development. Photograph: Courtesy Drea/13 Photography The best part about Alamo is that this isn’t just a movie theater. The space will also have a full-service bar, The Press Room. Featuring craft cocktails, wine and local beers on tap, The Press Room will also have some mid-20th-century cinema newspaper advertising printing blocks on display. "Boston is a city that loves movies, loves food, and loves interesting and excellent things to do, and we want to add to all of them with the opening of Alamo Drafthouse Seaport," said Alex Shebar, Alamo Drafthouse East Coast Community Marketing Manager. The team really leaned into the cinema theme at the Press Room and guests are encouraged to check out all the artifacts after enjoying their drinks. Photograph: Courtesy Drea/13 Photography For more ideas on where to go in the Seaport check out our guide to the best restaurants in the neighborhood.

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Utterly unacceptable': Mayor to increase police presence after 2 teens are shot to death in Lynn

Two teenagers were shot and killed near a gas station in Lynn, Massachusetts, Wednesday night, according to authorities. The incident happened just before 10:30 p.m. on Camden Street, near AL Prime Energy gas station on Western Avenue — not far from this week's triple shooting. The victims, only identified as a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old man, were taken to the hospital, where they died, the Essex County District Attorney's Office said Thursday. No further information was made available. Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters. Police in Lynn, Massachusetts, are investigating a shooting at a gas station that happened Wednesday night — not too far from this week's triple shooting. The 16-year-old was a student in the Lynn Public Schools, according to a statement released by the superintendent. "It is with profound sadness and a heavy heart that I address you today. We have experienced a tragic loss within our school community. Our deepest condolences and sympathies go out to the families, friends, staff, and everyone affected by the devastating loss of student life," Superintendent Evonne S. Alvarez said. "This heartbreaking event has deeply impacted us all. During this difficult time, it is important for us to come together as a community to offer support and strength to one another." She said support services will be available for students when they return to school from winter break next week. The deadly shooting comes just days after three people were seriously hurt in a shooting at a Pizza Hut on State Street. A shooting at a Pizza Hut in Lynn left three people injured Tuesday. While police said Tuesday night's shooting was targeted, no arrests have been made. The three victims remain in stable condition in the hospital, the district attorney's office said. "This violence is devastating, infuriating, and utterly unacceptable," Mayor Jared Nicholson said in a statement Thursday. "We will respond with increased police presence as needed and renewed urgency and clarity in our efforts for peace, justice, and a safer community." It wasn't immediately known if the two shootings were related.

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Dave Chappelle Assumes Were Already Offended in His New Netflix Special

The wildest moment in the new Dave Chappelle special, “The Dreamer” (Netflix), arrives about two-thirds of the way through when the comic says he’s about to tell a long story. That’s not the unusual part. Some 36 years into a storied comedy career, Chappelle, 50, is better known for controversial yarns than carefully considered punchlines. At this point in the special, he tells the crowd in his hometown, Washington, D.C., that he is going to get a cigarette backstage, asks them to act as if he were finished and says he would prefer a standing ovation. He then does something I have never seen in a Netflix special: He walks off for a smoke and costume change, leaving the stage empty. He strolls back as everyone waits, politely clapping. No one stands. He sits down and even mentions that he didn’t get the standing ovation, grumpily. He could have cut that out but didn’t. Why? Was it to reveal that his crowd refused to be told what to do, how he doesn’t mind, as he said at another point, if most people didn’t laugh at some jokes? Was it to include a momentary reprieve from the self-aggrandizing tone of the hour, which begins with rock-star images of Chappelle walking to the stage in slow motion and ends with a montage of him with everyone from Bono and Mike Tyson to the Netflix C.E.O. Ted Sarandos? I have no idea, but what sticks with you in Chappelle’s sets these days is less the jokes than the other stuff, the discourse-courting jabs, the celebrity gossip, the oddball flourishes. Later, Chappelle says, “Sometimes, I feel regular.” As an example, he describes being shy at a club where a rich Persian guy surrounded by women recognizes him and the comedian imagines him telling the story of seeing Dave Chappelle the next day. The idea that this is Chappelle’s idea of regular is funny.

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Matt Poitras not an option for Bruins vs. Penguins

Matt Poitras’ World Juniors tournament came to a heartbreaking end when Team Canada was upset by Czechia in the quarterfinals round. Czechia scored in the final 11 seconds to move on, while Team Canada was sent packing. The Bruins rookie will now return to Boston a little earlier than expected, but it’s unclear exactly when that will happen. “Don’t know yet,” coach Jim Montgomery told reporters after Wednesday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena. “I think he’s traveling back today. He won’t be an option for the next game. And then we’ll start discussing integration back into the lineup.” BET ANYTHING GET $250 BONUS ESPN BET CLAIM OFFER MASS 21+ and present in MA, NJ, PA, VA, MD, WV, TN, LA, KS, KY, CO, AZ, IL, IA, IN, OH, MI. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. Boston hosts the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday for its first home game of 2024 as it looks to continue its hot streak since the holiday break. They play at TD Garden again Saturday against the Tampa Bay Lightning before going on a four-game road trip that begins with the Colorado Avalanche and ends with the St. Louis Blues. Poitras had a four-point tournament (two goals, two assists) for Team Canada and was on the ice for the final goal in Tuesday’s loss. While his time in Sweden was cut short, Poitras will now be able to return with what he learned about playing in big games and big moments. He was in a bit of a slump before his departure, but playing at the World Juniors might have been beneficial for the rookie for a number of reasons. There will need to be a roster move made when Poitras returns, as well. But that’s a bridge the Bruins and Montgomery will cross when the time comes.

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Two men arrested in Lynn after State Police found drugs and guns on them

LYNN, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) - Two men were arrested after State Police found guns on them. On Saturday night, a State Trooper noticed a man using his cell phone while driving and pulled the car over. When the officer approached the car, he smelled marijuana and noticed the handle of a pistol in the pocket of one of the passengers. The passenger, 20-year-old Dimitry Phillipe of Malden, is not licensed to carry. The State Trooper called for backup and when the other two officers arrived, they removed the other passengers and found a gun in the waistband of 23-year-old Eddie Rojas of Lynn who is also not licensed to carry. During a search of the car, officers located six ounces of suspected marijuana. Both men were placed under arrest and taken into custody. The operator of the vehicle was released from the scene with a citation. Rojas and Phillipe were scheduled for arraignment at Lynn District Court. Copyright 2023. Western Mass News (WGGB/WSHM). All rights reserved.

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Quabbin-area towns draw on history in quest for Equity

Six cents for four towns? A State House book talk this week offered an interesting tale of the four towns that state government took and flooded to create the Quabbin Reservoir -- and it also lent historical context to lawmakers’ push for an added fee on Massachusetts Water Resources Authority water customers. Bills now before the state House and Senate, respectively sponsored by Rep. Aaron L. Saunders, D-7th Hampden, and Sen. Joanne M. Comerford, D-Hampshire/Franklin/Worcester, seek to add what Saunders called “a dose of equity” for communities around the Quabbin. The bills are now before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. Much of the watershed is owned by the MWRA and preserved to protect the water source, leaving area towns without economic development opportunities to grow a commercial tax base. Saunders said municipalities need funds for essential services like fire and police departments in towns like New Salem, Wendell, and Ware. Read More: Boston communities would be made to pay up for use of Quabbin water under new bill Saunders, of Belchertown, said the proposal would add a minuscule excise charge for ratepayers who get Quabbin water piped in, with the money going back to support basic operations in Quabbin-area municipalities. “The way that it’s arranged, or proposed to be arranged, is a 5 cent per 1,000 gallon excise on water that’s drawn from the Quabbin. Now what that means in real life is that if you’re the average Boston Water and Sewer ratepayer, you would see approximately a 6 cents per month increase on your monthly water and sewer bill. It’s a tremendously small price to pay for a measure of equity of this magnitude,” Saunders told State House News Service. The venue Wednesday was a talk by Ware author Elena Palladino, whose quest to learn about her historical home -- built nearly a century ago with salvaged remnants of a house from soon-to-be-flooded Enfield -- led to a 160-page chronicle of three prominent Enfielders who resisted the reservoir’s arrival. Palladino described the Quabbin’s present-day scenic vista as “beauty born of loss.” The Legislature in 1938 disincorporated four Swift River Valley towns -- Enfield, Dana, Greenwich and Prescott -- and flooded their former territory to create the new water source for Eastern Massachusetts. Buildings were demolished and trees were clear-cut after the state either bought the property or took it by eminent domain, pushing families into neighboring towns. Marion Smith's home in Enfield was amogn those lost when the town was among those flooded to create the Quabbin Reservoir. Smith built a now home in Ware. “I can tell you, living in Western Mass., that many people who live there still hold onto this feeling of resentment today. Many of the towns around the Quabbin are struggling with aging water infrastructure and other issues,” Palladino said at the conclusion of her State House event. Saunders and Comerford were in the audience. Comerford took the mic during a question-answer period to tell Palladino that her book’s story was “the soul of the bill” they had sponsored. “It’s the reason that the state has, I believe, a reason to want to repay these people, these towns, the watershed,” the Northampton lawmaker said. “There’s a 100,000-acre watershed that the remaining towns steward so that Boston can drink clean water ... And I think, like the four towns that came before us, we just want to be seen and understood for that.” “We worry about a lot of things in Massachusetts, and in the Metro Boston area. We don’t worry about water,” Saunders added. “And 6 cents per-month is a tiny, tiny cost to accommodate that benefit, to not have to worry about water.”

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Inside the Three Days That Reframed Black Womens Health

This article is also a weekly newsletter. Sign up for Race/Related here. Four decades ago, nearly 2,000 Black women converged on Atlanta for a conference at Spelman College. As Dara Mathis recently reported for Headway, The New York Times’s initiative covering the world’s challenges through the lens of progress, this event was a milestone in the then-nascent movement. Black women were gathering en masse from across the U.S. to share with one another the experiences that affected their well-being. I spoke to some of the women who attended the event, to understand what drew them there, what they found and the impact the conference had on them. A few things stood out from our conversations. I was struck by how many aspects of their lives the attendees discussed openly for the first time. When she went to the conference, Brenda Smith had just graduated from Spelman and was studying at the Georgetown University Law Center. “I think that was probably one of the first places I heard about abortion,” Smith told me. “I think it was the first time that I heard open conversations about sexual violence, that people really talked about domestic violence. I think it was probably the first time that people acknowledged, or that I got the sense that people were open about, loving other women.” Nancy Anderson was a young doctor working at a county hospital in Atlanta at the time. “I had read a book called ‘This Bridge Called My Back,’” Anderson said. “That was where I realized that, ‘Ooh, there are people who are describing, really, what it’s like to be a Black woman.’ They had all kinds of points of view. I realized that I could find other people like that in Atlanta.” Reading the book, a collection of writings by women of color, helped begin a process of exploration that brought her to the event at Spelman. Thousands of similar discrete catalysts led women all over the country to organize buses and car pools and make their way to Georgia.

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Mother of autistic boy allegedly beaten by bus monitor files $1 million lawsuit

SPRINGFIELD — Months after two employees of a local van company were charged criminally with an alleged assault on a nonverbal autistic boy, the child’s mother has filed a $1 million civil lawsuit. It names the criminal defendants and the van company.

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How to watch Falcons vs. Saints for free, with division title in reach for Atlanta

BOSTON — The Celtics had an interesting quirk in their schedule this week as they hosted two teams over the course of four games. They first had a two-game set against the Cavaliers then another mini-series hosting the Magic over the course of a jam-packed six days. There was likely plenty of juice that could have come from those games against two playoff-caliber opponents. The Cavs could’ve made a statement, though they’ve struggled recently. The Magic explained thoroughly that they have a chip on their shoulders whenever they play the Celtics (with an assist to Eddie House there). Still, all of those factors didn’t mean much for the Celtics. They came away with a perfect 4-0 week, taking care of their opponents in impressive fashion. They blew out the Magic again 114-97 on Sunday to tack onto the win streak. The C’s are not only 20-5 on the season, but they’re still perfect at home at 14-0. And Jayson Tatum said he doesn’t want anybody to take away from what they just accomplished. BET ANYTHING GET $250 BONUS ESPN BET CLAIM OFFER MASS 21+ and present in MA, NJ, PA, VA, MD, WV, TN, LA, KS, KY, CO, AZ, IL, IA, IN, OH, MI. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. “What we did this week was impressive, I feel like,” he said. “I’m not certain that last year we would have won all these games. But playing two really good teams that present different challenges; teams that, especially Orlando, we struggled with in the past. Especially Friday, we had three bigs out and the way that we played in that game, we figured out a way to win. Winning these four games at home, I don’t know what everybody else thought, but it was impressive and I was proud of the way we played.” The Celtics impressed in the way they won those games. They dug out of an early hole against the Cavaliers in Game 1. Then they went out early in Game 2 vs. Cleveland, fending them off as the Celtics didn’t let the visitors get too close. In Game 1 against Orlando, the Celtics were missing three big men but still blew them out. Then Jaylen Brown dominated Sunday in the Game 2 win over the Magic. Interestingly, the Celtics are 20-5 and at a similar point when they went on their West Coast trip last December. Back then, they were powered by some hot 3-point shooting. This season, the wins have been more sustainable as the Celtics aren’t shooting lights out. And all that’s left is to keep building on those victories. “I’ve been on enough teams, and we was 20-5 at this point last year,” Tatum said. “So it’s not like we weren’t good. But I think there’s just certain moments throughout the season. We just had two playoff series, kind of, and I think the way we just responded from game-to-game. We played four games in six days and to win how we did it, I feel like was impressive.”

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Downplaying the horrors of slavery will never erase its stain or Americas shame

The Texas Historical Commission’s slogan is “Real Places Telling Real Stories.” But with the Republican-led state Legislature’s relentless efforts to suppress American history , what passes for real stories about real places may bear no resemblance to facts and truth. That’s what is happening at the Varner-Hogg Plantation historical site near Houston. In the 19th century, that estate had several owners. But this was a constant until 1865 — its more than 4,400 acres were tended by and built upon the forced labor of enslaved Black people. Under the ownership of the Varner family in 1824, at least two enslaved men raised livestock, farmed, and created a rum distillery, according to the historical commission. When the Patton family bought the property in 1834, they moved from Kentucky with at least 66 enslaved Black people. Advertisement ”With bricks they made by hand, the enslaved people constructed the plantation house, smokehouse, sugar mill and their own quarters,” the commission’s website states. “With their labor, Columbus Patton built a successful and larger than average sugarcane enterprise complete with a two-story mill.” But a Texas woman thinks there’s just too much talk about slavery on tours of the former slave plantation. Michelle Haas claims to be an amateur historian which must mean discarding inconvenient facts to suit your far-right agenda and fragile white feelings equals an authoritative knowledge of American history. After a visit to Varner-Hogg, Haas complained to the historical commission’s board that an informational video spent too much time on slavery and not enough on the Hogg family, who bought the property in 1901 and eventually turned it into a Texas history museum. This is like going to the beach and whining that the ocean is too wet. Texas Historical Commission But Haas didn’t stop there. She turned her ire to what she called “the activist staff member doing the buying for the gift shop [who] thinks Ibram X. Kendi and ‘White Rage’ have a place at a historic site.” Advertisement Kendi, founder and director of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, is the author of several books, including “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.” Carol Anderson, an African American Studies professor at Emory University, wrote “White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide.” Unlike Haas, both are acclaimed historians. But the historical commission still removed their books, along with 23 other works that Haas objected to, from the gift shops at Varner-Hogg and another Texas plantation. That commission is effectively controlled by the state’s retrograde administration of Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas. In 2022, Haas started the Texas History Trust to represent Texans “who see the historical record being revised, not on the basis of evidence and primary documents, but in the name of ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ and other emotional appeals.” Of course, historical revisionists like Haas are only interested in their own emotions at the expense of facts. This is the same woman who wrote “200 Years a Fraud,” a weird rebuttal to “12 Years a Slave,” the 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup, a free Black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Plantations now host weddings and tout, as Varner-Hogg does, how “its 1830s plantation house and grounds make lovely backdrops for any event.” We can only imagine the horrors that happened on those grounds in the 1830s and what lies beneath its soil. That anyone would choose to have their special day on a site haunted with the blood, sweat, and tears of those enslaved is an anathema to even the most basic human decency. Advertisement That also applies to those convinced that to love this country they must try to erase this indelible fact — the historical stain of slavery only grows deeper when someone tries to downplay not only its wretched 246-year existence, but the grave repercussions it continues to inflict on our unhealed nation. Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her @reneeygraham.

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As Black Voters Drift to Trump, Bidens Allies Say They Have Work to Do

Black voters are more disconnected from the Democratic Party than they have been in decades, frustrated with what many see as inaction on their political priorities and unhappy with President Biden, a candidate they helped lift to the White House just three years ago. New polls by The New York Times and Siena College found that 22 percent of Black voters in six of the most important battleground states said they would support former President Donald J. Trump in next year’s election, and 71 percent would back Mr. Biden. The drift in support is striking, given that Mr. Trump won just 8 percent of Black voters nationally in 2020 and 6 percent in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. A Republican presidential candidate has not won more than 12 percent of the Black vote in nearly half a century. Mr. Biden has a year to shore up his standing, but if numbers like these held up across the country in November 2024, they would amount to a historic shift: No Democratic presidential candidate since the civil rights era has earned less than 80 percent of the Black vote.

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The Colorado Ruling is Likely to Land Before the Supreme Court

Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled last night that Donald Trump was disqualified from becoming president again because he had engaged in insurrection leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The ruling, which the former president’s campaign vowed to appeal, placed the basic contours of the 2024 presidential election in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court. The nine Supreme Court justices — three of whom were appointed by Trump — will very likely have to determine whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was written to prevent former members of the Confederacy from holding office after the Civil War, applies to Trump. They are also set to rule on other Trump-related issues, including whether he is immune from criminal prosecution. The Colorado ruling strikes at a question central to American democracy: whether a leading candidate can appear on voters’ ballots. And while yesterday’s ruling only applied to one state, the justices on the nation’s top court will almost certainly issue a definitive nationwide decision, our Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak said on “The Daily.” Adam added that he found it unlikely that the Colorado decision would stand: “The prospect of what would be a profoundly antidemocratic ruling, saying that people who want to vote for Donald Trump may not vote for him, is going to weigh on the justices,” he said.

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Westfields Armbrook Village raises flag to mark dementia care accreditation

WESTFIELD — Armbrook Village, an assisted living community in Westfield’s North Side, raised a purple flag last week in celebration of receiving Purple Flag for Dementia Care accreditation. The accreditation recognizes facilities that follow 60 different practice standards to care for those with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

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Drenching rainstorm with powerful winds to snarl Monday morning commute

The radar loop below shows a large area of rain that brought flooding to portions of Florida and the southeast and that’s now moved northward. This area is associated with a robust storm system. This storm is going to move along the Atlantic seaboard and then head inland, slicing through New England. It’s mid-December, but a big snowstorm isn’t approaching — as another low pressure area nears the Northeast, it’s going to be heavy rain and wind once again. I wouldn’t classify this as a blockbuster storm, but it will definitely be a notable one, interrupting travel and just making it a little more difficult to get around Monday morning. Advertisement As with our most recent storm last week, there are three elements to this one: Rain, wind and potential coastal flooding. Plan on waking up to rain on Monday and for it to continue at least through midday. The heaviest rain will be here in the morning on Monday and it will taper off in the afternoon. I would plan on leaving yourself extra time if you’re driving, and rain gear is a must. Check sump pumps and gutters if you can. The further west you are in the state, the higher the rainfall totals will be and thus the greatest risk for freshwater flooding. The Cape and Islands will receive the least amount of rain in our upcoming storm, but have the most wind. WeatherBell The wind with this storm is likely to be a bigger factor than the last one, spreading further inland with slightly higher speeds. The strong wind, with gusts of up to 65 miles per hour on the Cape and Islands, will be howling through the morning as well. A high wind warning has been issued for the Greater Boston area, the North Shore and rest of southeastern Massachusetts, including Cape Cod and the Islands, from 5 a.m. Monday into the early evening. Rhode Island and southeastern Connecticut are included in the weather alert. The rest of Southern New England is under a wind advisory. Advertisement A wind warning and advisories have been issued for parts of New England for Monday. NWS The strongest winds will arrive in the early-morning hours of Monday and continue through the middle part of the day; they will tend to diminish later in the afternoon and evening. Power outages are a distinct possibility where the wind is strongest. The ground is fairly saturated and uprooted trees are possible. Strong wind gusts are forecast to move through New England on Monday. COD Weather After a dry stretch in October and November, it’s been quite rainy this month. Without much evaporation and things growing, the ground is saturated. Saturated ground can make it easier for trees to topple over and also for basement and small stream and street flooding. With 1, 2 or even as much as 3 inches of rain possible from this storm, all of these things are once again in the cards. At the time of high tide Monday, coastal flooding is also likely. The degree of flooding, however, will not be anything more than minor to perhaps barely moderate. Each level of flooding has its own gradient, and if we reach moderate flooding along some coastal locations, it would be at the lower end. Like our last storm, this is more like a typical winter storm in terms of impact along the coastline. Unlike nor’easters, which this is not, winds will be coming from the south so south-facing coastal areas will have the most beach erosion and highest winds. As a side note, December is one of the fastest-warming months of the year, and if the climate trend continues, snowfall will become more and more of a premium here in the year’s last month. Advertisement December has been becoming steadily less cold over the past half century. NOAA Weather outlook MONDAY: Rain with a high near 61. Windy, with a south wind of 24 to 33 miles per hour, with gusts as high as 65 miles per hour. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between 1 and 2 inches are possible. In the evening, rain is likely mainly before 11 p.m. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 42. Southwest wind 10 to 18 mph, with gusts as high as 29 miles per hour. Chance of precipitation is 60%. TUESDAY: A chance of rain, mainly after 8 a.m. Snow showers in higher elevations. Partly sunny, with a high near 48. South wind 7 to 9 miles per hour, becoming west in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 50%.

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Man With No Ticket or Passport Flew From Copenhagen to Los Angeles, F.B.I. Says

He said he “might have had” a plane ticket to the United States, but was not sure, according to the affidavit. Mr. Ochigava also said he “did not remember how he got on the plane” and “would not explain how or when he got to Copenhagen, or what he was doing there,” the affidavit says. He also “claimed he did not remember how he went through security without a ticket,” it says. Mr. Ochigava was indicted by a federal grand jury last month on a charge of being a stowaway on an aircraft, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled to begin on Dec. 26. His federal public defender, Erica Choi, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, said the authorities believed that Mr. Ochigava was a Russian citizen and had not confirmed any legal status he might have in Israel. The documents in his possession indicate that he is 46 years old, Mr. Mrozek said. Lise Agerley Kürstein, a Copenhagen Airport representative, said that Mr. Ochigava was seen on airport surveillance images “without a valid ticket.” “Copenhagen Airport has provided photo and video material to the authorities who are investigating the case,” she said. “We take the matter very seriously, and it will be included in the work we continuously do to adjust and tighten our guidelines to improve security.”

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Restaurant News for the Week Ending January 14

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Appeals Court Seems Skeptical of Trumps Immunity Claim

A federal appeals court expressed deep skepticism on Tuesday about former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he is immune from charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election, suggesting that it is unlikely to rule in his favor on a central element of his defense. As Mr. Trump looked on, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit peppered his lawyer D. John Sauer with tough questions about his assertion that his client could not be prosecuted for actions he took while in the White House. The judges seemed incredulous when Mr. Sauer said a president could use the military to assassinate a political rival and be shielded from prosecution unless the Senate first convicted him at an impeachment proceeding. At another point, Judge Karen L. Henderson, the panel’s sole Republican appointee, seemed to reject a central part of Mr. Trump’s argument: that his efforts to overturn his loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr. cannot be subject to prosecution because presidents have a constitutional duty to ensure that election laws are upheld. “I think it’s paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate the criminal law,” Judge Henderson said.

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JBI Interiors, maker of furnishings for restaurants, hospitals, schools, closing Chicopee plant

CHICOPEE — JBI Interiors, a maker of furniture and cabinetry for hotels, offices, hospitals and, especially the fast-food industry, will close its Chicopee plant early next year and lay off 39 employees. The company told the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development earlier this month that the layoffs will begin Feb. 24 and end April 12 although it is possible that one or more employees will remain employed for a limited time up to 90 days to wrap up production and close the plant. The Labor Department shared the paperwork this week.

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Broadcom closes downtown Boston office after VMware acquisition

Broadcom informed the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development on Nov. 27 that it will close its entire VMware office at 2 Avenue de Lafayette (the Lafayette City Center). The first wave of layoffs will start on Jan. 26. Tech trade publication Channel Futures reported that nearly 3,000 job cuts at Broadcom have been disclosed among several states so far as part of the VMware integration, and many more are expected. California-based tech giant Broadcom is closing an office in Downtown Crossing and axing 150 jobs there as part of a much broader cost-cutting effort following the completion of its VMware acquisition . Advertisement Executives at Broadcom didn’t waste any time: The company, which specializes in hardware and software for the computing and telecom sectors, only just completed its acquisition of VMware on Nov. 22, following regulatory approval of the deal in China. Broadcom initially struck the deal to buy VMware in May 2022 for $61 billion, along with taking on about $8 billion in debt. At the time, Broadcom said it would combine VMware with its existing software group, and keep the VMware name for that group. Get Trendlines A business newsletter from Globe Columnist Larry Edelman covering the trends shaping business and the economy in Boston and beyond. Enter Email Sign Up VMware specializes in virtualization software, which essentially uses software for functions that would normally need additional hardware to perform, to significantly increase server efficiency. VMware has long been based in Silicon Valley, but it has ties to the Massachusetts tech world in large part through EMC, which acquired VMware in 2004 for $625 million, and then through Dell Technologies, which bought EMC in 2016. In 2021, Dell spun off VMware as a separate publicly traded company. However, Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, a major financial backer of Dell’s namesake computer company, maintained large stakes in VMware while Dell continued to chair VMware’s board through the sale to Broadcom. Advertisement Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.

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Mass. real estate prices expected to remain high in 2024

As 2023 comes to a close, real estate prices have continued to climb, following trends from the last few years. And they’re not coming down anytime soon, according to experts in the real estate industry. In Massachusetts, where state officials have said up to 200,000 new housing units are needed to address the commonwealth’s ongoing housing crisis, the lack of supply has been a major contributor to high prices for homebuyers and renters. The state has fought to produce more housing to reach that number, but progress has been slow on that front. “Over the last few years, we just have a substantial shortage of inventory,” Amy Wallick, the 2024 president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, said, adding that inventory is currently the industry’s biggest obstacle. “With the demand and lack of supply, that’s where we’re seeing these prices still remaining strong even right now, as we close out ‘23.” According to MAR data, the median sales price for a single-family home in Massachusetts increased by 10% to $605,000 between November 2022 to November 2023, and increased by 4% to $515,000 for condominiums. In that same period, new listings decreased by 0.3% for single-family homes and by 2.7% for condominiums. The price changes were most dramatic in southeast and Central Massachusetts, where the median sales price for a single-family home went up by 13.3% and 13.6%, respectively. In November 2023, there were 3,238 closed sales for single-family homes, down by 11.2% from last year, and 1,317 closed sales on condominiums, a 9% decrease. Things didn’t look much better for renters: according to rental platform Zumper, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Massachusetts was $2,255 in November, a slight increase over the median $2,228 in November 2022. In Boston, that number was even higher at $2,990 last month, making it the third most-expensive city for renters in the country. Exacerbating the supply-and-demand problem are high mortgage interest rates, with averages in the 6% to 7% range. Wallick said those interest rates are expected to come down slightly in early 2024, which could help homebuyers. “We’re not going to see them where they were previously, down in the twos and threes,” she said. “But even if we get down closer to that ... five to six (percent) window as opposed to the six-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half [percent] range, that will impact that affordability.” Despite any changes in interest rates, Wallick said prices will likely remain strong through the coming year. While more inventory usually comes on the market after the holidays, it won’t be enough to significantly change the situation. The state has implemented multiple programs to increase housing production, including requiring towns with MBTA stations to allow multifamily housing near them and providing funding for affordable housing developments. In October, Gov. Maura Healey filed a $4.12 billion bond bill that is expected to create 40,000 new housing units if passed. In a year-end interview with MassLive, Healey said addressing the housing crisis is a “top priority.” “I think the key is supply ... This is why I’m so big-time focused on production, whether it’s through new units, or [the] renovation [or] rehabilitation of existing units,” Healey said. “It’s why we proposed [accessory dwelling units] by right ... it’s one of the quickest ways to create housing and a lot of housing. So these are all things that we need to do. “And with more production, with more supply out there, rents are going to go down,” she continued. “But you know, I understand and I feel the pain that people who are trying to rent feel, that people who are trying to buy homes feel. And you know, this is why ... it’s a top priority for our administration.” However, those homes will not be created overnight, so it may be a while before they affect prices. “The reality here in Massachusetts, we have a housing shortage. So as long as the demand remains strong ... the supply just doesn’t substantiate the demand,” Wallick said. “It would have to be a serious influx of inventory, which I don’t necessarily think is achievable.”

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10 things to do in Boston this Thanksgiving weekend

Events 10 things to do in Boston this Thanksgiving weekend BosTen is your weekly guide to the best events and coolest things to do in Boston. Dancers are pictured during the battle scene at a dress rehearsal of the Boston Ballet's Nutcracker held at the Boston Opera House. Jim Davis/Globe Staff Welcome to BosTen, your weekly guide to the coolest events and best things to do in Boston this weekend. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter here. Have an idea about what we should cover? Leave us a comment on this article or in the BosTen Facebook group, or email us at [email protected]. If cooking on Thanksgiving isn’t in your plans this year — or even if it is — you’re well-covered by Boston’s best restaurants. From 30 local spots open on Thanksgiving to tons of tempting takeout, we’ve put together a guide to all of the restaurants in Boston helping make Turkey Day a success for you and your loved ones. Highlights include sit-down dinner at restaurants like Contessa, Harvest, and Scampo, as well as Thanksgiving dinner takeout from the likes of Alcove, Bar Volpe, and Mistral. Check out our full Thanksgiving restaurant guide here. — Jacqueline Cain While you’re counting down the days until Christmas, you can enjoy an evening of festive cheer at The Kimpton Marlowe Hotel. Starting on Nov. 24, they’ll be hosting the Miracle at Marlowe. When you come to the hotel’s lounge, you’ll see the space decked out in decor, and bartenders will be serving creative cocktails in ugly sweaters. Sip on the Christmapolitan, featuring spiced cranberry sauce and absinthe mist, or the Snowball Old-Fashioned, made with gingerbread, aromatic bitters, orange essence, and more. Light bites will be offered, and Miracle will be open from the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve. (Starting Friday, Nov. 24 at 5 p.m.; The Kimpton Marlowe Hotel, 25 Edwin H Land Blvd., Cambridge, 21+) — Shira Laucharoen One of the country’s most prestigious versions of the timeless holiday show, Mikko Nissinen’s “The Nutcracker” continues to delight audiences year after year with its stunning sets, impressive choreography, and glittering costumes. The show is set to Tchaikovsky’s iconic score and follows the story of Clara, a young girl who receives a nutcracker from her Godfather at a Christmas party — which then comes to life and whisks her away on a magical journey for the night. Boston Ballet will put on 45 performances of the show, starting this Friday and running through Dec. 31. (Opening Friday, Nov. 24; Citizens Bank Opera House, 539 Washington St., Boston; $30 and up) — Natalie Gale Kicking off the holiday show season here in Boston, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical” comes to the Shubert Theatre for seven shows over three days this Friday through Sunday. The show follows the Christmas icon with the blinking red nose as he saves Christmas and goes on adventures with Yukon Cornelius, the Abominable Snowman, and Hermey the Elf. The family-friendly musical runs for 90 minutes, including a 20-minute intermission. (Friday, Nov. 24 through Sunday, Nov. 26 at various times; Shubert Theatre, 265 Tremont St., Boston; $43 and up) — Natalie Gale This Saturday, Darlene Love once again returns to the Cabot in Beverly to perform her annual holiday show. Since the ‘60s, Love has thrilled audiences with her singing and acting, from her stint with girl group The Blossoms to her annual live performances of her hit “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on “The Late Show With David Letterman” for 29 years before Letterman retired. She visits the Cabot for one night only. (Saturday, Nov. 25 at 8 p.m.; The Cabot, 286 Cabot St., Beverly; $45.50 and up) — Natalie Gale The SoWa Winter Festival returns for its 8th year, bringing more than 100 local vendors to the historic Power Station for 15 days this holiday season beginning this Friday. After perusing dozens of the region’s best artisan vendors and grabbing a snack at a food stand, visitors can head upstairs for cocktails and live entertainment on the second floor. Visit SoWa’s website for a complete lineup and map of all vendors. (Thursdays and Fridays from 4-9 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Dec. 17; 550 Harrison Ave., Boston; $10) — Natalie Gale This Friday and Saturday, Downtown Boston will once again host a holiday version of its summer outdoor artisan market every Friday and Saturday through Dec. 23. The neighborhood will have lots more holiday cheer throughout the season, too, with a district-wide lobby decoration contest, live music from the Harvard University Band, and a visit from Santa. This Saturday in particular will be a special one for brass band lovers, as A Boston Tuba Christmas unites 100+ local brass musicians to play holiday favorites from noon to 1:30 p.m. For a full schedule and additional info, check out the Downtown Boston website. (Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Dec. 23; 1 Franklin St., Boston; free) — Natalie Gale As the nation’s first preservation and conservation nonprofit, The Trustees of Reservations’ landscapes and landmarks are a sight to behold any time of year. That’s especially true during the Trustees’ annual holiday season celebration, Winterlights. The dazzling light display at three Trustees properties begins this Friday and is open Wednesday through Sunday until Jan. 6., bringing thousands of twinkling lights to the grounds of Naumkeag in Stockbridge, the Stevens-Coolidge House & Gardens in North Andover, and the Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate in Canton. Beyond the lights themselves, Winterlights features family-friendly activities, holiday food and beverage options, and more seasonally appropriate entertainment. (Opening Wednesday through Sunday from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. starting Friday Nov. 24 through Saturday, Jan. 6 at various locations; $12 and up) — Kevin Slane All aboard the Polar Express this holiday season on the Cape Cod Central Railroad, which whisks visitors away for a 90-minute journey from Buzzards Bay to the “North Pole” starting this Friday and running through December 23. The train typically only runs Thursday through Sunday, but will operate every day except Monday during the week leading up to Christmas. Children are encouraged to wear pajamas, just like in the movie, as they head to the North Pole to meet Santa. Onboard, the waitstaff and chefs perform while the soundtrack from the movie plays, the conductor punches golden tickets for each child, and guests hear a reading of the children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg. Staff will also treat guests to hot chocolate and snickerdoodles before the train arrives at the North Pole, where Santa and his elves board the train to give each child the first gift of Christmas. (Friday, Nov. 24 through Saturday, Dec. 23; Buzzards Bay Depot, 70 Main Street, Buzzards Bay; $54 and up) — Natalie Gale If you’re looking to follow up your Thanksgiving meal with a wintry dinner later this weekend, visit Thistle & Leek for their Sunday Supper. On the menu, you’ll find items like charred baby artichokes, salt baked black bass, saffron braised potatoes, creme caramel with poached cranberries, and more. The meal for two costs $90, but for an additional $30, you’ll also get a carafe of wine. (Sunday, Nov. 26 at 8:00 p.m.; Thistle & Leek, 105 Union St., Newton; $90) — Shira Laucharoen Need weekend plans? The best events in the city, delivered to your inbox Submit your email Enter your email address Sign up See More Events

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Splitting with Colorado, Michigan will keep Trump on 2024 ballot

Michigan’s Supreme Court is keeping former President Donald Trump on the state’s primary election ballot. The court said Wednesday it will not hear an appeal of a lower court’s ruling from groups seeking to keep Trump from appearing on the ballot. It said in an order that the application by parties to appeal a Dec. 14 Michigan appeals court judgment was considered, but denied “because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this court.” The ruling contrasts with Dec. 19 decision by a divided Colorado Supreme Court which found Trump ineligible to be president because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. That ruling was the first time in history that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has been used to disqualify a presidential candidate. The Michigan and Colorado cases are among dozens hoping to keep Trump’s name off state ballots. They all point to the so-called insurrection clause that prevents anyone from holding office who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution. Until the Colorado ruling, all had failed. The Colorado ruling is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never ruled on the rarely used Civil War-era provision. The plaintiffs in Michigan can technically try again to disqualify Trump under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment in the general election, though it’s likely there will be a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the issue by then. The state’s high court on Wednesday upheld an appeals court ruling that the Republican Party could place anyone it wants on the primary ballot. But the court was silent on whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment would disqualify Trump in November if he becomes the GOP nominee. “We are disappointed by the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision,” said Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for People, the liberal group that filed the suit to disqualify Trump in the state. “The ruling conflicts with longstanding US Supreme Court precedent that makes clear that when political parties use the election machinery of the state to select, via the primary process, their candidates for the general election, they must comply with all constitutional requirements in that process.” Trump hailed the order, calling the effort to keep him off the ballot in multiple states a “pathetic gambit.” Only one of the court’s seven justices dissented. Justice Elizabeth M. Welch, a Democrat, wrote that she would have kept Trump on the primary ballot but the court should rule on the merits of the Section 3 challenge. The court has a 4-3 Democratic majority. Trump pressed two election officials in Michigan’s Wayne County not to certify 2020 vote totals, according to a recording of a post-election phone call disclosed in a Dec. 22 report by The Detroit News. The former president ‘s 2024 campaign has neither confirmed nor denied the recording’s legitimacy. Attorneys for Free Speech for People, a liberal nonprofit group also involved in efforts to keep Trump’s name off the primary ballot in Minnesota and Oregon, had asked Michigan’s Supreme Court to render its decision by Christmas Day. The group argued that time was “of the essence” due to “the pressing need to finalize and print the ballots for the presidential primary election.” Earlier this month, Michigan’s high court refused to immediately hear an appeal, saying the case should remain before the appeals court. Free Speech for People had sued to force Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to bar Trump from Michigan’s ballot. But a Michigan Court of Claims judge rejected that group’s arguments, saying in November that it was the proper role of Congress to decide the question.

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Westfield police nab 3 youths for stealing pride flag from oft-targeted home

WESTFIELD — Police apprehended three boys last week suspected of stealing a Progress Pride flag from the front porch of a home on South Maple Street, the same home that has been targeted by vandals and thieves on five occasions in recent years. “An investigation is ongoing to determine if these three juveniles are responsible for the vandalism and larcenies” over the past year, said Police Capt. Steve Dickinson when he confirmed this week that three 15-year-olds, had been caught on Nov. 16 after the most recent incident. He also said the three teens will face charges, yet to be determined, in Juvenile Court. In the prior incidents, the last of which was reported in January, suspects were recorded on security cameras but couldn’t be identified. During each incident, including the most recent, the suspects were wearing dark hoodies and had their faces covered. However, before last week’s incident, an Apple AirTag was attached to one of the flags, which allowed police officers to track it to an area on Maplewood Avenue, Dickinson said. While the flag was not recovered, the attached tracking device did help officers determine the general direction in which the boys had fled. The incident began at 8 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 16, when the owner of the South Maple Street home called to report they had recorded, on a security camera, several youths on the front porch stealing one flagpole and its attached flag, and damaging another flagpole that was flying a second flag, Dickinson said. Moments later, a neighbor of the targeted home called police and told them he saw the youths immediately after they had taken the flag and tried to talk to them, but they ran into some nearby woods, Dickinson said. When the first officer arrived, he spotted two boys running along South Maple Street toward Pleasant Street and gave chase, eventually catching up with one of them, Dickinson said, adding the officer suffered a minor knee injury during the chase. Another officer, while searching for the boys, spotted another riding a bicycle who fit the description provided to responding officers. After another brief chase, he took the boy into custody, Dickinson said. The two boys apprehended were taken to their respective homes. One of the boys an officer interviewed at his parents’ home identified the third teen involved. Dickinson applauded the “rapid response” of the officers that led to the three being identified as suspects in the incident. The Progress Pride flag is a symbol of LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance. It contains the rainbow pattern of the traditional pride flag, as well as symbols and colors representing transgender people, intersex people, people with HIV and AIDS, and racial minorities.

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Winter House episode 8: How to watch on Bravo for free Dec. 12

Things heat up in Steamboat when Kory’s unofficial girlfriend, Sam, comes for a visit and is immediately threatened by a yachtie’s friendship with her man in a new episode of “Winter House” airing on Tuesday, December 12 on Bravo. The new episode will air on Bravo at 9 p.m. EST. Viewers looking to stream the reality TV series can do so by using FuboTV and DirecTV. Both fuboTV and DirecTV offer free trials for new users. FuboTV’s description of the show reads that “Winter House,” features stars from reality shows including “Summer House,” “Southern Charm,” “Vanderpump Rules,” “Summer House: Martha’s Vineyard,” “Family Karma” and the “Below Deck” franchise, as well as new cast members, who vacation in various wintery locations for two weeks. The drama heats up as romances and friendships are tested. The cross-over series will also feature friends who will join the cast members as they take on skiing, snowboarding, dog sledding, ice fishing, winter biking, snow tubing, sleigh rides, and more cold weather activities. In episode 8, things heat up in Steamboat when Kory’s unofficial girlfriend, Sam, comes for a visit and is immediately threatened by a yachtie’s friendship with her man; Tom’s return to the house can’t come soon enough for Alex. Here is a look at season 3 from Bravo’s YouTube Channel: How can I watch the newest episode of “Winter House” without cable? The new episode will air on Bravo at 9 p.m. EST. Viewers looking to stream the reality TV series can do so by using FuboTV and DirecTV. Both fuboTV and DirecTV offer free trials for new users. What is FuboTV? FuboTV is an over-the-top internet live TV streaming service that offers more than 100 channels, such as sports, news, entertainment and local channels. What is DirecTV? The streaming platform offers a plethora of content including streaming the best of live and On Demand, starting with more than 75 live TV channels. DirecTV also offers a free trial for any package you sign up.

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How to watch the new episode of The Amazing Race, stream for free

A new episode of “The Amazing Race” kicks off Wednesday, Dec. 13 at 9:30 p.m. on CBS. Fans can also watch the season 35 on streaming platforms like FuboTV and DirecTV Stream. Both platforms offer a free trial for new users who are interested in signing up for an account. The show is an adventure reality game in which teams of two people race around the world in competition with 11 other teams. In the new episode of season 35, “the final three teams travel to Seattle, where they must complete three challenges in a scramble leg; the team that successfully completes the challenges and arrives first wins the $1 million prize.” How do I watch the show if I don’t have cable TV? Viewers can stream the new season on FuboTV and DirecTV Stream. Both platforms offer a free trial for new users. What is FuboTV? FuboTV is an over-the-top internet live TV streaming service that offers more than 100 channels, such as sports, news, entertainment and local channels. What is DirecTV Stream? The streaming platform offers a plethora of content including streaming the best of live and On Demand, starting with more than 75 live TV channels. DirecTV also offers a free trial for any package you sign up.

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A Frugal Opera Superfans Surprise Gift: $1.7 Million for the Arts

When Lois Kirschenbaum, a cultural aficionado who was a fixture in the standing room section of the Metropolitan Opera for more than half a century, died in 2021 at 88, star singers gave tributes and fellow fans offered remembrances. But that was not the end of Kirschenbaum’s relationship with the arts. Though even her closest friends didn’t know, Kirschenbaum, a former switchboard operator who lived in a rent-controlled apartment in the East Village, had made plans to give away a large share of her life savings — some $1.7 million — to cultural groups upon her death. After years of legal proceedings, donations of $215,000 apiece have started to arrive, surprising groups like New York City Opera, American Ballet Theater, Carnegie Hall and the Public Theater. “I was just astonished,” said John Hauser, the president of the George and Nora London Foundation for Singers, one of the recipients. “I had no idea that she had that kind of money.”

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Low pay could hamper new MassHealth doula services, advocates say

Massachusetts’ state-funded health care system, MassHealth, announced Friday they will offer doula services for pregnant, birthing and postpartum people next spring. But many advocates remain concerned about potential barriers for doulas, including low reimbursement rates and MassHealth not offering reimbursement for travel. Doulas are individuals who are trained to support a birthing person before, during and after pregnancy. They provide emotional, physical and educational support. Kate Symmonds, staff attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, said while the rate of pay that MassHealth is offering may be what some doulas are currently charging in the Commonwealth for their care, it’s not enough to ensure the long term stability and success of MassHealth’s program.

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Grant helps Springfield buy more nonlethal BoloWrap restraints

SPRINGFIELD — City police officers will expand their inventory of nonlethal BolaWrap restraint devices using a new federal grant. Springfield will receive $49,982 from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Edward J. Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno’s office said in a statement. The money will purchase BolaWrap devices, nonlethal BolaWrap cassettes — which are the cartridges that launch the nonlethal restraint — and training for 108 officers and supervisors.

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Tackling Climate Change in the Birthplace of Oil

For the second year in a row, the United Nations climate summit known as COP will take place in a petrostate. COP29 will be in Baku, Azerbaijan, and overseen by Mukhtar Babayev, who worked for more than two decades at Socar, Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company. There’s a precedent: Last year’s climate summit was controversially hosted by the United Arab Emirates and led by Sultan Al Jaber, who also runs the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Many activists fiercely opposed Al Jaber’s involvement, but COP28 was ultimately seen by many as a success. His ability to corral fossil-fuel-producing countries like his own helped yield an agreement that saw countries pledge to “transition away” from fossil fuels. It remains to be seen whether Babayev, a former low-ranking executive who is now Azerbaijan’s environment minister, will have the same impact. But there is also a poignant historical resonance to COP29: By some measures, Azerbaijan is where the modern oil industry began.

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Sea Creatures From the Deep, Captured in Glass, Rise at Mystic Seaport

Leopold, who hailed from Bohemian glassworkers, started out making jewelry and then glass eyeballs both for humans and taxidermy. He also made stunning glass flowers, producing more than 4,000 with his son for Harvard. What’s surprising is that these two artists in landlocked Dresden could have replicated marine species so accurately. Leopold did in fact glimpse live jellyfish in all their glass-like luminosity years before he started making them, while sailing across the Atlantic to the U.S. in the early 1850s. By the late 1870s he and his son had acquired a seawater aquarium and ordered live animals that came wrapped in seaweed from marine stations throughout Europe. (Much of what we know of them comes from their archives at the Corning Museum of Glass.) Zoological illustrations were also essential. Early on, Leopold emulated drawings of anemones by Philip Henry Gosse, the Victorian naturalist and collector of marine species known as the inventor of the modern aquarium (and for trying to reconcile his creationist beliefs with his scientific findings). Later, the Blaschkas borrowed illustrations from Ernst Haeckel, a German zoologist and skilled artist who cataloged many of the thousands of marine species pulled up by the HMS Challenger, a British ship that spent three and a half years, starting in 1872, gathering data from the ocean’s depths. “There was so much documentation of marine invertebrates in the 19th century,” Rose said. “Citizen scientists were walking the shores noticing these things.”

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Thanksgiving Football: Northampton pulls off last-second victory over Easthampton

SPRINGFIELD — John Farinacci silenced the Thunderdome with a shoot-out wrister Saturday night as the Providence Bruins defeated the Springfield Thunderbirds, 4-3, during their annual Throwback Night. The Thunderbirds, who brought back the Falcons jerseys from the 1994-1995 season with a signature twist, ultimately suffered their third consecutive loss against the Bruins as they debuted a never-before-seen grey variation of the classic uniform in front of a sellout crowd of 6,793 fans. “Our guys played hard,” interim Thunderbirds coach Dan Tzacuk said. “We had four lines today for a complete game of 60 minutes, and our goaltender stood tall. ... It was a back-and-forth game, from having a lead to trying to weather the storm with successive penalties and then finding a way to score a goal to tie it up. “Both teams play hard, and it was a good competitive battle.” Once the puck dropped at center ice, both teams rolled out a fast and physical element to their game plan. It didn’t take long for Keenan Washkurak to provide his teammates a jolt of momentum — one that ultimately led to the Thunderbirds team taking an early lead. Washkurak and Providence defenseman Joey Abate exchanged personal greetings, which resulted in both men going to the penalty box for matching five-minute majors for fighting after dropping the gloves. ENJOY THIS ADAM GAUDETTE GOAL pic.twitter.com/nBDDeaV3ac — Springfield Thunderbirds (@ThunderbirdsAHL) January 7, 2024 Matthew Peca put the offense into motion as he found a loose rebound, along with Adam Gaudette, who was long gone from the defense zone and already deep within the neutral zone. From there, Peca slipped a quick pass to Gaudette, who initiated the clean breakaway. He turned his direction and attention toward the net and noticed Providence defenceman Michael Callahan trying to disrupt the play. Gaudette sped up and fired a quick wrister to the far right post, giving the home team a 1-0 lead at 6:05 remaining in 1st period. Peca assisted in the play for his 21st helper of the season. The T-Birds were merely warming up. Minutes later, Springfield utilized the same play as Hugh McGing zipped the cross-ice-pass to Gaudette, who had just entered the offensive zone. The puck then hit his stick, and trailing behind him were Providence defencemen Ian Mitchell and Jakub Zboril. Gaudette corralled the puck, luring Bruins netminder Brandon Bussi out of his net. Bussi then dropped to the butterfly as Gaudette slipped a clean backhander stick side, giving the home team the 2-0 lead. Providence struck back and scored three consecutive goals during the middle of the second period as Springfield dealt with penalty trouble. First, Joseph Duzak was called for the four-minute-minor high-sticking call, and then seconds later, Zach Dean was called for tripping. The Bruins were already on a 5-on-3 man advantage as the T-Birds’ defense fell apart. Reily Walsh fired a simple wrister toward Malcolm Subban as the rebound found its way to Fabian Lysell, who skated into place near the top of the left slot. Lysell then zipped a quick shot that trickled off a defender as it crossed the goal line, getting the road team on the board 2-1 at 14:49 remaining in the middle frame. Providence didn’t let up. Joey Abate slipped a pass back to the point for Brett Harrison, who then redirected the backhander back at Subban, allowing Providence to tie the game 2-2 just over two minutes later. A mere 32 seconds after that, Mitchell retrieved the puck then sent it back to the left bottom point where Anthony Richard fired a one-timer top shelf, breaking the tie and giving the Bruins the 3-2 lead. The third period saw Springfield tie the prime-time matchup at 3-3. WASHER TIES THIS GAME UP pic.twitter.com/zbhFozwE6W — Springfield Thunderbirds (@ThunderbirdsAHL) January 7, 2024 Duzak generated the Thunderbirds’ momentum as he skated into the offensive zone near the bottom of the right side boards with Rosen on his wing near the left side. Duzak then zipped the pass to Rosen, who fired a quick wrister toward a crowded net. Washkurak finished the play by tipping in the one-timer, allowing the T-Birds to tie the game at 3-3 with 8:52 left in regulation. Both teams found opportunities throughout the remainder of the third period, but both Subban and Bussi stood tall, neutralizing any threat that came their way. Neither team could capitalize during overtime with Bussi putting aside the Thunderbird’s best attempt — a shot from Gaudette. Later in the extra frame, Providence forward Jayson Megna pulled the net off its placement, neutralizing Springfields’ ability to score. Megna was then called for a delay of the game penalty, but Springfield did not capitalize, sending the game to a shootout. The shootout yielded a stalemate as Subban and Bussi were tied after five attempts. Farinacci, though, ultimately secured the victory, lifting the Bruins to a 4-3 win. “There are teachable moments here for these young guys,” Tkaczuk said. “It’s not always going to be rosy. There’s going to be challenges along the way. But that’s part of the process of them growing as individual players in their own game and us growing as a team as we continue to build throughout the season.” The Thunderbirds now gear up for a four-game road trip, starting with the second half of the home-and-home series in Providence. They return to the ice tomorrow, the puck drop is set for 3:05 p.m.

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Chiefs Andy Reid admits WR was offsides after calling play embarrassing

Andy Reid has changed his tune on Kadarius Toney’s offsides penalty. The wide receiver was lined up with the center before he caught a lateral pass from Travis Kelce. Toney ran into end zone and appeared to give the Kansas City Chiefs a lead in the final minutes of their game against the Buffalo Bills. The officials ruled Toney was offsides, which negated the touchdown. The Chiefs ultimately lost, 20-17 at Arrowhead Stadium. After the game, Reid was upset with the call and the fact he didn’t receive a warning from the referees. “It’s a bit embarrassing in the National Football League for that to take place,” Reid told reporters. “Normally, if it’s even close, you get a warning. I don’t know. I didn’t have a protractor out there. I’ve been in the league for a long time. Haven’t had one like that.” BET ANYTHING GET $250 BONUS ESPN BET CLAIM OFFER MASS 21+ and present in MA, NJ, PA, VA, MD, WV, TN, LA, KS, KY, CO, AZ, IL, IA, IN, OH, MI. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. Maybe if Reid had that protractor, he would have seen what many others who tuned in saw. But the Chiefs coached admitted Toney was indeed offsides when he met with reporters Monday. “Listen, normally he looks over to the sideline and just gets an OK,” Reid said. “And on that, he just happened not to. So that would be the coaching. Just make sure you check with the guy on the side just to see if you’re aligned. I mean, he’s not lining up offsides on purpose. “He was two inches or an inch from being legal. You can argue both sides of it for both teams. ... I guess the league is trying to clean that up, from what I heard. I don’t know. Whatever.” NFL official Carl Cheffers told pool reporter Matt Derrick of Chiefs Digest that a warning is given out at the discretion of the referees. And because Toney was being offsides was “egregious,” it was “beyond a warning.” Reid admitted he wasn’t making excuses or blaming the refs for making the call. But admitted he was “disappointed” because Reid has a “good working relationship” with the officials and didn’t get any communication from them Sunday. “Do we need to line up right? Yeah,” Reid told reporters. “We can’t put it in the officials hands.” The Chiefs have to put it behind them, though, and prepare for their next AFC opponent when they travel to Gillette Stadium on Sunday to take on the New England Patriots.

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Man arrested, after pointing loaded ghost gun at Springfield officer

Boston EMS says one person was taken to the hospital after a reported stabbing on Court Street early Christmas morning. The incident happened just down the street from Boston City Hall and the Government Center MBTA station.Police officers responded to the area just after 2 a.m. for a report of a stabbing. The victim was treated and transported to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Police also responded to the area of Tremont and Stuart Streets, but the nature of that incident was not immediately clear. Boston EMS says one person was taken to the hospital after a reported stabbing on Court Street early Christmas morning. The incident happened just down the street from Boston City Hall and the Government Center MBTA station. Advertisement Police officers responded to the area just after 2 a.m. for a report of a stabbing. The victim was treated and transported to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Police also responded to the area of Tremont and Stuart Streets, but the nature of that incident was not immediately clear.

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Matt Damon, Casey Affleck film scenes in Mass. for upcoming movie

Hollywood stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck were back in their home state of Massachusetts on Tuesday to film scenes for their upcoming movie "The Instigators."Damon and Affleck, both Cambridge natives, were spotted together at a shoot near the Squantum Yacht Club at Wollaston Beach in Quincy."The Instigators" is an Apple Original Films project that is set to be released sometime in 2024. The movie is set in Boston and is about two thieves who wind up on the run with help from one of their therapists after a robbery goes wrong, but not much else is known about the plot.The film is being directed by Doug Liman, who worked with Damon on the "Bourne Identity." Damon and Ben Affleck, Casey's older brother, are among the movie's producers, along with Jeff Robinov, John Graham and Kevin Walsh.According to Deadline, the movie's cast also includes Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, Ron Perlman, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser and Grammy-nominated rapper Jack Harlow, who starred in the remake of "White Men Can't Jump" that was released this year.Previous filming for "The Instigators" was done during the spring in the North End of Boston, Boston's Back Bay, the Charles River Esplanade, Memorial Drive in Cambridge and in Quincy.Previous coverage: Hollywood stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck were back in their home state of Massachusetts on Tuesday to film scenes for their upcoming movie "The Instigators." Damon and Affleck, both Cambridge natives, were spotted together at a shoot near the Squantum Yacht Club at Wollaston Beach in Quincy. Advertisement "The Instigators" is an Apple Original Films project that is set to be released sometime in 2024. The movie is set in Boston and is about two thieves who wind up on the run with help from one of their therapists after a robbery goes wrong, but not much else is known about the plot. The film is being directed by Doug Liman, who worked with Damon on the "Bourne Identity." Damon and Ben Affleck, Casey's older brother, are among the movie's producers, along with Jeff Robinov, John Graham and Kevin Walsh. According to Deadline, the movie's cast also includes Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, Ron Perlman, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser and Grammy-nominated rapper Jack Harlow, who starred in the remake of "White Men Can't Jump" that was released this year. Previous filming for "The Instigators" was done during the spring in the North End of Boston, Boston's Back Bay, the Charles River Esplanade, Memorial Drive in Cambridge and in Quincy. Previous coverage:

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Opinion | What Will Happen to Gazas People?

Conventional wisdom has generally held that Israel’s government lacks a strategy for the Gaza Strip beyond toppling Hamas. “Israel has no plan for Gaza after war ends, experts warn,” the BBC reported in October. In November The Washington Post observed that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “has come under criticism for not offering a clear plan for what happens in Gaza if Israel succeeds in its goal of deposing Hamas.” A headline in Foreign Affairs in December lamented “Israel’s Muddled Strategy in Gaza.” But there are signs that some members of the Israeli government do indeed have a strategy, or at least a preference, for what happens next. It’s implicit in the kind of war Israel has waged, which has made Gaza largely unlivable. And a growing number of Israeli officials are saying it out loud: They don’t want to force just Hamas out of Gaza. They want many of Gaza’s people to leave, too. The calls for population transfers started long before Gaza was reduced to the ruins that it is today. Six days after Hamas’s massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7, the Intelligence Ministry proposed permanently relocating Gazans to the Sinai region of Egypt. On Nov. 14, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he supported “the voluntary emigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world.” Five days later, Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel endorsed “the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians in Gaza, for humanitarian reasons, outside of the strip.”

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Memphis vs. Iowa State: How to watch the Liberty Bowl for free

FOXBOROUGH – Bill Belichick is appreciative of his time in New England, but the Patriots coach isn’t ready to get sentimental quite yet. With rumors swirling about his future, this weekend’s game could be the final for Belichick as the head coach of the Patriots. After 24 years, six Super Bowl championships, and plenty of good memories, Belichick said his sole focus right now is on beating the New York Jets. “Well, I’ve always appreciated the opportunity,” Belichick said when asked what it meant for him to be the Patriots head coach. “Just looking forward to Sunday’s game against the Jets and try to put our best game out there this year. That’s what we’re working towards. I’m sure there will be a time, another time to talk about other things, but right now, just trying to focus on the Jets.” BET ANYTHING GET $250 BONUS ESPN BET CLAIM OFFER MASS 21+ and present in MA, NJ, PA, VA, MD, WV, TN, LA, KS, KY, CO, AZ, IL, IA, IN, OH, MI. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. This season hasn’t been easy for Belichick and the Patriots. They’re currently 4-12 and will finish in last place in the AFC East for the first time since 2000, which was Belichick’s first season in New England. The Patriots were the second team this year to be eliminated from the playoffs after Carolina, who will finish with the worst record in the NFL. On offense, the Patriots have been horrific. The unit heads into this matchup ranked last in the NFL in points and 28th in yards. The Patriots have also dealt with a laundry list of injuries to important players – Matthew Judon, Christian Gonzalez, Kendrick Bourne, Marcus Jones, Rhamondre Stevenson, and others. The multiple issues lead the Patriots in their regular-season finale on Sunday. Next week, everyone could find out what owner Robert Kraft plans on doing with his head coach position. When asked how much he appreciates what he’s built in Foxborough, Belichick replied, “I think I’ve covered that multiple times over the years. For right now, we’ll keep it on the Jets and go forward with that.” Belichick and his players have been all business this week – even though many understand that sweeping changes could come next week inside Gillette Stadium. “This week is about preparing for the Jets,” Belichick said. “And then, there are a few things that happen after this game that we have to take care of.”

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First of nearly two dozen MBTA Green Line closures begin Monday

BOSTON — A portion of the MBTA’s oldest line will be shutting down Monday for more than a week. The temporary Green Line closure, which includes all of its downtown Boston rails, is the first of nearly two dozen planned closures through 2024. It’s part of the MBTA’s promise to eliminate all “slow zones” as reduced train speeds have plagued riders with frustrating travel for months. Workers will replace rails, fix or replace deteriorated ties, install new ballast, and improve signals and switches. “The Green Line is awful. I’m not gonna lie,” said commuter Justin Hodo. “It’s ridiculous. It sucks, but we’re still riding it.” The MBTA released the following information about the closure that impacts riders in the heart of Boston: Green Line Downtown: No trains between North Station and Kenmore, November 27 – December 5 Green Line B: No trains between Kenmore and Babcock Street, November 27 – December 5 Shuttles are available between Copley and Babcock Street The 57 bus is free to ride between Kenmore and Packard’s Corner Green Line E: No trains between Copley and Heath Street, November 27 – December 5 The 39 bus is free to ride between Copley and Heath Street and runs parallel to the E Line Green Line D and E: No trains between North Station and Lechmere, December 4 – 5 Shuttles are available between Lechmere and North Station Green Line E: No trains between North Station and Medford/Tufts, November 27 – December 10, from 8:45 PM through the end of service each day Shuttles are available between North Station and Medford/Tufts Green Line D: No trains between North Station and Union Square, November 27 – December 10, from 8:45 PM through the end of service each day Shuttles are available between Lechmere and North Station The 86, 91, and CT2 buses run between Union Square and East Somerville. These bus routes also travel to Sullivan Square on the Orange Line. The 87 bus runs between Union Square and Lechmere. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW ©2023 Cox Media Group

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Heres what Boston meteorologists are saying about Mondays severe weather

Here's a look at what to expect over the next 24-36 hrs across SNE. Heavy rain will ramp up overnight. The greatest threat for damaging winds will be between 7 am and 2 pm tomorrow. Rapid improvement tomorrow evening will give way to scattered flurries and showers on Tuesday. pic.twitter.com/omJtw1vPtP

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TikToks Influence on Young Voters Is No Simple Matter - The New York Times

We’re in a season of hand-wringing and scapegoating over social media, especially TikTok, with many Americans and politicians missing that two things can be true at once: Social media can have an outsized and sometimes pernicious influence on society, and lawmakers can unfairly use it as an excuse to deflect legitimate criticisms. Young people are overwhelmingly unhappy about U.S. policy on the war in Gaza? Must be because they get their “perspective on the world on TikTok” — at least according to Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat who holds a strong pro-Israel stance. This attitude is shared across the aisle. “It would not be surprising that the Chinese-owned TikTok is pushing pro-Hamas content,” Senator Marsha Blackburn said. Another Republican senator, Josh Hawley, called TikTok a “purveyor of virulent antisemitic lies.” Consumers are unhappy with the economy? Surely, that’s TikTok again, with some experts arguing that dismal consumer sentiment is a mere “vibecession” — feelings fueled by negativity on social media rather than by the actual effects of inflation, housing costs and more. Some blame online phenomena such as the viral TikTok “Silent Depression” videos that compare the economy today to that of the 1930s — falsely asserting things were easier then. It’s no secret that social media can spread misleading and even harmful content, given that its business model depends on increasing engagement, thus often amplifying inflammatory content (which is highly engaging!) with little to no guardrails for veracity. And, yes, TikTok, whose parent company is headquartered in Beijing and which is increasingly dominating global information flows, should generate additional concern. As far back as 2012, research published in Nature by Facebook scientists showed how companies can easily and stealthily alter real-life behavior, such as election turnout.

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What Makes Chicken and Rice Even Better? A Little Bite.

By now, I’ve learned that this layer of crunchy, golden rice that can form at the bottom of the pot is rightly prized across cultures, be it Persian tahdig, Korean nurungji or Spanish socarrat, to name just a few. Achieving the ideal layer of crisp rice is the kind of culinary feat that takes long practice — or, occasionally — dumb luck. Or you could use this simple hack: Spread cooked, oiled rice on a sheet pan and bake it at high heat. The large surface area of the sheet pan will dry the rice before it browns, making it especially crunchy, and the oven’s steady, indirect heat helps keep the rice from burning — a welcome relief for us multitasking cooks. For this technique, I particularly adore the textural contrast of short-grain rice, because while the plump, starchy grains get nicely crisp where they meet the bottom and edges of the pan, the top stays softer and chewy. But long-grain rice, which takes on a consistently crunchy texture, also works.

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An Ally in the Climate Fight: Nature Itself

Nature can be harnessed in the struggle to curb global warming and its most tragic effects in myriad ways: Forests store carbon and reduce temperatures, coral reefs help shield coasts from extreme weather, and grasslands safeguard water sources from droughts. But to fully protect various ecosystems and help them combat climate change, we have to understand them — and there’s a lot to figure out. For example, scientists estimate that a staggering 91 percent of ocean species have yet to be classified, and 80 percent of the oceans remain unmapped. Some help from space One piece of the puzzle is coming into focus: how much carbon ecosystems are actually storing. Scientists are now using space-based lasers to gauge the biomass of forests all around the world, which lets them calculate how much planet-warming carbon the trees are keeping out of Earth’s atmosphere. NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (or GEDI, pronounced like the order of knights in “Star Wars”) deployed a sensor on the International Space Station in 2018. Data from that project is now being analyzed, with surprising results: Forests hold, on average, about 30 percent more carbon than what countries have previously reported. Keeping those forests healthy, and preventing their massive stores of carbon from being released into the atmosphere, is even more crucial than we thought. Over the last century, governments around the world have drawn boundaries to shield thousands of the world’s most valuable ecosystems from destruction, from the forests of Borneo and the Amazon to the savannas of Africa.

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NHL ref gives out penalties to every player on the ice

FOXBOROUGH - Four in-game benchings later, Bill Belichick finally opted to change his starting quarterback. Mac Jones took a seat against the Los Angeles Chargers. Bailey Zappe, who gave rise to the term “Zappe Fever” based on his relief efforts last year, took over as the starter. And, given what played out at practice, it was set up for Malik Cunningham to be utilized as well at quarterback. While Zappe provided a spark last season when both Jones and Brian Hoyer were injured, he didn’t evoke the same charge during his four relief appearances this year. In those games, he completed 19 passes in 39 attempts (48.7%) for 158 yards. He didn’t throw any touchdowns, but had two picks. His quarterback rating was a dismal 38.2. With a full week of starter reps, did Zappe improve? Did he revive Zappe Fever and lead the Patriots to a win? Nope. That didn’t happen. $200 INSTANT BONUS DRAFTKINGS MASS CLAIM OFFER BET $5, GET $200 BONUS BET FANDUEL MASS CLAIM OFFER BET $50, GET $250 BONUS CAESARS MASS CLAIM OFFER $1,000 FIRST-BET BONUS BETMGM MASS CLAIM OFFER MA only. 21+. Gambling Problem? If you or a loved one is experiencing problems with gambling, please call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org for 24/7 support. LiveChat with a GameSense Advisor at GameSenseMA.com or call 1-800-GAM-1234 MA Gambling Helpline. MA only. 21+. Gambling Problem? If you or a loved one is experiencing problems with gambling, please call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org for 24/7 support. LiveChat with a GameSense Advisor at GameSenseMA.com or call 1-800-GAM-1234 MA Gambling Helpline. Here’s the rundown: The weather was bad. The play on the field was worse. In terms of points produced, the Zappe-led offense was no better than the Jones-led offense as the Patriots did not score against a Chargers unit that ranked dead-last in total defense. Talk about going from bad to worse, the Patriots had scored 13 points combined the previous two games before going down Sunday 6-0 to the Chargers. Zappe finished completing 13 of 25 passes for 141 yards. He did not turn the ball over. And even though Zappe showed more spunk and escapability than Jones, and less panic in the pocket, he still couldn’t totally avoid the rush. He was sacked five times. If Zappe was supposed to provide a spark, it certainly didn’t happen. The weather likely contributed to that, as Bill O’Brien went heavy with the ground attack. The unit produced 148 yards rushing, but once again, Zappe couldn’t complete drives. In the first half, his timing was off. He threw behind receivers, and several of his throws were delivered a tick or two late. Zappe’s first pass of the day, which came on his opening play under center, was thrown behind DeVante Parker. It was nearly picked. It didn’t get much better from there. Zappe completed five of 12 passes in the opening half for 39 yards. Most of his passes went sideways. The longest play from scrimmage was a dump off to Ezekiel Elliott that went for 23 yards. That meant Zappe completed his four other passes for 16 yards. Justin Herbert, however, wasn’t much better, with the Chargers taking a 6-0 lead into halftime, and holding on the rest of the way. As mentioned, the best part of Zappe was that unlike Jones in previous games, he didn’t have any turnovers, and he was much more elusive in the pocket. In the second half, O’Brien let Zappe air it out a little more. At least they moved the ball past the 50 yard line. Sacks, however, killed their best drive of the game in the third quarter, and wiped out another one late in the quarter, and again midway through the fourth quarter. Malik Cunningham? There was some thought he might play, provide a change of pace. It didn’t happen. Perhaps it was because the offense never got to the red zone. Whatever the case, a change in quarterback didn’t change the Patriots fate. It did not produce a win. Just more questions about a sad sack offense. NFL fans can wager online on Massachusetts sports betting with enticing promo codes from top online sportsbooks. Use the FanDuel Massachusetts promo code and the DraftKings Massachusetts promo code for massive new user bonuses.

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Big Y leadership passes to 3rd generation; Michael P. DAmour will be president, CEO

SPRINGFIELD – Big Y Foods is passing leadership of the grocery chain down to the third generation of the D’Amour family. Current CEO Charles L. D’Amour will become executive chairman of the board.

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American Unions Long Backed Israel. Now, Some Are Protesting It.

“Why are we here?” said Brandon Mancilla, a leader with the United Automobile Workers. Mr. Mancilla faced a crowd of hundreds of union members gathered on the steps of the New York Public Library’s Fifth Avenue branch, huddling against the cold as they rallied for a cease-fire in Gaza. “Cease-fire now, solidarity forever!” Mr. Mancilla, 29, said as the crowd cheered, waving union banners and Palestinian flags. “Let’s get more and more unions behind us.” On display in that Dec. 21 protest — which came shortly after the 350,000-member U.A.W. voted to support a cease-fire — was a shift in the American labor movement’s relationship with Israel. For decades, the most prominent American unions were largely supportive of Israel. Today, though, amid a resurgence of the American labor movement, some activists are urging their unions to call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and succeeding — a change that reflects a broader generational shift.

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5 things to do this weekend, including Boston Celtic Music Festival and a Caribbean dance workshop

If you’re reading this on Thursday morning, please stop what you’re doing and proceed to Symphony Hall for a $22 open rehearsal to the Boston Symphony Orchestra featuring a Ravel piano concerto and Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” If you’re reading this after 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, I don’t know what to tell you. The early bird catches the worm, and today you’re not that bird. There will be more open rehearsals (including one on Jan. 23), and as for this weekend, you’ll have to settle for one of the five things below that are also worthwhile ways to spend your weekend. Thursday, Jan. 11-Sunday, Jan. 14 Back in 2013, I was sorting through the CDs that record labels sent to my college’s radio station. It was mostly pleasant indie pop and under-produced rock groups, but there was one traditional Celtic album that caught my ear. Since then, I’ve had a soft spot for that style of music. Whether you’re a fan or not, you may find something you like at this year’s four-day Boston Celtic Music Festival. Music kicks off at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Club Passim with Joey Abarta, followed by Jenna Moynihan and Neil Pearlman & the Wallbreakers. Friday has twice the offerings with three acts at Club Passim as well as The Boston Urban Ceilidh at the Crystal Ballroom. Saturday’s lineup includes a Dayfest, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., featuring 19 acts across three venues in Davis Square, and Saturday night ends with a performance by Le Vent du Nord at the Crystal Ballroom. A brunch will be held at Club Passim from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday. Festival attendees can either purchase a pass or tickets to single events. Live streams are also available for purchase. Check the festival’s lineup for details. Boston Celtic Music Festival 2023 (Courtesy of Dylan Ladd) Through Jan. 21 Fashion, movement and internal conflict — these elements come together in “Real Women Have Curves,” a musical about a high school girl from an immigrant family as she figures out how to take the next step after graduation. The show is an adaptation of a 1990 play written by then-19-year-old Josefina López who pulled on her own experience as an undocumented immigrant as inspiration for the story. This production at American Repertory Theater is a global premier for this musical, directed and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo with music and lyrics by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez. There are only a couple of weeks left to see it so act fast! [Hear more about the show from WBUR’s Arielle Gray and read WBUR theater critic Jacquinn Sinclair’s review here.] Friday, Jan. 12 All levels of experience are welcome at this workshop teaching popular Caribbean dance forms. The class is the first in a series taking place over the coming months, each focusing on a different style: merengue, rumba, bachata and salsa. Even if you don’t dance, you might just want to go for the music and the beautiful views of Boston Harbor from the ICA. Can you think of a better way to warm up on this cold New England weekend? The workshop will be led by Cambridge-based Masacote Dance Company, which has toured five continents and performed in places such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Berklee Performance Center. The museum’s wine and coffee bar will have refreshments available, and while you’re at the museum, consider stopping by “Forecast Form: Art in the Diaspora, 1990s-Today,” which closes on Feb. 25. The workshop begins at 7 p.m., and is free with admission to the museum. Through Feb. 3 I enjoy seeing the personal works of commercially successful artists. It often reveals the character behind the artist, unencumbered by the restraints that can come with a paid project. Photographer George Platt Lynes found success in advertising and fashion. The photographs in this exhibit focus on his one-time partner Charles “Chuck” Howard, who was another successful figure in the fashion world: a model, designer and restaurateur. Lynes worked in the 1930s and ‘40s, and outside of his career, he took a series of nude and homoerotic photographs featuring his friends and acquaintances, including dancers and other gay artists. Works from his private collection of black and white photographs are on display for a couple more weeks at the Childs Gallery in Boston alongside another, more colorful exhibit, “Interlaced, The Fabric of Art.” Sunday, Jan. 14 I recently accompanied my nephews to a performance of “Wild Kratts Live! 2.0,” another child-centric edutainment stage show. The two main characters walked out onstage, and the room erupted like the guests at the Ed Sullivan Show during The Beatles’ famous performance. For regular theater-goers, there’s something uniquely spectacular about an audience of excited children, far from the typical calmer, adult audiences. For the children themselves (ages 3 and up), it’s a tailor-made opportunity to have their first theatrical experience. “Dinosaur World Live” weaves large-scale puppetry and educational material that will surely delight and inspire many young folks in attendance. Audiences can expect to see a Tyrannosaurus rex, a Triceratops, a Giraffatitan and more take the stage alongside an enthusiastic human explorer. The show at the Emerson Colonial Theatre lasts 50 minutes, plus a 15-minute opportunity to meet and greet with a dinosaur. Tickets start at $39.

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Doja the cat has enough pet material for any Mass. home looking to adopt

If you’ve ever wanted a celebrity in your home, then keep dreaming. But you can get the next best thing if you adopt a loving stray cat from the Dakin Humane Society. While she may not have the same musical skills as the rapper Doja Cat, Doja the cat does have enough “pet material” to make your home truly special, the animal shelter said. Doja was a stray who showed up in a feral colony one day. After she decided to stick around, Dakin volunteers soon realized that Doja was not a feral cat. “She was shy but friendly and affectionate,” her adoption page reads. “If you’re looking to adopt a sweet kitty and don’t mind that she doesn’t have celebrity status as the singer, she might be the purrfect match for you.” Read More: Creating hope together at Dakin Humane Society Those interested in meeting Doja can visit Dakin Humane Society during open adoption hours from Tuesday through Saturday from 12:30-3 p.m. More information can be found online.

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Canadas Logging Industry Devours Forests Crucial to Fighting Climate Change

Canada has long promoted itself globally as a model for protecting one of the country’s most vital natural resources: the world’s largest swath of boreal forest, which is crucial to fighting climate change. But a new study using nearly half a century of data from the provinces of Ontario and Quebec — two of the country’s main commercial logging regions — reveals that harvesting trees has inflicted severe damage on the boreal forest that will be difficult to reverse. Researchers led by a group from Griffith University in Australia found that since 1976 logging in the two provinces has caused the removal of 35.4 million acres of boreal forest, an area roughly the size of New York State. While nearly 56 million acres of well-established trees at least a century old remain in the region, logging has shattered this forest, leaving behind a patchwork of isolated stands of trees that has created a landscape less able to support wildlife, according to the study. And it has made the land more susceptible to wildfire, scientists say.

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Dog walker, dog, violently attacked at Burlington reservoir, police say

BURLINGTON, Mass. — Authorities are investigating an alleged violent attack on a dog walker and his dog at a popular walking path Tuesday morning. Burlington Police say the assault happened around 9:30 a.m. at the Mill Pond Reservoir. Both the victim and his dog were attacked by a suspect riding a black mountain bike and accompanied by two dogs, according to officials. The severity of their injuries is unknown at this time. The suspect is described as a 30-year-old white male with an athletic build. Police believe one of the dogs he was walking was a beagle mix. Anyone with information is asked to call Burlington Detectives at 781-272-1212. Anyone with any information is asked to contact BPD at 781-272-1212.#BurlingtonMA pic.twitter.com/1isDn0xS9N — Burlington Police MA (@burlingtonpd) December 6, 2023 This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW ©2023 Cox Media Group

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What is the 2023 Thanksgiving Google Doodle about?

Anyone headed to Google on Thanksgiving to look up how old Cher is (did you see her perform during Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?!) or how to quickly defrost a still-frozen turkey may have noticed a little pumpkin pie in the corner of the search page or random puzzle pieces floating about. Those are part of the special Thanksgiving 2023 Google Doodle, which features a medley of Thanksgiving images compiled via puzzle pieces. The mostly orange, yellow and brown image uses pumpkins, autumn leaves, a plump turkey, corn and a pumpkin pie missing a slice to spell out GOOGLE. “Thanksgiving day is stuffed with activities,” Google’s “About the Doodle” section explains. “Across the country, people spend the day preparing and eating delicious dishes, watching parades, or participating in fun runs. Many people also lean into the spirit of giving through volunteering with local organizations to prepare and serve free dinners to their communities.” Scroll further down the website and watch a “Behind the Doodle” video that shows several pairs of hands putting a real puzzle together to form the image used to serve as the Google search page’s Doodle. Scroll even further down the page to see a photo of the “Googlers” who assembled the puzzle: Cole Inhofe, Eliot Sanborn, Perla Campos, Caroline Moran, Dan Guan and Matt Oleson. Click here to see Google Doodles from previous Thanksgiving days.

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First Alert forecast: Sunday's winter storm could bring a half a foot of snow or more

The weekend draws near, and our winter storm is on track, heading for us from the Deep South. But not Friday. Instead, we'll sit in the cold — and quiet – through Saturday. Highs will manage the mid and upper 30s and winds will be light. Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters. Snow totals this weekend The event gets underway on Saturday night without much fanfare. There's some wet snow in spots, and there's some mixed rain and snow in others — all rain will fall on Cape Cod and the Islands until the tail end of the storm. Accumulations into Sunday morning will be light — predominately in the Worcester Hills and southern New Hampshire. As we work through late Sunday morning and into the afternoon, the cold will rush out of the north as the storm begins to deepen offshore. Snow forecast for Massacusetts This will accomplish two things: intensify the snow and cause a solid changeover to white as it moves toward the coast. It's in this time frame that things start to stick and the road conditions go downhill. Throughout the afternoon, the snow will fly at varying intensities as the switchover moves to the Cape Cod Canal. We'll get the lion's share of the accumulation you see on the snowfall map at this time, and it's possible that snowfall rates may approach an inch per hour along Interstate 128 and I-495 (and possibly Route 3 late day). Strong winds could cause power outages Winds will also increase along the coast, especially on the Cape and the Islands. Some gusts may top 50 on the Cape, with 40 to 45 miles per hour common elsewhere from Rockport to S. Plymouth. The storm winds down Sunday night — slowly. Flakes could be flying until midnight with negligible accumulations after 8 p.m. We're cold for cleanup late Sunday. Numbing air will fall over the Commonwealth as temperatures fall to the upper 10s and low 20s with wind chills in the single digits and low 10s by morning Monday. We'll catch our breath on Monday, then gear up for a soaking (possibly flooding) rain Wednesday with very strong winds and mild temperatures in the 50s. 'Kitchen sink' storm coming next week If that's not enough, another storm will threaten by the end of next week. Precipitation to be determined. You'll be able to track the storm with our interactive radar on the NBC10 Boston app all weekend. Be safe and have a great weekend!

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Maurice Hines, Tap-Dancing Star With His Brother, Dies at 80

Maurice Hines, a high-wattage song-and-dance man who rose to stardom as a child in a tap-dancing act with his brother, Gregory, then performed on and off Broadway, including in shows he directed and choreographed, died on Friday in Englewood, N.J. He was 80. His death, at the Actors Fund Home, was confirmed by his cousin Richard Nurse. No specific cause was given. The Hines brothers inherited a tap-dance tradition on the wane and, decades later, had a lot to do with bringing it back into the public consciousness. They started dance classes in Harlem when Maurice was 5 and Gregory was 3. After two years, they came under the tutelage of the great tap teacher and choreographer Henry LeTang, who made them into an act modeled after the high-flying Nicholas Brothers.

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National Weather Service confirms damage in Mass., Conn., RI consistent with tornado

The National Weather Service has confirmed that damage in parts of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island as a result of Wednesday's storms was consistent with a tornado. "Survey team confirmed damage that took place in Killingly CT, Foster, Foster RI, Glocester RI, Lincoln RI & North Attleboro MA was tornadic," the agency said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Team is still determining if it was a continuous path or separate touchdowns, a final EF-rating, path length & width." The survey is still ongoing, the weather service said. A more detailed summary will be released once the survey team has concluded its survey. 130 PM Damage Survey Update | Survey team confirmed damage that took place in Killingly CT, Foster RI, Glocester RI, Lincoln RI & North Attleboro MA was tornadic. Team is still determining if it was a continuous path or separate touchdowns, a final EF-rating, path length & width. — NWS Boston (@NWSBoston) September 14, 2023 Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters. Tornado warnings were posted Wednesday for communities in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, and more heavy rain opened up sinkholes and brought devastating flooding to several areas. The National Weather Service in Boston had said Wednesday that radar data and videos indicated that a likely tornado damaged trees and power lines in Rhode Island and Connecticut. In Lincoln, Rhode Island, photos taken after the storm showed that at least one roof damaged and the press box at the high school stadium tipped into the bleachers. Video obtained by NBC10 Boston showed a possible tornado near North Central State Airport in Smithfield, Rhode Island, and a funnel cloud was spotted in Newport, Rhode Island as well. Prior to Wednesday, there had already been 14 tornadoes reported across New England this year, including seven in Massachusetts alone.

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Trump Prosecutor in Georgia Seeks to Avoid Testifying in Colleagues Divorce Case

Fani T. Willis, the district attorney prosecuting the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump, is trying to quash a subpoena seeking her testimony in the divorce proceedings of a special prosecutor she hired to manage the case. A court filing last week accused Ms. Willis of having a romantic relationship with the prosecutor, Nathan J. Wade. The motion containing the accusation was filed by Michael Roman, one of Mr. Trump’s 14 co-defendants in the criminal case. The motion argues that the relationship, which it provided no proof of, amounted to a conflict of interest; it seeks to have Mr. Wade, Ms. Willis and her office dismissed from the case. Mr. Roman’s lawyer has said that sealed court records in the pending divorce case between Mr. Wade’ and his wife, Joycelyn, contain documentation of his relationship with Ms. Willis. Ms. Wade’s lawyer subpoenaed Ms. Willis last week, requiring her to be deposed on Jan. 23.

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Some Things I Think I Think: Job security thing of the past in Boston and more

* If you’re the manager or coach of one of the Boston pro teams these days, perhaps it’s best not to buy any green bananas. The Patriots’ decision to “part ways” with legendary coach Bill Belichick means that Alex Cora is now the longest tenured of the group — and that’s true even if you start the clock with his rehiring after the 2020 season. Both Jim Montgomery and Joe Mazzulla are both halfway through their second seasons, while new Patriots coach Jerod Mayo will be formally introduced later this week. All of which seems very different than, say, 15 years ago when championships were being won with regularity, the champagne was always flowing and Belichick, Terry Francona, Doc Rivers and Claude Julien looked like they were lifers in town. Eventually, of course, the bell tolls for everyone. The shelf life for managers/coaches seems shorter than ever, with more money at stake and expectations adjusted accordingly. Even Cora, who is revered by ownership, may have a relatively short leash. Two straight last-place finishes will do that. It’s hard to imagine he could survive a third, especially since that would require an extension. And even if he does survive, he could well elect to pursue free agency. Craig Counsell put himself on the open market last fall and landed a five-year deal that pays him $8 million per season — or, about three times what Cora is currently earning. Cora has a ring, and Counsell doesn’t. Think Cora hasn’t considered that and assessed his options? * The decision by the Red Sox to scuttle the “Town Hall” portion of the next week’s Winter Weekend in Springfield can’t come as a surprise. Last January, principal owner John Henry, team president Sam Kennedy and then chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom were hooted and razzed by fans in attendance, though NESN later edited out much of the negative reaction in its rebroadcast. If only the team spent much as energy and time on improving the roster this winter as it did studiously avoiding contact with its paying customers. * I’m not sure we’re appreciating David Pastrnak enough. Not only is Pastrnak obviously an elite goal scorer, with 86 goals in the last season and a half, but he’s also made himself into a more responsible two-way player. The giveaways are down from a season ago — though, as with all other scorers, he’s going to have more than the average player because of time on ice and the amount of times he handles the puck — and he’s a far better player in his own end than he once was. Add in his somewhat zany personality, and his penchant for interesting fashion choices, and it feels like Pastrnak should be an ever bigger star than he already is. * Seems like there was plenty of dysfunction at One Patriot Place in recent seasons: secret succession plans, plenty of infighting, and various factions working against one another. No surprise, then, that the team’s play on the field reflected that behind-the-scenes chaos. As that noted pigskin philosopher Leo Tolstoy once wrote: “Happy (teams) are all alike; every unhappy (team) is unhappy its own way.” BET ANYTHING GET $250 BONUS ESPN BET CLAIM OFFER MASS 21+ and present in MA, NJ, PA, VA, MD, WV, TN, LA, KS, KY, CO, AZ, IL, IA, IN, OH, MI. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. **** * Without Brandon Carlo, Linus Ullmark and Matt Poitras for the foreseeable future, Montgomery has his work cut out for him. So far, Montgomery has proven to have all the answers — in the regular season, that is. This stretch may well be his toughest test yet behind the bench. * As seemed inevitable last spring when it was first publicized, the NFL’s decision to farm out a playoff game to a streaming service is not going over well, and the outcry grew louder as the kickoff drew closer. Sports fans long ago made peace with the fact that some of the biggest games would be shown on cable only, but moving Saturday’s Miami-Kansas City game to Peacock is a whole other level of avarice and greed. The fact that 96 out of the top 100 TV telecasts in 2023 were NFL games wasn’t enough for the league — they couldn’t resist the additional $110 million payout from NBC to show the game where only a small percentage of fans can watch. The league is proverbially “too big too fail,” but that sure doesn’t stop it from making disastrous PR mistakes like this one. * The footage showing Nick Saban being escorted to his car in an otherwise empty parking lot, behind a guarded gate, by two Alabama state troopers, should be shown on an endless loop on America’s Funniest Home Videos. This was a football coach leaving the workplace, not a head of state navigating through a war zone. Talk about self-importance. * I forget: who appointed Tony Dungy the Unofficial Conscience of the NFL? Dungy’s moralizing long ago became tiresome. He was convinced that the league would implode if a player came out as gay, but was only too happy to throw his support behind Ray Lewis, implicated in a double murder. Now, Dungy is railing against Taylor Swift, claiming that most NFL fans are “disenchanted” because Swift’s relationship with Travis Kelce is unfairly “taking away from what really happens on the field.” Yup, the NFL is really scuffling, coach. Save the holier-than-thou schtick for the pulpit, please. $200 INSTANT BONUS DRAFTKINGS MASS CLAIM OFFER BET $5, GET $200 BONUS BET FANDUEL MASS CLAIM OFFER BET $50, GET $250 BONUS CAESARS MASS CLAIM OFFER $1,000 FIRST-BET BONUS BETMGM MASS CLAIM OFFER MA only. 21+. Gambling Problem? If you or a loved one is experiencing problems with gambling, please call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org for 24/7 support. LiveChat with a GameSense Advisor at GameSenseMA.com or call 1-800-GAM-1234 MA Gambling Helpline. MA only. 21+. Gambling Problem? If you or a loved one is experiencing problems with gambling, please call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org for 24/7 support. LiveChat with a GameSense Advisor at GameSenseMA.com or call 1-800-GAM-1234 MA Gambling Helpline. * Pet peeve of the week: fans who feel the need to pound on the plexiglass at hockey games. This proves....what? Even watching on TV, the resulting noise is highly grating. Can’t imagine what it would be like sitting next to that fan in-person. * So much for that undefeated home season for the Celtics. * Movie recommendation of the week: Anatomy of a Fall, a French-made courtroom thriller that will have you sucked in from the opening minutes. * The Red Sox continue to guard the identity of their third base coach like it’s some state secret. A month before pitchers and catchers report to Fort Myers, the Red Sox refuse to reveal their complete coaching assignments for the upcoming season, even though any changes will be internal. * Lastly, condolences to family and friends of Joe Giuliotti, who passed away Friday. Giuliotti was a giant in our business and covered both the Bruins and Red Sox in his long career with the Boston Herald. He was a newspaper man’s newspaper man — old school to the end, armed with great news instincts and endless contacts throughout the game. I’ll never forget how he welcomed a young reporter to the beat and unselfishly showed him how the job should be done. RIP, old friend.

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Red Sox look like theyre giving up on Shohei Ohtani (report)

In a tournament that featured more than 50 teams from throughout Massachusetts, two local wrestlers won their weight classes during Mahar’s Senators All-Girls Tournament. Samantha Bertini led Ludlow to a sixth-place finish on the day as she took first in the 107-pound weight class. Bertini won via fall in each of her four bouts, defeating wrestlers from Boston Latin, Leominster, Wellesley and Scituate en route to winning her weight class.

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Same-Sex Behavior Evolved in Many Mammals to Reduce Conflict, Study Suggests

In more than 1,500 animal species, from crickets and sea urchins to bottlenose dolphins and bonobos, scientists have observed sexual encounters between members of the same sex. Some researchers have proposed that this behavior has existed since the dawn of the animal kingdom. But the authors of a new study of thousands of mammalian species paint a different picture, arguing that same-sex sexual behavior evolved when mammals started living in social groups. Although the behavior does not produce offspring to carry on the animals’ genes, it could offer other evolutionary advantages, such as smoothing over conflicts, the researchers proposed. “It may contribute to establishing and maintaining positive social relationships,” said José Gómez, an evolutionary biologist at the Experimental Station of Arid Zones in Almería, Spain, and an author of the new study. But Dr. Gómez cautioned that the study, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, could not shed much light on sexual orientation in humans. “The type of same-sex sexual behavior we have used in our analysis is so different from that observed in humans that our study is unable to provide an explanation for its expression today,” he said.

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Abbott Signs Law Allowing Texas to Arrest Migrants, Setting Up Federal Showdown

As he campaigns for another term in the White House, Donald Trump sounds like no other presidential candidate in U.S. history. He has made baldly antidemocratic statements, praising autocratic leaders like China’s Xi Jinping and continuing to claim that the 2020 election was stolen. “I don’t consider us to have much of a democracy right now,” Trump said. He has threatened to use the power of the presidency against his political opponents, including President Biden and Biden’s family. Trump frequently insults his opponents in personal terms, calling them “vermin,” as well as “thugs, horrible people, fascists, Marxists, sick people.” He has made dozens of false or misleading statements. He has advocated violence, suggesting that an Army general who clashed with him deserved the death penalty and that shoplifters should be shot. And he describes U.S. politics in apocalyptic terms, calling the 2024 election “our final battle” and describing himself as his supporters’ “retribution.”

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New England winter storm: These maps show how much snow to expect

Seasonably cold air will overtake the Northeast later this week, setting us up for what could be our first significant snowfall of the season. With cold air in place, much of Southern New England will see “mostly a snow event Sunday,” said Globe meteorologist Dave Epstein. Weather models are forecasting the snow to begin falling late Saturday night and into a good part of Sunday across Southern New England, according to the National Weather Service in Norton. The Greater Boston area will turn blustery and much colder Thursday night into Saturday before a strong low brings potential “plowable” snow later in the evening Saturday.

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Beer Nut: Is beer fading?

Is beer fading? Over the past few weeks, I’ve written about both how beer fared in 2023 and some thoughts on what’s in store for 2024. While I remain cautiously optimistic overall, some clouds gathering on the horizon can still give me pause. One such specter was the focus of a recent story on Fox News Digital by Anders Hagstrom. The piece noted that Americans drank less beer in 2023 than any other year this century. No matter what the extenuating circumstances, that fact can’t be seen as a positive for beer fans. Of course, craft beer still only makes up a small percentage of the overall U.S. beer market. So part of the 2023 decline has to be blamed on the boycott against Bud Light. You might recall that the boycott was fueled by conservative reaction to Bud Light’s sponsorship agreement with transgender activist and social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney. The brand celebrated Muvaney’s year of identifying as a woman by featuring cans with the influencer’s face. The backlash caused Bud Light’s sales to drop 30% from 2022. But even a dent in one brand, despite how big it is, certainly can’t account for beer hitting a 23-year low. As a recent story in the Washington Examiner noted, a shift in the tastes of younger generations is also eroding beer sales. The story quoted a survey by data firm MRI-Simmons that showed that Generation Z is less likely to imbibe alcohol at all: They drank the lowest amount of alcohol among legal adults in the country, with just 58% respondents saying they had consumed alcohol in the past six months and just 56% of that group had drunk actual beer. It seems obvious that the legalization of marijuana in many states has also pilfered some market share from beer. Again, the younger generation seems to be gravitating toward weed over booze. And predictions from market analysts say sales will not level off anytime soon, certainly not in 2024. But everything is relative: Considering beer enjoyed more than a decade of extremely robust sales, it can probably take a hit. And the main indicator of beer’s flatlining was pointed out in a Slate article midway last year: Beer sales aren’t horrible; it just has lost market share to other types of alcohol. Last year was the first time beer came in second place for market share: Spirits edged out beer 42.9% to 41.2% as far as market share. So let’s not think the sky is falling (and it certainly seems like Skye Vodka isn’t falling), but instead let’s keep celebrating the Golden Age of Beer we live in, by raising a glass – of beer, of course.

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Mass. weather: Heres when it could stop snowing and raining on Tuesday

Snowfall across Massachusetts has left much of the commonwealth in a wet state, but that could end as the evening goes on. The National Weather Service has so far found that some areas saw at least 4 inches of snow, like Rehoboth, or close to it, such as in Waltham, Burlington and Ashburnham. As the day has gone on, temperatures have remained low and should stay low going into Wednesday, with highs anticipated to be in the teens or low 20s. A new system is then expected to roll in to bring slushy conditions caused by freezing rain, particularly along the Boston to Providence corridor. Towards the interior, these same conditions could turn back into snow, forecasters said. More snow could add less than 1 inch or at least 2 inches of snow, specifically along the border with New Hampshire. As this happens, forecasters anticipate precipitation — be it snow, rain, freezing rain or sleet — to end between 7 and 8 p.m. After the precipitation is gone, forecasters see a chance for winds to pick up. Gusty winds between 20 and 25 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph, should be making its way from the west overnight. Standing water is due to freeze as temperatures drop. Conditions on Wednesday should be dry, cold and blustery, with the potential for moisture to return on Friday.

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How to watch the new episode of The Family Chantel, stream for free

A new episode of “The Family Chantel” will air on TLC on Monday, Dec. 4 at 9 p.m. ET. A new episode will air each Monday at the same time. Those without cable can catch “The Family Chantel” for free either on Philo, on FuboTV or on DirecTVStream, each of which offer a free trial to new users. “90 Day Fiancé fan favorites Pedro and Chantel weather the ups and downs of marriage as they try to come together with their feisty extended family members in a unique modern family,” TLC wrote in a description of the show. In the new episode, “Pedro discovers alarming information about Scott; Chantel meets up with an old friend who knows a lot about Pedro’s past; Lidia and Nicole plot their revenge after learning that Karen is having them investigated.” How do I watch “The Family Chantel” if I don’t have cable? Viewers can stream the new episode on Philo, FuboTV and DirecTV Stream, which all offer a free trial for new users. What is Philo? Philo is an over-the-top internet live TV streaming service that offers 60+ entertainment and lifestyle channels, like AMC, BET, MTV, Comedy Central and more, for the budget-friendly price of $25/month. What is DirecTV Stream? The streaming platform offers a plethora of content including streaming the best of live and On Demand, starting with more than 75 live TV channels. What is FuboTV? FuboTV is an over-the-top internet live TV streaming service that offers more than 100 channels, such as sports, news, entertainment and local channels.

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Massachusetts police apologize after officer searched a middle school for LGBTQ book - Boston News, Weather, Sports

(CNN) — Police in western Massachusetts apologized Thursday after an officer was sent to a middle school to search for a copy of “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, following a complaint. On December 8, a plainclothes officer was escorted into a classroom at W.E.B. Dubois Regional Middle School toward the end of the school day to search for the book, Great Barrington Police Chief Paul Storti said in a statement sent to CNN. “After a brief conversation with the teacher, the officer was advised that the book in question was not there and could not be accounted for at that time,” the statement said. “As the Chief of Police for the Great Barrington Police Department, I apologize to anyone who was negatively effected by our involvement at the W.E.B. Dubois Middle School on December 8, 2023,” Storti said. Police said they had received a complaint that day from someone “who witnessed what they perceived to be concerning illustrations” in a book given to students by a teacher at the middle school. The person, who authorities did not identify, shared a photo of an illustration that depicted animated characters performing sexual acts on each other, police said. School officials and police later determined the illustration was part of Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” Storti told CNN. The graphic memoir examines the non-binary author’s journey with identity, and it has been one of the most banned or challenged books from school libraries in recent years. In a previous interview with CNN, Kobabe encouraged people who describe the memoir as inappropriate or pornography to read the whole book. “Read the whole thing and judge for yourself, don’t just go based on the one or two tiny clips you’ve seen on social media,” Kobabe told CNN. Storti told CNN his department had never responded to similar complaints before. In a press release, he said that “because this complaint was made directly to the police department, we are obligated and have a duty to examine the complaint further.” “Over the years, our relationship with our schools has been positive and collaborative, so together we worked with the school to try to navigate this sensitive situation. If our involvement caused distrust and alarm, that was not our intention. I promise you our actions were not meant to disenfranchise anyone or influence school curriculum,” Storti said. The police department and the Berkshire County District Attorney Timothy Shugrue determined the matter should be referred to the school district, Storti said. In a message sent to the school community Tuesday, Berkshire Hills Regional School District Superintendent Peter Dillon and Stephen Bannon, chair of the Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee, apologized for how the incident was handled by school officials. “Faced with an unprecedented police investigation of what should be a purely educational issue, we tried our best to serve the interests of students, families, teachers, and staff. In hindsight, we would have approached that moment differently. We are sorry. We can do better to refine and support our existing policies. We are committed to supporting all our students, particularly vulnerable populations,” Dillon and Bannon wrote. The district plans to hold several meetings to discuss the incident, including at a previously scheduled school committee meeting in January, Dillon and Bannon said. Ruth Bourquin, senior managing attorney at the ACLU of Massachusetts, condemned the actions of police saying, “This incident is deeply concerning, and a serious escalation of attempts by a vocal minority to ban books that are by and about LGBTQ people, communities of color, and other marginalized groups.” (Copyright (c) 2023 CNN. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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Mild air starts the weekend, snow ends it for some

Early this summer, while many Americans were gathering for Fourth of July barbecues, the Tallac Hotshots were in triple-digit heat in Arizona, fighting a wildfire for 14 straight days and sleeping on the ground next to their trucks. The federal firefighting crew had only three days off before darting to a fire raging in a thickly wooded evergreen forest in Oregon. They then decamped to the Klamath National Forest across the border in California, working overnight in dense and steep terrain filled with poison oak. After a few days of rest, they were dropped by helicopter in early September into some of the most remote wilderness in Northern California to battle a fire blazing despite near-freezing temperatures.

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News helicopter from northeast ABC affiliate crashes, killing pilot and photographer

A news helicopter from Philadelphia crashed Tuesday night in a heavily wooded area of Burlington County, New Jersey, killing the pilot and a photographer, WPVI’s news station, 6ABC, said on its website early Wednesday. “We know that a pilot and a photographer from our news team went down with Chopper 6 while returning from an assignment at the Jersey Shore,” the news station said. The crash occurred shortly after 8 p.m. near Quaker Bridge Atsion Road and Mullica Hill Road, a section of Wharton State Forest in Washington Township. The helicopter was a 2013 American Eurocopter AS-350A-STAR, which 6abc leases from U.S. Helicopters Inc. based in North Carolina, the news station said. The names or the conditions of the victims were not released. “They have a long history with our station. They’ve been working as part of the Action News team for years,” Katherine Scott, general assignment reporter for 6ABC, said in a report from Washington Township. New Jersey State Police located the wreckage deep in a wooded area and the Federal Aviation Administration has been notified, according to the station.

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Man arrested after guns, drugs, and alcohol found during traffic stop in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) - A Springfield man was arrested after officers found guns, drugs, and an open container of alcohol during a traffic stop Wednesday night. Springfield police officers saw a car driving with a headlight out on state street and pulled the car over. Police identified the driver as 33-year-old Leonard Naylor and immediately saw an open bottle of beer on the floorboard of the car. Officers began to search the car and found a stolen loaded gun that had been reported missing out of Chicopee and crack cocaine. Naylor who was convicted of gun charges back on 2020 was immediately taken into custody and now faces even more drug and gun charges. Copyright 2024. Western Mass News (WGGB/WSHM). All rights reserved.

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Opinion | Theres a Bomb Under the Table

Alfred Hitchcock explained the nature of cinematic terror with a story about the bomb under the table. People are sitting around a table having a mundane conversation about baseball when — boom! — a bomb goes off, instantly killing everyone. You’ve momentarily surprised the audience. But what if, Hitchcock asked, we are shown beforehand that the bomb is there? “In these conditions this same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the secret,” Hitchcock explained to his fellow director François Truffaut. While everyone is just sitting around chatting, the viewer wants to shout: “Don’t sit there talking about baseball! There’s a bomb!” “The conclusion,” Hitchcock said, “is that whenever possible the public must be informed.” I bring this up because we know there’s a bomb under the table — the threat of a second Donald Trump presidency. And we have a fairly good idea of the crippling destruction that will ensue. Yet here we are, still talking about baseball. “A shadow looms over the world,” The Economist noted in a recent editorial about the year ahead. “That a Trump victory next November is a coin-toss probably is beginning to sink in.”

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New biomedical institute launching in Cambridge

Backed by deep-pocketed investors including Steve Pagliuca, the former co-chair of Bain Capital and Celtics co-owner, and high-tech mogul Michael Dell, Arena has already lured top scientists from academic labs with lucrative compensation packages, but so far has publicly named only a few. The institute, called Arena BioWorks, will put drug discovery and company creation under one roof, upending the traditional model where academic research and venture-backed drug development are separate. A team of high-powered scientists and billionaire investors said Friday that they’re launching a biomedical institute in Cambridge’s Kendall Square with $500 million in private funding with the aim of shortening the path from research breakthroughs to life-saving medicines. Advertisement But already Arena’s hiring spree has raised some concerns of a brain drain at universities, leaving them to struggle to compete for the top researchers and train new generations of scientists. Arena has been in the planning stages for more than two years. For the past six months, it has operated in stealth mode at 399 Binney Street, near the Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, with an initial staff of about 50 scientists, most plucked from academic labs at universities in Massachusetts and across the country. It’s being led by cofounder and chief executive Stuart Schreiber, a Harvard scientist who was also one of the founders of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Schreiber recently stepped away from his Broad role and Harvard teaching post to devote his time to building Arena. On Friday, a Broad spokesperson, Allessandra DiCorato, said the institute was “excited to see this new addition to Kendall Square“ and would explore opportunities to collaborate with Arena. “The world needs both nonprofit research institutes and for-profit companies to power progress and improve human health,” she said. Schreiber and his Arena colleagues have enticed scientists to leave tenured posts at universities for bigger salaries than those offered by academic labs, which rely heavily on government grants. Arena scientists will deploy next-generation technologies, from gene editing to machine learning, to tackle cancers, brain diseases, immune system disorders, and maladies linked to aging. Advertisement “We fund the basic science, we build drug discovery capabilities with a laser focus on disease, and try to get at unique understandings of disease we think is translatable” into medicines, Schreiber said. “It turns out that human biology and fixing disease is really, really, really hard . . . [but] we can get the very best academic researchers and biotech researchers and have them work on problems that can’t be solved in a short time frame.” Two other Arena cofounders will join Schreiber on the institute’s management committee: Pagliuca, who will be executive chair, and Tom Cahill, founder of venture capital firm Newpath Partners. Arena will launch with a core scientific team that includes Schreiber and J. Keith Joung, an innovator in the gene editing field who left a job at Massachusetts General Hospital to join Arena. The institute said it will announce other scientists on its team at a later date. Pagliuca said the idea for Arena, which takes its name from a Teddy Roosevelt quote lionizing “the man who is actually in the arena,” sprang from a 2020 conversation with Schreiber and Cahill. The trio, who had advised the state and federal governments on fighting COVID, asked whether the warp-speed development and rollout of vaccines could be replicated in more normal times, Pagliuca said. Advertisement “We learned that discovery can be a lot quicker in a crisis,” he said. “Why can’t it be a lot quicker anyway so we can cure more diseases?” That, they concluded, would require overhauling the current research model where basic discoveries at academic labs are turned over to other organizations to commercialize. Arena plans to compensate scientists in part from revenue generated by all of the companies it spawns, not just those in the scientists’ research areas, said Pagliuca, who has invested in health care for three decades. Schreiber said the $500 million commitment from Arena’s investment team is just the start. Arena is talking to other investors about its plan to combine basic research with launching companies Up to 30 percent of the profits from the companies it creates will go to investors, Schreiber said. The remainder will be used to compensate scientists and company employees, support Arena operations, and bankroll an endowment to fund ongoing research. “The model would enable continued funding beyond 10 years,” Schreiber said. Schreiber’s involvement in a new for-profit venture was rumored for months. In September, the Broad confirmed that he was scaling back his work at the renowned biomedical center and “transitioning his status . . . as he enters the next phase of his career.” But the Broad had provided no further details. Arena’s model, if embraced more widely, could disrupt the teaching and incentive structures at traditional institutions, potentially reducing reliance on university technology transfer and venture capital outlays. Advertisement Ruth Lehmann, head of the MIT-affiliated Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, a nonprofit, said she was disappointed that veteran Arena scientists were leaving academia and depriving students and post-doctoral researchers of the mentoring essential to producing a new generation of scientists. “Somebody has to educate the next generation, and that’s happening at universities,” said Lehmann, who also teaches biology at MIT. The new profit-driven entity, she said, “was creating haves and have-nots, and it’s a shame that universities have to say now that we’re the have-nots.” Robert Langer, the prolific inventor and biomedical engineering professor at MIT, has been involved in scores of startup biotechs. He agreed with Lehmann about the importance of nurturing younger scientists in academic settings, estimating that 400 of his former students and postdocs are now professors around the world. But “I don’t think it’s necessarily an either or,” said Langer, whose lab is located in the nonprofit Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. “I think what the Whitehead does is fantastic, but this is great too.” Langer said he just wants to see money going into cutting-edge research “that can save people’s lives.” Arena has set up shop in a neighborhood chockablock with nonprofit research institutes affiliated with universities. Among them are the Broad, the Whitehead, the Koch, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and the Johann Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics. The new institute will be fueled by a group of investors that, in addition to Pagliuca, and Dell, founder of Dell Computer, include Michael Chambers, founder of life sciences manufacturer Aldevron; Jim Breyer, founder of venture firm Breyer Capital; and, Elisabeth DeLuca, the widow of Subway cofounder Fred DeLuca. Advertisement Robert Weisman can be reached at robert.weisman@globe.com. Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jonathan.saltzman@globe.com.

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Japan Becomes the Latest Country to Land on the Moon

A Japanese robotic spacecraft successfully set down on the moon on Friday — but its solar panels were not generating power, which will cut the length of time it will be able to operate to a few hours. With this achievement, Japan is now the fifth country to send a spacecraft that made a soft landing on the moon. For JAXA, Japan’s space agency which currently operates a variety of robotic science missions in space, this was the first time it had tried to set down on a planetary body elsewhere in the solar system. The spacecraft, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, was intended to demonstrate precision landing, within a football field of a targeted destination rather than an uncertainty of miles that most landers are capable of. The technology could also be useful for future missions like those in NASA’s Artemis program. Japan is a partner in that program, which will send astronauts back to the moon in the coming years.

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Boys Basketball Scoreboard: Angel Castillo, Athol hold off Frontier & more

The Athol boys basketball team defeated Frontier by just two points Thursday night to remain undefeated. Behind the 50-48 win, Athol moved to 5-0 on the season.

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Subbing plant-based milk for dairy options is a healthy decision

Re “Cow. Almond. Oat. Hemp. Oat. Flaxseed. Pea, even! Which milk to choose?” (Food, Dec. 20): As a dietitian, I recommend fighting heart disease, breast and prostate cancers, and other health conditions by choosing a plant milk instead of dairy milk. A review I co-authored last year looks at the health implications of plant and animal milks. Dairy milk contains more fat and saturated fat than most plant milks. The review cites a meta-analysis showing that higher milk consumption is associated with a greater risk of death from heart disease. Research shows that replacing dairy fat with vegetable fats or high-quality carbohydrates, such as whole grains, can help reduce heart disease risk. Cow’s milk also contains estrogens and increases insulin-like growth factor 1 levels, which are hormones linked to breast and prostate cancers, while soy milk contains isoflavones, which are associated with reductions in both prostate and breast cancer risk.

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Blocked Toilets Close Eton, Boarding School for Britains Elite Sons

“Following extensive flooding in the region, the Thames Water sewers which serve the town of Eton flooded,” the school said in a statement to The New York Times on Wednesday. “Therefore boys could not return for the scheduled start of term on 9 January, and the College has moved to remote teaching. We are in regular contact with Thames Water as they seek to resolve the situation, and we look forward to welcoming boys back as soon as possible.” The statement discreetly avoided using the word “toilet.” “The sewers in the center of Eton won’t cope with the arrival of nearly 1,350 boys,” it said in a slightly more frank letter to parents reported by Bloomberg and other news media outlets. It costs 50,000 British pounds per year, or about $63,500, for boys ages 13 to 18 to attend the school just outside London. There has been significant flooding in England this month after heavy rainfall. The Thames in some places reached water levels not seen in a decade. The utility company Thames Water had warned earlier in the week that the weeks of rainfall and high ground water levels had “put huge pressure on our sewers and pumping stations. Water is entering our network above and below ground, and flows from flooded rivers are adding to the problem in some areas.” In a statement about the Eton closure on Wednesday to The Press Association, the company said: “We are sorry to staff and students who have been impacted. Our teams will be carrying out a cleanup in the coming days once the river levels recede.”

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Mass. State Lottery winner: Lucky customer at Lucky Farms in Worcester wins $100,000

On the Friday before Christmas morning, a lucky customer at Lucky Farms Smoke Shop in Worcester won $100,000 in the Massachusetts State Lottery. The winning $100,000 ticket was from the “300X” scratch ticket game, which still has 68 prizes valued at $100,000 remaining as of Dec. 23. There are also six $1 million prizes out of an original eight possible, and none of the game’s three $15 million prizes have been claimed. The winning ticket was sold at Lucky Farms Smoke Shop in Worcester at 759 Grafton St. Overall, there were at least 588 lottery prizes worth $600 or more won or claimed in Massachusetts on Friday, including seven in Springfield, six in Boston and 11 in Worcester. The Massachusetts State Lottery releases a full list of all the winning tickets each day. The list only includes winning tickets worth more than $600. The two largest lottery prizes won in the state of Massachusetts so far in 2023 were $33 million and $31 million Mega Millions jackpot prizes. The tickets were each sold a week apart. The $33 million ticket for the Tuesday, Jan. 24 drawing was purchased from a Stop & Shop in Belchertown. The winner came forward to claim the prize on March 1 through the Skylark Group Trust. The $31 million Mega Millions jackpot ticket was won on Jan. 31. The winning ticket was bought in Woburn from a Gibbs gas station, and the winner claimed the prize on March 8 through S & L Trust.

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Business Monday ETC: Nov. 27, 2023

Girls Inc. of the Valley is looking to the community for support as it launches its 2023 Giving Tuesday fundraiser. All donations from Giving Tuesday, the global day of giving, will help Girls Inc. of the Valley continue to offer programs to youth in the Valley at no cost to their families. In addition to raising funds on Giving Tuesday, Girls Inc. participants will be giving back to their community. Members of the Girls Inc. Teen Center will be distributing menstrual hygiene kits at the program center and throughout Holyoke on Giving Tuesday, Nov. 28, as part of their ongoing Project Red initiative. The online Giving Tuesday fundraising page can be found here. Donations will be accepted through Sunday, Dec. 31. **************************************************************** The Polish National Credit Union announced a donation of $25,000 to the Chicopee Boys and Girls Club. These funds will support the construction of the club’s Teen Center. The Teen Center will be built across from the Chicopee Boys and Girls Club’s main building located at 664 Meadow St., Chicopee. The project is anticipated to be ready by late spring 2024. ****************************************************************** LiftTruck Parts & Service Inc., a local, family-owned business, has launched a “Fill a Forklift” fundraiser to benefit Head Start in the eastern and western parts of Massachusetts, Head Start Brockton and HCS Head Start (Holyoke, Chicopee, Springfield) Head Start. LiftTruck will be collecting monetary donations at their Brockton and West Springfield locations and accepting donations online through December. LiftTruck Brockton is located at 140 Manley St., Brockton, and LiftTruck West Springfield is at 20 Parkside St, West Springfield. ************************************************************** The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation announced the launch of a new grant program, Supporting Health Coverage Enrollment Efforts, that will support organizations statewide that help eligible people secure and maintain MassHealth (Medicaid) or other insurance coverage. The foundation awarded a total of $600,000 to 10 community-based organizations across the state. The grant program prioritizes community-based organizations that primarily serve people who have been socially, economically, culturally or racially marginalized and areas of the state that are in need of stronger enrollment support. Two Western Massachusetts organizations received grants: Ecu-Health Care, a nonprofit based in North Adams, which will provide outreach, education and application enrollment assistance to uninsured and underinsured individuals across Northern Berkshire County. Hilltown Community Health Centers, located in Western Massachusetts, which reach some of the most rural areas of the commonwealth and will focus on unhoused individuals, immigrant populations, senior citizens and families needing assistance. ************************************************************* Canna Provisions was voted by the Lee Chamber of Commerce as Corporate Citizen of the Year for 2023. It is the first time the nearly 100-year-old chamber has voted for a cannabis company for the award. The award recognizes a local corporate citizen whose generosity in charitable giving impacts the region being served. ********************************************************* Atlas Chiropractic of Holyoke recently presented a check for over $8,000 to Jennie Adamczyk of Providence Ministries at Atlas Chiropractic’s office on Dwight Street. For the past 11 years Atlas Chiropractic, Dr James McCann, staff and his practice members have donated cash (and food — previously) for the needy as part of its Annual Patient Appreciation Event, where all practice members are treated in exchange for a cash donation or previously canned goods and non-perishable food items. Patients voluntarily make an appointment during the month-long event. In exchange for their donation, members receive chiropractic adjustments. First-time patients were provided with a consultation and exam, including any necessary X-rays, and neurological scans for $99 (not the usual $220). This money was also to be donated in full to Kate’s Kitchen. Last year, Atlas practice members donated $4,151. *********************************************************** North Brookfield Savings Bank was named among the top banks in the United States by The Institute for Extraordinary Banking. The bank was recognized with the Institute’s Banky Award for its commitment to strong community banking. ******************************************************** On Nov. 20, Marcotte Ford became the first Ford dealership in Massachusetts to complete the installation of electric vehicle charging stations on its campus. Marcotte Ford invested over $1 million for the installation, which includes two level-2 electric vehicle charging stations and two level-3 electric vehicle charging stations. In attendance for a ribbon-cutting ceremony were Holyoke Mayor Joshua A. Garcia, Holyoke Chamber President Jordan Hart, Holyoke Planning and Economic Development Department, Holyoke City Council members, regional Ford representatives, Holyoke Gas and Electric, JM Electrical and ChargePoint. Marcotte Ford is located at 1025 Main St., Holyoke.

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Three Questions About Iowa

So far, the 2024 presidential campaign looks to be the least competitive in decades. The incumbent president is likely to win the Democratic nomination easily, while a former president seems to be running away with the Republican nomination. Of course, this conclusion is based only on opinion polls, rather than actual voting. By tonight, however, voting will have begun, at least on the Republican side, thanks to the Iowa caucuses. Today’s newsletter offers a preview, in the form of three questions. 1. What’s the biggest story tonight? Don’t get distracted by secondary issues. The big question is whether Donald Trump wins the landslide victory that polls have forecast. If he does, it will be the clearest sign yet that he is on pace to join Richard Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt and only a handful of earlier politicians who won the nomination of a major party at least three-times. Recent polls have shown Trump receiving around 50 percent of the Republican vote in Iowa, with Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis both at 20 percent or below. The only other significant candidate remaining is Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been polling below 10 percent.

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Patriots get another reminder of their failure at drafting WRs

Jerod Mayo isn’t just looking at external candidates to fill his defensive coordinator vacancy. Current defensive line coach DeMarcus Covington will also be getting an interview for the opening, according to Jonathan Jones of CBS. The 34-year-old has been with the Patriots since 2017, and was awarded his own position group two years later. Covington began with outside linebackers in 2019 and has been coaching the defensive line since 2020. BetMGM BET $5, GET $158! BONUS BETS CLAIM OFFER Promo code: MASS158 STATES: MA, KY, AZ, CO, IA, IL, IN, KS, LA, MD, MI, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TN, VA. Visit BetMGM.com for Terms and Conditions. 21 years of age or older to wager. MA Only. New Customer Offer. All promotions are subject to qualification and eligibility requirements. Rewards issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets. Bonus bets expire 7 days from issuance. In Partnership with MGM Springfield. Play it smart from the start with GameSense. GameSenseMA.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org. Just last season, Mayo himself said he’d learned quite a bit from working with Covington. “Coach Covington, he’s taught me a lot,” Mayo said in 2022. “He’s climbed the ranks so he’s seen it all from drawing cards to running a room. He’s one of those guys that really tries to gain the heart, the mind and the soul of the players. I think all the guys respect him. He’s also played on the offensive side of the ball so he knows a lot about that as well. Definitely a huge resource for this team.” Before jumping into the coaching world, Covington played college football as a wideout for Samford, an FCS school in Alabama. Highly thought of within the walls of Gillette Stadium, Covington has landed on NFL Network’s “Future Coaches To Watch” list in back-to-back seasons. He also interviewed for defensive coordinator jobs with the Cardinals and Chargers last offseason. Covington is the fourth known candidate for New England’s defensive coordinator opening, as Mayo is also reportedly interviewing Saints LB coach Michael Hodges, Broncos DBs coach Christian Parker and Panthers LB coach Tem Lukabu.

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Why Bill Belichick Fit In So Well, for So Long, in New England

It is hard to make an impression, and even harder to make history in a place as old and momentous as New England. The measuring stick is so high. But Bill Belichick, who departed Thursday as the head coach of the New England Patriots after 24 years of unmatched dominance in America’s most popular sport, will be remembered alongside New England legends like Ted Williams, Bill Russell and Paul Revere. OK, Paul Revere is a stretch. Only Tom Brady will exist in perpetuity alongside Paul Revere. Nevertheless, Belichick, whose teams won an N.F.L. record six Super Bowls with Brady as quarterback, is big enough in the Boston area that he could qualify as an honorary Kennedy. Belichick’s exit as the Patriots coach, after consecutive losing years that included this season’s 4-13 record, is an end of an era in a place where sports heroes can outshine almost any senator, civic leader or artist. Belichick, known for his rumpled appearance, unsmiling countenance and monotone voice, was celebrated as savant, savior and sage. He also became an influential, popular role model in New England.

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Japanese American New Years Food Traditions Transcend Time

Mr. Namba is also fond of eating soba — the more well-known buckwheat version — making special versions with lobster tempura or duck for New Year’s at his Los Angeles restaurants Tsubaki and Ototo. As with many global New Year’s traditions, the dishes have strong symbolic meanings. Ozoni is associated with good health and good fortune, with the mochi signifying longevity. Soba noodles represent breaking ties with the hardships of the previous year and starting anew, Mr. Pursley said, as well as a long life. Perhaps the best example of symbolic Japanese New Year foods is osechi ryori, or a box filled with an assortment of traditional New Year’s dishes, each with a specific meaning. Each year, the chef Niki Nakayama serves a version at her restaurant n/naka in Los Angeles. She includes kuromame, or sweet black soybeans, a wish for good health; datemaki, or a Japanese rolled omelet, that looks like a scroll for the acquisition of knowledge; and kurikinton, a vibrant mash of Japanese sweet potatoes flavored with candied chestnut syrup and topped with the golden candied chestnuts, which represent gold and bring economic fortune.

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Strong storm with accumulating snow predicted in Mass. this weekend

The first significant snow of 2024 is set to fall this weekend, according to AccuWeather. The weather forecasting site said a storm from the Pacific will dip over the southern Plains, connect with Gulf of Mexico moisture and encounter cold air in the mid-Atlantic and New England regions over the weekend. That translates into what the National Weather Service agrees may be accumulating snow. “There is the potential for a strong storm to bring rain and/or accumulating snow to #SNE (Southern New England) Saturday night into Sunday,” the National Weather Service wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. AccuWeather meteorologists predict major travel disruptions on the roads and at airports on Saturday into Sunday in the Northeast, and recommend travel on Friday rather than late Saturday or Sunday. For Massachusetts, where there was at least some significant snowfall late last winter — a nor’easter that dumped 2 feet of snow on much of the state — but for areas further south in the mid Atlantic, this could be the first time that more than an inch of snow has fallen in two years. The National Weather Service warns that it remains uncertain what will fall, and it could still be rain that comes during the weekend. “This is a Day 6 forecast and not set in stone,” the Weather Service wrote. “Precipitation type and amounts remain uncertain, but accumulating snow is a possibility.”

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Former Springfield golf pro Kevin Kennedy acquitted of majority of criminal counts by federal jury

SPRINGFIELD — After a weeklong trial and nearly two days of deliberations, a federal jury found former city golf pro Kevin M. Kennedy not guilty of more than a dozen counts of fraud and money laundering. The panel convicted Kennedy of a single count of tax conspiracy and making a false statement to a bank. Those charges were linked to the construction of two homes Kennedy built in East Longmeadow and on Cape Cod using luxury builders Kent and Jason Pecoy. The father and son are set to go to trial separately at a later date. Their trial has yet to be scheduled. This story will be updated.

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Brockton murder suspect found, taken to hospital, DA says

Brockton murder suspect found, taken to Boston hospital for treatment of wound, DA says The suspect in the fatal shooting of a Connecticut woman was found with a gunshot wound and taken to a Boston hospital, the Plymouth District Attorney’s Office announced early Saturday.Gelson Fernandes, 29, of Brockton, is the suspect in the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Stephanie Beatty, of Norwich, Connecticut. Beatty was shot and killed while sitting in a car in Brockton early Friday. According to the district attorney's office, Fernandes was found with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and was taken to a Boston hospital for treatment. Shortly after 12:20 a.m. Friday, Brockton police received a 911 call about a shooting outside 17 Nason St.Responding officers found Beatty inside a parked vehicle suffering from an apparent gunshot wound, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.Authorities said Beatty and Fernandes were previously acquainted. The suspect in the fatal shooting of a Connecticut woman was found with a gunshot wound and taken to a Boston hospital, the Plymouth District Attorney’s Office announced early Saturday. Gelson Fernandes, 29, of Brockton, is the suspect in the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Stephanie Beatty, of Norwich, Connecticut. Beatty was shot and killed while sitting in a car in Brockton early Friday. Advertisement According to the district attorney's office, Fernandes was found with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and was taken to a Boston hospital for treatment. This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. UPDATE: Brockton Homicide Gelson Fernandes, the murder suspect in the fatal shooting of a Brockton woman, has been found with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was transported to a Boston hospital where he remains for treatment. @MassStatePolice @BrocktonPolice — DA Tim Cruz (@PlymouthCtyDAO) December 9, 2023 Shortly after 12:20 a.m. Friday, Brockton police received a 911 call about a shooting outside 17 Nason St. Responding officers found Beatty inside a parked vehicle suffering from an apparent gunshot wound, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities said Beatty and Fernandes were previously acquainted.

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Fun, Cheap, Free New England: What activities you can do this winter

BOSTON — Mark Ockerbloom sits down with Sarah Hill of “Fun, Cheap, Free New England” to discuss the activities available to families this winter. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW ©2023 Cox Media Group

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Bills vs. Dolphins: Live stream, how to watch Week 18 NFL game

The Patriots looked as if they were going to send Sunday’s Week 12 game against the New York Giants to overtime. But rookie kicker Chad Ryland shanked what would have been the game-tying, 35-yard field goal to extend New England’s losing streak to four games. Now at 2-9 on the season, the Patriots essentially have their eyes on a top draft pick in 2024. It didn’t seem as if they could get any lower, but Sunday proved rock bottom has yet to be reached. While some fans were still frustrated that the Patriots couldn’t muster up a win, it seemed a majority of them were satisfied with Ryland’s missed kick so New England can get into better draft position. $200 INSTANT BONUS DRAFTKINGS MASS CLAIM OFFER BET $5, GET $200 BONUS BET FANDUEL MASS CLAIM OFFER BET $50, GET $250 BONUS CAESARS MASS CLAIM OFFER $1,000 FIRST-BET BONUS BETMGM MASS CLAIM OFFER MA only. 21+. Gambling Problem? If you or a loved one is experiencing problems with gambling, please call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org for 24/7 support. LiveChat with a GameSense Advisor at GameSenseMA.com or call 1-800-GAM-1234 MA Gambling Helpline. MA only. 21+. Gambling Problem? If you or a loved one is experiencing problems with gambling, please call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org for 24/7 support. LiveChat with a GameSense Advisor at GameSenseMA.com or call 1-800-GAM-1234 MA Gambling Helpline. I am buying a Chad Ryland jersey immediately Greatest miss in the history of the New England Patriots — Football (@BostonConnr) November 26, 2023 Chad Ryland understood the assignment — Rob (@rob_thibeault) November 26, 2023 Worse than losing by missing a 35-yard chip shot is playing as bad as we did, winning, and getting a lower draft pick. I’d rather go through the pains of a tank season and have something to show for it in the draft. — Mich (@mich1128) November 26, 2023 Chad Ryland: the only kicker who misses a lay-up field goal and immediately becomes a fan favorite. — Nick Godin (@FlyingOrr) November 26, 2023 CHAD RYLAND MY KING 🙏 THANK YOU — Kaley Brown (@kaley8711) November 26, 2023 CHAD RYLAND!!! BELICHICK PLAYING CHESS OVER CHECKERS GETTING RID OF FOLK — Matt Couture (@MattCouture5) November 26, 2023 Chad Ryland may have unintentionally been the Pats best pick in years. Key L — Brad Spielberger, Esq. (@PFF_Brad) November 26, 2023 Chad Ryland doing the lord’s work there tbh — BenchwarmerBran (@BenchwarmerBran) November 26, 2023 The Patriots are 2-9 for the first time since 1992 and finished 2-14 that year. The quarterback situation is a mess, Bill Belichick’s job security has been called into question week after week and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of hope that the 2023 will end positively with a winning season out of the question. It’s clear many fans are on to 2024 in hopes of obtaining a high draft pick, which will remain possible so long as the Patriots keep losing.

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I ate the Olive Garden Chocolate Lasagna so you dont have to

Olive Garden is selling something that it is marketing as “Chocolate Lasagna.” It’s just a slice of chocolate layer cake. There, I just saved you about 10 bucks and 1,000 calories. You can stop reading now if you want. I won’t blame you. The only people I expect to read further are my mom and that one person out here who loves Olive Garden and is looking for an email to send complaints to. Olive Garden Chocolate Lasagna “Chocolate Lasagna” is a crime against two languages. It’s just a slice of chocolate layer cake with chocolate mousse that’s topped with ganache and has a layer of crushed wafers at the bottom. It’s as much a “Chocolate Lasagna” as a cannoli can be a “Chocolate Chip Burrito.” This dereliction of dessert decency is like if Chick-fil-A started marketing their sandwiches as “Southern Chicken Parm Sliders.” Yes, I’d 100% eat it. But I’d do so with an indignant scowl trying to make up for how much of a sucker I am. With that said, the “Chocolate Lasagna” does taste pretty good, which shouldn’t be surprising since it’s, you know, cake. So, congrats, Olive Garden. You’ve pulled off the world’s weirdest low-stakes mass-marketing skullduggery. It’s like if someone tried to sell me a pre-owned hot tub on Craigslist, but instead I got a really nice new couch. Yes, I’ve technically been bamboozled and/or hornswoggled. But this is probably a better outcome for me. The Lasagna Classico and "Chocolate Lasagna" from Olive Garden. (Nick O'Malley, MassLive)Nick O'Malley, MassLive What does it taste like? For the sake of conducting ethical lasagna science, I decided to get both the “Chocolate Lasagna” and the “Lasagna Classico.” To be clear, I got the lunch-sized portion of the real lasagna. I didn’t want to go full Garfield the cat at this Olive Garden on a Wednesday afternoon. The “Chocolate Lasagna” All jokes aside, this is a pretty good cake. It’s rich, but not overly heavy. It’s chocolatey, but not too sweet. The crushed wafers at the bottom were definitely the most interesting part, adding some really nice texture and flavor. I feel like if they leaned into that and the ganache more, they could have had a more unique dessert that was more deserving of the “lasagna” monicker. But then again, they also could have tried to use chocolate pasta. So let’s be glad they didn’t get too ambitious over here. The three layers of cake are delightfully dense. So it’s nice to see Olive Garden offset that with chocolate mousse as the filling. Throwing buttercream in there would have been a bit much. Overall, this dessert is a chilled mesa of chocolate that is really satisfying in the way it lets you cut through the layers with your fork. It pops with dark, chocolatey flavor and only gets better with the added chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Lasagna Classico Well, this is technically lasagna. Most of the lasagna’s bulk consists of layers of pasta, then ricotta, then a little sauce, then repeat. There’s not much actual melted cheese inside the body of the lasagna which is disappointing. It checks all the boxes you look for. But it is a bit dry and boring on the inside. The more generous sauce on the top does most of the heavy lifting in terms of flavor. This isn’t how I’d make lasagna. But I also don’t design the menu for the Olive Garden lunch rush. So I’m not really in a position to speak. So is it any good? In terms of it being a delicious thing to eat? Yes, this is a solid dessert at a fast-casual chain restaurant. In terms of marketing? It’s as rich in lies as it is in chocolate. The final word I look at Olive Garden the same way I do cranberries. I’m quite vocal in my general distaste of them, but I also understand they have their place. I have a beef with Massachusetts’ most famous bog-fruit because I have to deal with cranberry sauce haunting the dinner table every Thanksgiving. I bristle at Olive Garden because my mom’s side of the family is Italian and refuses to associate with whatever it is they’re doing over there. If I went to Italy and tried to pass this dessert as “Chocolate Lasagna,” I’d be chased away by every nonna with a rolling pin within a half-mile. Still, I’d absolutely tear into a basket of Olive Garden breadsticks. I have zero pride when it comes to me and carbs. --- “I ate it so you don’t have to” is a regular food column looking at off-beat eats, both good and bad. It runs every other Thursday-ish at noon-ish. You can send any praise/food suggestions to nomalley@masslive.com. Please send all criticisms and complaints about restaurant chains doing weird things to Italian food to dcifarelli@masslive.com. You can check out the rest of the series here.