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Uneaten and Trashed: How New York Wasted 5,000 Migrant Meals in One Day

New York City is paying tens of thousands of dollars a month for meals that are supposed to go to feed migrants but instead are never eaten and are thrown away, according to internal company records reviewed by The New York Times. The meals are provided by DocGo, a medical services company that won a no-bid, $432 million contract from the city to provide broad migrant care, despite having had no experience in doing so. DocGo receives up to $33 a day per migrant for providing three meals a day for each of the roughly 4,000 migrants in its care. From Oct. 22 to Nov. 10, more than 70,000 meals were recorded by DocGo as being “wasted,” according to internal company records obtained by The Times. At $11 a meal, the maximum rate allowed by the contract, the wasted food for that 20-day period would cost taxpayers about $776,000, or about $39,000 a day. At that rate, the bill for the tossed food would exceed $1 million a month — just as Mayor Eric Adams is making billions of dollars in budget cuts to help pay for the city’s spending on migrant care.

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Boston residents watching Squares + Streets housing plan closely

I have attended three presentations of Boston’s proposed Squares + Streets initiative where the objectives and structure of the plan to standardize the zoning process for neighborhood business districts have been clearly presented ( “Growth squared,” Business, Jan. 9). This plan will benefit not only the businesses in these areas but also the many thousands of Boston residents who desperately need relief from the continued escalation of rental costs. The city is to be commended for moving this project along quickly despite the resistance of some of the usual suspects who continue to oppose necessary change. Advertisement Roslindale I am all in on the Boston Planning and Development Agency’s proposal to modernize the city’s zoning code with its trendy Squares + Streets project. But I question whether the housing activist who characterized opposition as coming from “wealthy homeowners” is being fair to the community organizations that have held their neighborhoods together for years at their own expense and on their own time. Democracy works when we do things together, not when we vilify others. Susan W. Morris Boston

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U.S. Navy Destroyer Shoots Down Three Drones in Red Sea, Pentagon Says

A U.S. Navy destroyer shot down three drones during a sustained attack in the Red Sea on Sunday, the Pentagon said, in what could signal another escalation in the tit-for-tat attacks between the American military and Iranian-backed militants. A Pentagon official said the U.S.S. Carney shot down the drones as several commercial ships nearby came under fire as part of an attack that began at 9:15 a.m. and lasted for several hours on Sunday. The destroyer intercepted three drones during the attack, United States Central Command said in a statement, including one that was headed in the direction of the Carney. The Pentagon said there were no injuries onboard the destroyer and that the ship was not damaged. In the statement, Central Command said the attacks originated from areas in Yemen that are controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia. Since the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel led by Hamas, the Houthis based in Yemen have launched a series of attacks — including with drones and missiles — on Israeli and American targets in the Red Sea. A Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said in a statement on Sunday that the militia had targeted two Israeli ships in the area of the Bab al-Mandeb strait off southern Yemen, but did not mention the American naval vessel. The group fired a missile at one ship and targeted a second with a drone, he said, adding that the Houthis would continue to prevent Israeli ships from sailing in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea until Israel’s military “stops its aggression” in Gaza. In October, the Carney shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched from Yemen that the Pentagon said might have been headed toward Israel. One of the drones on Sunday “was headed toward Carney, although its specific target is not clear,” Central Command said in the statement, adding, “we cannot assess at this time whether the Carney was a target” of the drones. After Hamas attacked Israel, the Biden administration rushed two aircraft carriers and additional troops to the eastern Mediterranean near Israel to deter Iran and its proxies in the region from expanding the war. Sunday’s attack underscored the risks that the fight in Gaza could spiral into a wider conflict. For more than a month, Iranian-backed militias have conducted drone and rocket attacks against the 2,500 American troops based in Iraq and the 900 troops in Syria. In its statement, Central Command said “we have every reason to believe that these attacks, while launched by the Houthis in Yemen, are fully enabled by Iran. The United States will consider all appropriate responses in full coordination with its international allies and partners.” Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting.

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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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Wu calls critics of 'electeds of color' party 'fearmongers'

Politics At MLK breakfast, Wu calls critics of ‘electeds of color’ party ‘fearmongers’ In follow-up comments on Tuesday, Wu took issue with the idea that talking about racial disparities in any context is inherently divisive. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu spoke during the 54th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Breakfast. Jessica Rinaldi/Boston Globe Speaking at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center on Monday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu called out those who expressed outrage over her hosting a holiday party for elected officials of color. The party, which took place last month, generated national headlines after a member of Wu’s office accidentally sent an email invitation to all members of the Boston City Council. The staffer quickly apologized for the confusion, but a chain reaction had already started. The party is an annual tradition organized by an affinity group that represents elected officials of color across all levels of government in Boston, Wu said a few days later. She said that there was misinformation spread about that party and that there was a “political motive” behind the email mistake being leaked to the media. Advertisement: “I am tired of those fearmongers and mob baiters who fan the flames and call for unity,” she said at the MLK breakfast. “Viral outrage ricocheted internationally, as those who had never before cared about representation railed against this as exclusionary.” On Tuesday, Wu was asked about those comments during an appearance on GBH’s “Boston Public Radio.” “This is broader than government and politics. It’s connected to what we see happening in universities and academia, but it’s connected to lots of examples all across the business sector and in peoples’ daily lives, where there is a push to say ‘the way to not be divisive is in fact to never talk about race, to never bring up programs that should be specifically trying to address disparities, and essentially to pretend that any mention of racial inequities is dividing people further,’” Wu said on GBH. She said that politicians like her are often asked to “unite” people, but requests for them to do so are often simply calls to ignore efforts to proactively address diversity. “When they say ‘don’t divide us,’ it really means ‘don’t defy us,’” Wu said. Advertisement: There is a concerted push both locally and around the country by people who want to uphold the status quo, she said. This is manifested in calls to ban books, wrap curricula, and portray historical moments in a “distorted” way. Thinking about the legacy of Martin Luther King requires a commitment not just to peace and justice in a “warm and fuzzy way,” Wu said, but to concrete action. “That still requires a lot of work,” she said.

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Court Papers Offer Glimpse of Trumps Defense in Classified Documents Case

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump on Friday told the federal judge overseeing his prosecution on charges of mishandling classified documents that they intended to ask the government for new information, including assessments of any damage to national security. The lawyers also told the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, that they planned to ask prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, for additional information about how the documents at issue were related to national defense — a requirement of the Espionage Act, one of the statutes that Mr. Trump has been accused of violating. In addition, they said they wanted “tracking information” concerning the classified records. Mr. Trump’s legal team is poised to make the requests on Tuesday, when it files motions asking for additional discovery evidence. This is a standard part of the pretrial process in which the defense seeks to get as much information about the case out of the government as it can. Discovery motions often indicate how lawyers intend to attack charges before a trial begins or how they plan to defend against them once the case goes in front of a jury. The papers filed on Friday suggest Mr. Trump may be planning to attack the multiple Espionage Act counts he is facing by, among other things, questioning whether the documents he took from the White House were actually related to national defense. They also suggest he may seek to downplay how damaging their removal from the White House was to the country’s security.

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The Secret to Trumps Success Isnt Authoritarianism - The New York Times

To be sure, Mr. Trump’s wild rhetoric, indifference to protocol and willingness to challenge expertise have been profoundly unsettling to people of both political parties. His term in office was frequently chaotic, and the chaos seemed to culminate in the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021. In the current presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has promised to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Mr. Biden; he continues to argue that the 2020 election was stolen and that America does not have “much of a democracy right now”; his fondness for incendiary language has not abated. But it is worth remembering that during his presidency, Mr. Trump’s often intemperate rhetoric and erratic behavior ended up accompanying a host of moderate policies. On matters ranging from health care and entitlements to foreign policy and trade, Mr. Trump routinely rejected the most unpopular ideas of both political parties. Voters seem to have noticed this reality: When asked whether Mr. Trump was too conservative, not conservative enough or “not too far either way,” 57 percent of voters in a recent poll picked “not too far either way.” Only 27 percent of voters regarded him as too conservative. Such characterizations may baffle Mr. Trump’s detractors. But even his most provocative comments since leaving the White House — that he would be a “dictator” for the first day of his second term; that Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deserves to be executed for “a treasonous act” — likely matter less to many voters than how he governed while in office. Inured to his braggadocio, they see him now as he was then: less an ideological warrior than a flexible-minded businessman who favors negotiation and compromise. This understanding of Mr. Trump, more than any other factor, may explain why so many voters have stuck with him, and why, a year from now, we may be looking ahead to a second Trump administration. Mr. Trump’s moderation can be easy to miss, because he is not a stylistic centrist — the sort who calls for bipartisan budget-cutting and a return to civility. His moderation is closer to that of Richard Nixon, who combined a combative personality and pronounced resentments with a nose for political reality and a willingness to negotiate with his ideological opposites. Mr. Nixon, an ardent anti-Communist, displayed his pragmatism most memorably by going to China. But his pragmatic nature was evident also in his acceptance of the New Deal order, which many conservatives continue to reject.

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Education Dept. Is Investigating Six More Colleges Over Campus Discrimination

The agency regularly looks into Title VI complaints of all types against both smaller public school districts and large research universities, but clashes on college campuses since the outbreak of violence in Israel and Gaza have produced a flurry of new investigations since October. As of this week, 21 of the 29 investigations the department has opened into postsecondary schools this year have come since the initial Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. In a news release about the previous batch of investigations announced in November, the department described its efforts as part of a larger directive to “take aggressive action to address the alarming nationwide rise in reports of antisemitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and other forms of discrimination and harassment on college campuses and in K-12 schools since the Oct. 7 Israel-Hamas conflict.” As with other recent investigations, it was not immediately clear what incident produced the complaints to the department that spurred it to act. An agency spokesman declined to elaborate on the nature of any of the complaints on Wednesday, citing a policy against discussing pending investigations. But since Oct. 7, a number of campus incidents and disputes have roiled many of the schools in question.

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What Does a Hard-Boiled Detective Do in Retirement?

The pair fall in love and marry, and when we meet Spade, he is a widower who has inherited Gabrielle’s beautiful house, swimming pool, vineyards and wealth. He is living quietly, still mourning Gabrielle (who we see in frequent flashbacks), speaking bad French and rather liked by the insular locals, until — naturally! — the past comes back to make trouble. “This genre has always been catnip for me,” said Frank, who also directed the show, in a recent joint interview with Fontana. But when he was approached about creating a show based on Spade, Frank said, he initially turned it down, because he had another Hammett project in mind. Then he had a thought: “What happens to these Bogart-esque guys when they get old?” He contacted Fontana, who suggested setting the series in the aftermath of the Algerian War, a conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front that ended in 1962 with Algeria, a French colony, winning independence. At that time, “there was tension and a dark cloud” over France, Frank said. “It raises the question: Who is French and who isn’t? And then we have Sam Spade wrestling with his identity, his old life, his new life.”

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The U.S. and Israel: An Embrace Shows Signs of Strain After Oct. 7

For all the disagreement, there is no serious discussion within the Biden administration about cutting Israel off or putting conditions on security aid. On Friday, three days after the Dermer meeting, the State Department agreed to send $147.5 million in 155-millimeter artillery shells and related equipment, invoking emergency rules to bypass congressional review a second time and again angering Democratic lawmakers. To the extent that Mr. Netanyahu’s resistance to American entreaties is performative politics for a domestic audience, it also has a time limit, according to Martin S. Indyk, a former two-time American ambassador to Israel. “It’s a case of steady insistence that Bibi come around,” he said, referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname. “That’s what we’re witnessing. I’m quite confident in predicting that Bibi will do so in the new year. He just has to figure out a way of explaining to his coalition partners that while it might look like he’s giving into Biden, he’s not really doing so. There will be a lot of winking going on.” Michael B. Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, noted that despite the tension, Mr. Biden has not used the two most obvious tools available to him to force Israel’s hand, namely the flow of U.S. arms to Israel and the U.S. veto at the U.N. Security Council that protects Israel from international sanctions — at least not yet. Given that, Mr. Oren said, Israel appreciates Mr. Biden’s support and does not want to alienate him. The Oct. 7 attack undercut Israel’s longstanding mantra that it would defend itself by itself. “That meant whether we liked it or not, we were dependent on the United States,” he said. “And that meant they have a say in things.”

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Westfield board worries Russian church school building would bring disruption

WESTFIELD — Planning board members expressed aesthetic and traffic concerns this week with a proposed expansion of the Russian Evangelical Baptist Church. Rebecca Lee of R. Levesque Associates, representing applicant Andrey Korchevskiy, said at the Dec. 19 meeting that the church is proposing a 6,750-square foot, two-story, metal Butler Manufacturing building north of the existing church building at 866 North Road, in a strip along Lapointe Road. The building would host classrooms and office space for the church’s Sunday School. The Russian Evangelical Baptist Church already runs a K-8 academy in the church building.

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Ukrainian shelling kills 14 Russian civilians, officials say, a day after Russia launched largest aerial assault of war

CNN — At least 14 people, including two children, were killed in Ukrainian shelling on the Russian city of Belgorod on Saturday, according to Russia’s emergencies ministry. The deaths on Saturday were the result of a “massive” attack on downtown Belgorod, according to Russian state news agency TASS, quoting the Russian emergencies ministry. Saturday’s shelling comes after Russia launched overnight Thursday into Friday its biggest air attack on Ukraine since the start of its full-scale invasion, resulting in at least 39 deaths and more than 150 injuries. Ukrainian attacks on Russian regions near the border have continued almost daily for over a year, sometimes resulting in civilian casualties, but if confirmed this is one of the single deadliest incidents. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been briefed about the attack in Belgorod, the Kremlin said, ordering a health ministry team and emergencies ministry rescuers to be sent to the city to help those affected. About 40 civilian facilities have been damaged in the city due to the shelling, which caused 10 fires which have since been extinguished. Russian authorities said Belgorod was also shelled Friday night with one civilian killed, the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Four others, including a child, were injured, he added. On Saturday, a child also died as a result of Ukrainian shelling in Russia’s Bryansk region, the region’s Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz said. Russia’s defense ministry said it destroyed 32 Ukrainian UAVs flying over the Russian regions of Bryansk, Oryol, Mursk, and Moscow, according to a Telegram post by the defense ministry Saturday. Ukraine has not publicly commented on the incidents and rarely claims responsibility for attacks on its neighbor. Rescuers comb through Kyiv rubble The toll from the Russian strikes on Ukraine – which saw an unprecedented number of drones and missiles fired at targets across the country – meanwhile continued to mount. Schools, a maternity hospital, shopping arcades and blocks of flats were among the buildings hit in Friday’s barrage, prompting widespread international condemnation. The toll in the capital Kyiv rose to at least 16, after the bodies of more civilians were recovered from the rubble of a warehouse, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said Saturday. All the deaths in Kyiv occurred at the warehouse. “The attack on the capital city on December 29 was the largest in terms of civilian casualties” since the start of the full-scale invasion, he said. “Rescuers are working and will continue to clear the rubble until tomorrow,” Klitschko said. “January 1 will be declared a Day of Mourning in Kyiv.” During the wave of strikes, Poland’s military authorities claimed that an “unidentified airbourne object” briefly entered its airspace. Russia said it would not give any any explanation “until concrete evidence is presented.” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote on X that NATO remained vigilant over the incident. CNN’s Victoria Butenko, Svitlana Vlasova and Christian Edwards contributed to this report.

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Texas Woman Asks Court to Allow Her Abortion

A pregnant Texas woman whose fetus has a fatal condition sued the state on Tuesday seeking an emergency court order to allow her doctor to perform an abortion, despite the state’s strict bans on the procedure. The lawsuit is believed to be one of the first attempts in the nation to seek a court-ordered abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, allowing states to make their own abortion laws. Texas is at the forefront of states that restrict abortion, and has overlapping bans that outlaw abortions from the point of fertilization and allow private citizens to sue others who might help a woman obtain an abortion. The laws allow some exceptions to save the health and life of the pregnant woman, though abortion rights advocates argue that they are unclear, putting women with pregnancy complications at risk. The vagueness of the exceptions in Texas have prevented doctors from performing the procedure in most cases, lawyers for the woman, Kate Cox, have argued. A decision in her case could force the state to more clearly define what is allowed under the law.

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To Bolster Russias Army, Putin Eases Citizenship Path for Foreign Fighters

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has approved a measure that makes it easier for foreigners to acquire Russian citizenship if they enlist in the army amid the war in Ukraine, part of an effort to increase the military’s ranks while also sparing Russians from being deployed to the battlefield. Under the decree, which the Kremlin published on Thursday, foreigners who sign a one-year contract with the Russian Army or volunteer for “army formations” during what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine can apply for Russian citizenship under a fast-track procedure. The benefits also extend to the recruits’ spouses, children and parents. Unlike those who go through Russia’s regular citizenship process, such foreigners would not need to live in the country for five consecutive years under a residence permit before applying. They would also be spared requirements to speak Russian and be familiar with the country’s history and basic laws. A decision on such applications will take only one month instead of the usual three, according to the decree.

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U.F.O.s Remain a Mystery to Lawmakers After Classified Briefing

Alien bodies allegedly hidden by the United States government. Suspected Pentagon cover-ups of secret spending programs. Retaliation against any official who dares speak out. Perhaps no congressional briefing offers up more titillating claims — or does less to illuminate them — than one about U.F.O.s. On Friday, members of Congress entered such a session with burning questions, only to receive hedged answers that they said did little to demystify what the government knows about extraterrestrial beings. The closed-door briefing with Thomas A. Monheim, the inspector general of the intelligence community, was supposed to help members of the House Oversight Committee understand if there was any credibility to the bombshell claims made by a high-profile whistle-blower in July. But what, if anything, was actually said was far from clear. It didn’t help that the whole session was confidential, so the lawmakers were barred by law from relaying what they had heard — not exactly a formula for combating the raft of conspiracy theories that has sprung up around U.F.O.s, fueled by government reports documenting unexplained incidents with what it calls “unidentified anomalous phenomena” and the recent whistle-blower account.

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Al Shabab Terrorist Group Captures U.N. Helicopter in Somalia

A United Nations helicopter carrying nine passengers was captured in Somalia on Wednesday by the terrorist group Al Shabab after making an emergency landing because of technical difficulties in an area controlled by the group, three senior Somali officials said. Six of the passengers were captured, while two escaped and one was killed, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The circumstances in which the person was killed were unclear. There were foreigners among the passengers, one of the officials said, though their nationalities were not known. At least one Somali national was on the helicopter, another official said. Al Shabab, which means “The Youth” in Arabic, has spread havoc across Somalia for almost a decade and half, promising to topple the U.N.-backed national government and to establish an Islamic state in the Horn of Africa nation. The group commands between 7,000 and 12,000 fighters and makes about $120 million annually through extortion and taxation, according to Somali authorities and U.S. intelligence officials.

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Springfield ends year with $19M in free cash; officials considering spending some on tax relief

SPRINGFIELD — The state has officially certified the city’s free cash, giving officials an additional $19.3 million to spend by the end of the fiscal year. “We will look at a lot of things, adding to our pension fund and tax relief,” Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said. Free cash is money raised throughout the previous year on income generated through different fees, such as from building permits, as well as funds budgeted but not spent for a variety of reasons, like not filling vacant positions. This year, the city received $19,317,806, but the total includes $1.5 million in opioid funds that came from settlements of suits filed against drug makers in state court. That money must be used to reduce opioid abuse and assist people who are addicted to the drugs, said Patrick Burns, acting chief administration and financial officer. That means the city actually has $17,796,271 to spend on unexpected expenses, such as replacing a vehicle that breaks down, a road collapse or other needs that come up throughout the year. Over the past eight years, the amount of free cash the city has received has fluctuated dramatically. Last fiscal year, the city received $67.8 million, but that was out of the ordinary, as Eversource was required to pay a large sum in personal property taxes and interest, which totaled $41.1 million, Burns said. The money came from a Court of Appeals decision that settled a decade-long dispute over how much the utility should be assessed in property taxes for its utility poles, transformers and other infrastructure. In 2022, free cash stood at $27.6 million, but in earlier years, the amount has been much lower, ranging from $7.4 million in 2018 to $4 million in 2019. When Burns made the announcement, City Councilor Tracye Whitfield said she hopes the mayor and the city’s financial team looks at adding some of the money to the tax base to reduce the amount residents and businesses have to pay. Sarno said he expects to release his recommendation for setting the tax rate within the next week or so, and using some of the free cash to lower the levy will be a serious consideration. Last year, $10 million was set aside to reduce the tax rate, and in previous years, $2.1 million and $1 million were transferred for relief. He said the city also has tried to help those who need relief the most by lowering the eligibility of tax abatements for low-income seniors to 65 from 70 and increasing the amount they can receive from $500 to $1,000. “We will look at what is the highest and best use of the funds,” Sarno said. Although it is not exciting, the mayor said it is also vital to continue to invest money in the city’s stabilization or savings account, which now totals about $68 million, and reduce the pension liability. The stronger the city’s financial standing is, the better its bond rating, which allows officials to borrow money at a lower interest rate. That is key as the city looks at continuing to replace aging schools, renovate others, upgrade parks and improve other infrastructure, Sarno said.

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What to know about Mayor Wus Electeds of Color holiday party and why its caused such a stir

On Tuesday, an email went out from Wu’s office to the full City Council, inviting them to an annual “Electeds of Color Holiday Party” at the Parkman House, the city-owned mansion on Beacon Hill. The news about Boston Mayor Michelle Wu holding an “Electeds of Color Holiday Party” has stirred a good deal of controversy. Here’s what you need to know. But about 15 minutes later, a Wu administration staff member sent out a second message apologizing for the gaffe, according to copies of the emails obtained by NBC 10 Boston. “I wanted to apologize for my previous email regarding a Holiday Party for tomorrow,” the follow-up message said, according to copies of the emails obtained by NBC10 Boston. “I did send that to everyone by accident, I apologize if my email may have offended or came across as so.” Advertisement What happened next The mistake made headlines and generated criticism for the party’s exclusion of white elected officials, but Wu and others said the “Electeds of Color” party is a longstanding tradition and just one of multiple holiday celebrations the city throws. “There are many, many events that are private events for all different sorts of groups, and so we’ve clarified that and look forward to seeing everyone at one of the other dozens of opportunities to celebrate the holidays together,” Wu said in video from NBC 10. Wu called the email “just an honest mistake.” She also said her office had spoken to councilors to address the matter, according to video from WCVB-TV. “We’ve had individual conversations with everyone so people understand that it was truly just an honest mistake that went out in typing the email field, and I look forward to celebrating with everyone at the holiday parties that we will have besides this one,” she said. Wu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Advertisement What has the reaction been? Councilor Frank Baker said the situation was “divisive” but also that he wasn’t offended to not be invited. “You don’t want me at a party, I’m not going to come to the party,” Baker told NBC10. Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune, in a separate NBC10 interview, disagreed. “It’s not at all divisive,” Louijeune told the station. “It’s creating spaces for people and communities and identities with shared experiences to come together.” Councilor Ricardo Arroyo addressed the controversy in a social media post that poked fun at Wu’s critics. “Never let facts get in the way of some manufactured outrage,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Electeds of Color has existed for over a decade and the holiday party is an annual tradition. Wait until someone tells them about the Congressional Black Caucus or MA Black and Latino Legislative Caucus. The horror!!” Councilor Sharon Durkan said in a statement to the Globe that she wasn’t bothered that she wasn’t invited. “It’s a really busy season!” Durkan said. “As a new elected official, I’ve been inundated with invites to holiday events. I’m not the least bit offended to not be included in this long-standing get together. What is new this season is how many elected officials of color represent our City and State. Let’s be clear, that’s an amazing thing and I hope attendees had a blast last night.” Reached by phone on Thursday, Baker, and councilors Liz Breadon, Julia Mejia, and Councilor Kendra Lara declined to comment. The other members of the council did not immediately respond to inquiries. Advertisement How Wu responded Asked for comment, Wu’s office said that no city funds were used to pay for the party and provided a recording of the mayor speaking to reporters outside the Parkman House before the party on Wednesday night. “I am honored to be a part of this group,” Wu said. “It is a longstanding affinity group that has grown in recent years here in Boston and Massachusetts. Think of the congressional black caucus or the Black and Latino ... legislative caucus at the State House. This is one that spans all levels of government and is a space for people to build coalitions and represent communities.” “There are many, many such coalitions that exist, and each one should have their own space to connect and build and do that work,” Wu continued. “And holiday season is a great time just to get together and enjoy each other’s company as well. I’m proud to host many, many of these across all different types of coalitions.” Wu posted a statement to Instagram late Thursday afternoon alongside a photograph from the party that showed her sitting at a table with about 16 other guests, saying that it had been her turn to host the celebration. “Last night was my turn to host the annual holiday dinner for Boston’s elected officials of color — a special moment to appreciate that our affinity group now includes leadership across city, state, county, and federal offices,” Wu said. Advertisement “Not too long ago in Boston, we didn’t need such a big table to fit electeds of color,” she continued. “But over my time as a City Councilor and now Mayor, following so many leaders who have paved the way, I’ve proudly watched this group grow and create space for mentorship and fellowship among many who are breaking down barriers while holding the weight of being the first or only. Throughout the year, we work to represent our communities with urgency and determination. And at the holidays, we take the time to celebrate and enjoy each other’s company!” What others say David Giannotti, public education and communications division chief of the Massachusetts Ethics Commission said he could not comment on specific matters or “confirm or deny whether the commission is reviewing any matters.” “Generally speaking, public resources, such as public facilities, may not be used for non-public purposes,” Giannotti said. Chris Sinacola, a spokesman for the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank, said officials there “cannot think of any legal rules that the party invitation would have violated.” Adam Hosein, a faculty member at The Ethics Institute at Northeastern University said he saw no issue with the party. “It’s perfectly acceptable for elected officials of color to get together to discuss their shared experiences and challenges,” said Hosein, who is an associate professor of philosophy, an affiliate law professor, and director of the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Program at Northeastern. “The Mayor is part of a group like that, it was her turn to host the group’s holiday party, and she didn’t use public funds to support the event.” Advertisement “Parties are fun, but they can also be a chance for people to connect on a personal level and reflect on work they have been doing together,” said Hosein, who specializes in moral, political, and legal philosophy with a special interest in issues relating to race and gender. “It’s not bad manners to bring together the elected officials of color so that they can share in this way.” Tonya Alanez and Nick Stoico of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him @jeremycfox.

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Mass. temporary shelters meet overflow requirement, Healey admin. says

Less than a week after the state abruptly opened a new temporary shelter for migrant and homeless families in Cambridge, the Healey administration said it has met the Legislature’s new requirement to open an overflow site by the end of the year. But the state House’s top Democrat, who pressed for the overflow site directive, didn’t explicitly agree with that assessment Friday morning. A spokesperson for Gov. Maura Healey told State House News Service that the administration feels that it’s fulfilled the condition she agreed to in a supplemental budget to operationalize by Dec. 31 a “state funded overflow emergency shelter site or sites for eligible families who have been waitlisted for placement at an emergency shelter” due to the system reaching capacity. The new law doesn’t explicitly define the parameters of an overflow site, such as how many families must be accommodated or how long they may remain at temporary sites. Asked if he agreed that the overflow site requirement had been met, House Speaker Ron Mariano, D-3rd Norfolk, responded with a statement to State House News Service. “We are hopeful that families on the waitlist are being provided with a safe place to sleep as required by our legislation,” Mariano said. “We will continue to monitor the steps taken to address the shelter crisis, including the required reports, to help ensure that there are operational overflow sites through the end of the fiscal year.” Some 391 families are on the waitlist, Healey spokesperson Karissa Hand said. Emergency Assistance Director Scott Rice pegged the figure at more than 400 families during a virtual Cambridge community meeting Thursday evening. The waitlist was at 242 families on Dec. 13. Rice said the average family size is three people. Throughout the 90-minute virtual forum, Cambridge city and state leaders explained how they selected the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds building and began welcoming families last Friday with little public notice or engagement. About three-quarters of families stuck on the waitlist have been directed to temporary shelter and overnight arrangements, Rice said. Officials have been scrambling to open temporary overflow sites since the shelter system hit Healey’s 7,500-family capacity limit in November amid a surge of new arrivals, and each day brings about 10 additional families to Massachusetts, Rice said. About five to 10 families are also leaving the shelter system daily, he said. When Secretary of State William Galvin offered up the east Cambridge property, Rice said his team decided in less than a day to start fixing up the former courthouse. “We’ve been very fortunate this week -- it hasn’t been below freezing very much, but that is a crisis that I’m worried about,” Rice said. “But when I find, and we find as a group and incident command, a location that is worthy of taking a look, we move very rapidly, as rapidly as we can. Do we do it perfectly? Do we have the most perfect community engagement plan? No, we don’t.” Rice thanked city leaders, including Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and City Manager Yi-An Huang, for their support and “friendly attitude” in navigating the unpredictable demands of the migrant crisis. Cambridge has been willing to help and “gone above and beyond on trying to solve problems,” Rice said. “It was not entirely clear that everything was going to be completed in time, even a week before, so a lot of the exploration of the site to make sure that everything was going to be prepared and that it would actually work did happen incredibly fast,” Huang said. “The goal of the administration would be that there is a longer period where this can be noticed to the community and there can be more of a conversation. But then the reality of the emergency and the crisis and finding a place for families, especially with the winter, sometimes it’s not happening as much as we would like.” The meeting came months after lawmakers criticized the Healey administration’s lack of communication, including with municipalities, as more hotels in their communities began serving as emergency shelters and more migrant children began attending local schools. In response to Healey’s shelter cap, lawmakers wrote the new law with the overflow requirement in order for the administration to unlock $250 million in additional funding for the emergency shelter system. Healey agreed to the requirement when she signed the supplemental budget that included it on Dec. 4. The administration must also submit biweekly shelter updates to the House and Senate Ways and Means committees. The first submitted report was dated Dec. 18, and Hand said the administration will submit another report next week. Rice said the Cambridge Registry of Deeds building is one of five overflow sites, which officials have also referred to as safety-net shelters. The other state-funded overflow shelters are at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy and a clinical risk assessment site in Revere, alongside other sites funded through a grant partnership the administration launched with United Way of Massachusetts Bay, Hand said. “We know that is going to continue being a growing problem before it’s not, and some really hard conversations are going to have to happen,” Rep. Marjorie Decker, a Cambridge Democrat, said of the massive shelter demand. “But I think this kind of collaboration with municipalities across the state, as well as legislators and our state partners is really important.” The flood of new arrivals is affecting major cities across the country, and New York City Mayor Eric Adams this week pointed the finger at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for transporting migrants by bus and planes without warning. Adams on Wednesday issued an executive order stipulating that chartered buses bringing migrants into the city will be required “to provide 32 hours’ notice before arriving in New York City and information on the population they are transporting, as well as be required to drop passengers off at a designated location in Manhattan only during specified hours.” The mayor’s office said Abbott was using asylum seekers as “political pawns” and noted a surge of 14,700 new arrivals in the last month, including 14 “rogue buses” with migrants that arrived from Texas in a single night. Violations could result in fines and charter buses being impounded, and Adams signaled city officials may also file lawsuits. In Cambridge, Rep. Mike Connolly said he’s visited the shelter several times. The initial families assigned to the shelter seemed “quite tired” and “exhausted,” the Cambridge Democrat told the News Service earlier this week. The space can accommodate up to 200 people, or roughly 60 to 80 families, Rice said. “These families are mostly migrants, and they’re coming here for the opportunity to pursue the American dream as part of our society,” Rice said. “They want to get out of this system, they want to work. We want to help them get a work authorization as quickly as possible. They’re all here legally, in accordance with the federal government rules and regulations.” Eligible families on the waitlist are brought to the shelter at 6 p.m. and depart at 7 a.m., said Blair Brown, an assistant education secretary who’s now working on the overflow shelter team. She described the Cambridge site as a “very temporary overnight shelter,” where families are sleeping on cots in two congregate rooms. Families are provided dinner and breakfast, and MIT has offered shower facilities, Brown said. During the day, she said, the families spend time at the state welcome centers, located in Quincy and Allston, where they can connect with more state resources and determine their next steps. Maura Pensak, Cambridge’s housing liaison, said it’s better for families to stay in more traditional shelters, where they would have their own space and not need to leave every day. “This setting is hopefully just a real quick turnaround while they’re waiting,” she said. “Think of it as a waiting room.”

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Bright billboard in Bostons South End prompts frustration - Boston News, Weather, Sports

BOSTON (WHDH) - There is growing frustration in Boston’s South End over a bright billboard in the area. The billboard overlooks the Expressway and has recently been the subject of complaints from area residents. Speaking with 7NEWS, some residents shared their thoughts. “We constantly see it and we’re like ‘Is that the sun? What is going on?” said resident Ryan Zoldowski. “We’ve noticed that it’s really, really bright, at times,” Zoldowski continued. Zoldowski said he needed to get blackout curtains in order to sleep at night. Fellow area resident Stephanie Rivera said she has also been disrupted by the light. “It literally goes into my bedroom…” Rivera said. “So, it’s a little bit disturbing trying to sleep.” Zoldowski said billboards have been in place in the past. This one, though, is very different. “It’s not something you want while living in the city of Boston, paying Boston city rent,” Rivera said. As she and others file complaints, Rivera said she is hoping the billboard can be taken down “as soon as possible.” If that is not possible, Zoldowski asked for the next best thing, asking for the brightness to be turned down. “It is very fluorescent and super bright,” he said. “Obviously they’ve spent a lot of money putting it up, so I don’t know how quickly they can take it down or change it,”’ he continued. “But at least turning the brightness down would be something.” 7NEWS reached out to the city of Boston and the company behind the billboard but did not hear back Wednesday night. (Copyright (c) 2023 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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Mass. AG sues Boston Housing Authority over mice- and mold-infested Dorchester apartment

Specifically, the 13-page complaint alleges that the housing authority failed to fix unsanitary problems in Crawford’s apartment at the Franklin Field Development in Dorchester, despite Crawford’s complaints that conditions in the unit were hazardous to her health and her nieces’ health. The lawsuit, filed last week in Suffolk Superior Court, alleges that BHA officials failed to properly accommodate Christina Crawford, her mother, Betty, and her two minor nieces over a period of three years. The state’s top law enforcement official is suing the Boston Housing Authority, the city’s largest housing provider, over its handling of a tenant’s complaints about a unit infested with mice and mold in Dorchester. Advertisement Both nieces have asthma, which was exacerbated by the condition of the apartment, according to the court filing, as well as “various developmental and mental disabilities that negatively impact major life activities.” “BHA was aware of the issues but failed to eliminate the problem,” read the complaint, which was first reported by Universal Hub. The lawsuit alleges housing discrimination by the BHA, which oversees about 10,000 public housing rental units in Boston, and asks the court to find that the housing authority comply with antidiscrimination law and award compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorney’s fees. The litigation also pits two organizations headed by former Boston city council colleagues against one another. Andrea Campbell is currently the Massachusetts attorney general, while Kenzie Bok became the BHA’s administrator last year. Those two previously served together on the city’s legislative body. The BHA said it is looking through the filing and will respond through the courts. “We share a common goal with the Attorney General’s office of ensuring that our housing is in good repair and condition,” said a spokesperson Thursday in an email. “With regard to this specific case, we are reviewing the recent filing and will express BHA’s position through the legal process.” Advertisement When the Crawfords moved into the apartment in November 2016, it was infested with mice, and pest problems were “chronic and widespread at Franklin Field,” the filing said. Over time, according to the lawsuit, the infestation grew worse. There were radiators filled with mouse droppings and chewed holes in furniture despite routine cleaning. At one time, tenants reported they saw “more than five mice every hour.” “Ms. Crawford and her mother and the children did not want to cook or eat in the unit due to fear of contamination by mice droppings and urine,” read the complaint. In late 2018, Crawford also started to smell a strong mildew odor in the unit and black mold began to form on the ceiling of an upstairs bathroom and the first-floor bedroom. Those conditions, argued the attorney general’s office, significantly exacerbated the tenants’ disabilities, leading to Crawford’s nieces making two to three emergency medical visits a month. Eventually, the city’s inspectional services were called to the unit, and an inspector found violations of the state sanitary code related to the rodents and the mold. Weeks after the inspection, BHA personnel tried to address the mold by spraying bleach on it and painting parts of the ceiling, but the mold returned quickly and spread throughout the apartment, and the rodent infestation worsened, according to a court filing. The nieces’ health continued to suffer, “regularly resulting in emergency visits to the hospital for constant coughing and difficulty breathing.” Advertisement In 2020, the pest problem became so bad that Crawford and her nieces were forced to stay at family and friends’ homes several times a month. At one point, the nieces were too afraid to sleep in their beds after the family found mice in one of them, the litigation alleges. By the end of that year, Crawford formally asked to be transferred out of that unit because of her nieces’ disabilities. According to the attorney general’s office, the BHA did not take any action to transfer the family “to a unit that met their medical needs.” In May 2021, she made another request to move. The mice infestation had worsened, according to court papers. Again, the BHA failed to respond. By this point, Crawford had bought her own mouse traps and cleaning supplies and cleaned the apartment constantly, according to the complaint, “frequently removing mouse droppings at least two times a day.” A third request to move from Crawford included her own medical conditions, such as diabetes, and how the apartment was harmful to her health, in addition to her nieces. In August 2022, another inspection found more sanitary code violations related to black mold and rodents. That led to a fourth request to be moved. In January of last year, exterminators removed 14 mice from the apartment and officials noted that “bait stations had been wiped clean due to the severity of the infestation.” March of that year brought a fifth request to move from the Crawfords. Advertisement Last May, the Crawfords finally moved out of the Dorchester unit to a different BHA apartment, this one on D Street in South Boston. But, according to the complaint, Crawford’s fight with the BHA was not over. Crawford wanted window guards in the unit, as well as a video doorbell and security cameras so the nieces can feel safe in their home due to their mental health diagnoses, and in order to “monitor any unpredictable behavior resulting from these diagnoses.” She also complained of ripped screens in the Southie unit, which she worried could let in pests, and continuously leaking toilets, which she noted could lead to mold. As of last month, her request for maintenance at the unit “have not fully been completed,” according to the complaint. Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.

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Democrats Fret That Bidens Power Players Are Not at His Campaign Base

With less than 10 months to go until the 2024 election, the nerve center of President Biden’s bid for a second term is stationed not at his campaign’s headquarters in Delaware but within feet of the Oval Office. The president and his chief strategist, Mike Donilon, have repeatedly discussed when to move him over to the campaign — perhaps after the 2022 midterm elections, then after the 2023 off-year elections and again at the end of 2023. Each time, no move happened after the president told aides he wanted to keep Mr. Donilon within walking distance. Anita Dunn, the longtime Democratic operative who stepped in to help revive Mr. Biden’s fledging operation four years ago, is devising the re-election message again, even as she oversees communications at the White House. Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s deputy White House chief of staff and former campaign manager, is also splitting her day job with her role as one of the most powerful voices in the campaign. So far, almost none of the people in the president’s inner circle have left for campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., prompting some donors and strategists to worry that too much of Mr. Biden’s team remains cloistered inside the White House. Less than a year before Election Day, the president has a campaign with two distinct centers of gravity, advisers juggling two jobs at once, and months of internal debate about when to consolidate everyone in one place.

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Housing crisis: How Healey and Wu are handling it

Indeed, the housing crisis has finally grabbed the attention of top elected officials such as Governor Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who both say housing is the biggest issue facing their administrations. Each has ambitious — and controversial — proposals in front of the Legislature this year that, if passed, would represent some of the bolder housing reform efforts Massachusetts has seen in decades. Housing is in the spotlight this year. Home prices are higher than they’ve ever been, and the shortage of homes here seems to grow deeper by the day. Here are some of the key policies, where they stand, and what you should know about them: Advertisement Accessory dwelling units Both Healey and Wu are pursuing the broad legalization of accessory dwelling units, otherwise known as granny flats or tiny homes. ADUs are smaller housing units that can be added to an existing residential property, either in a garage or basement, or built new in a backyard. They are widely viewed as a relatively benign way to add more density to existing neighborhoods, and have gained significant momentum in states across the US in recent years. California, for example, has permitted more than 80,000 ADUs since it started allowing them in 2016. In Massachusetts, ADUs are mainly permitted at a municipal level, and progress building them has been slow. Healey last October included a measure in her housing bond bill that would legalize ADUs on all single-family zoned lots in the state. Communities would be able to enact some “reasonable restrictions” like setbacks from the property line. It had already been met with some resistance from the Massachusetts Municipal Association, which advocates for all zoning decisions to be left up to cities and towns. But ADUs are growing in popularity, and many communities here have started to allow them in some limited form already. That may make a statewide rule easier to pass. Advertisement Healey’s bond bill and the ADU measure have a hearing before the Joint Committee on Housing this Thursday, the first step in what will be a long journey on Beacon Hill before a final vote. If it passes, it would be among the most significant preemptions of local zoning control in the state’s history. A vote on Healey’s bond bill is likely still months away, as it will require significant negotiation. Some housing advocates told the Globe it would happen closer to the session’s end in July. Wu, in her State of the City speech last week, said her administration would also allow ADUs citywide, the culmination of a pilot program that has been testing their feasibility in select neighborhoods for the last few years. Later this year, the city plans to publish pre-approved designs and make available some funding to help residents with construction costs. Wu’s plan likely wouldn’t mean a flood of new ADUs in Boston, because there are only about 7,500 lots in the city that could fit a backyard ADU, the Globe found last year. But statewide, a broad rule like California’s could open up space for nearly 1 million new ADUs across Massachusetts. An accessory dwelling unit was lowered by crane into a backyard in Concord. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Real estate transfer tax Another big issue in Healey’s bond bill: a local option for a real estate transfer fee. It would allow cities and towns to tax high-dollar real estate sales to raise money for affordable housing. Municipalities would be able to charge anywhere between 0.5 and 2 percent on sales of real estate worth more than $1 million, or the median home price in counties where that figure is above $1 million. The fee would only apply to the portion of the sale that exceeded those thresholds. Advertisement It is perhaps the most controversial policy in the bond bill. Real estate industry groups argue the measure would discourage developers from building new housing, and that it would unfairly punish homeowners whose property has appreciated to over $1 million. But an increasing number of cities and towns, including Boston and communities on the Cape, have asked Beacon Hill for permission to enact a transfer fee, saying it would generate millions of dollars a year for much needed affordable housing. The policy will certainly be a flashpoint in debates over the bond bill. The Legislature has not acted on calls for a transfer fee in the past, though lawmakers may consider the policy more seriously this time around because it is part of Healey’s agenda. Rent control The debate over rent control is alive and well, but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Tenant advocate groups have been ramping up pressure on state policy makers to seriously consider a rent control bill as rents continue to spiral upward. There was an effort last year from Cambridge Representative Mike Connolly to gather signatures to put a local option for rent control on the ballot for the first time since Massachusetts voters ended rent control in 1994. But that was halted amid disagreements among tenant groups about whether it was the right time to launch such a campaign. Advertisement Meanwhile, Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Brookline — the four communities that had rent control previous to the 1994 vote — have all recently submitted home rule petitions to the Legislature asking to create their own rent control rules or have otherwise signaled support for the policy. Legislators appear unmoved, and those petitions have gone nowhere so far. Healey, who has been cautious with her statements on rent control in the past, said last year that she would support communities that wanted to enact it. But she notably did not include any sort of rent control policy in her bond bill. A view of the Mary Ellen McCormack public housing complex, which is set to be redeveloped into a mixed-use complex including both deeply affordable and market rate apartments. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Public housing It’s not as flashy an issue as rent control or taxing luxury condo sales, but public housing presents a huge problem for Boston and Massachusetts. Thanks to decades of underfunding, public housing across Massachusetts is in chronic disrepair, prompting health concerns and forcing housing authorities to take precious units offline. Both Boston and the state want to give new life to their respective public housing stocks. Healey’s bond bill would allocate $1.6 billion for repairs, redevelopment, and retrofits for the state’s 43,000 public housing units. Advocates say it would not be enough to bring all of those units into good condition, but still, it would be more than double the funding allocated in the last bill by former governor Charlie Baker’s administration. Advertisement And in Boston, Wu said last week that her administration would work to identify space to build some 3,000 new units of public housing, utilizing something of a loophole in a federal law that capped the number of public housing units the Department of Housing and Urban Development would fund back in the late 1990s. It would be the first time in 40 years that Boston would grow its supply of public housing. Formal housing production goals Both Baker and former Boston mayor Marty Walsh established formal housing production goals — Baker wanted to build 135,000 new units statewide by 2024, and Walsh 69,000 units in Boston by 2030. Neither Healey nor Wu have yet done so. But pressure is mounting from housing advocacy groups to set clear targets for new construction and to help address the region’s deep supply shortage, which by some estimates is as much as 200,000 units and growing. Healey’s bond bill has several provisions that would put in place the structure to create more accountability around housing production. One of those is the creation of a formal Housing Production Commission, which would look for ways to streamline housing production and recommend policies. And there are several bills that have been submitted by housing advocacy groups that would establish production goals. Andrew Brinker can be reached at andrew.brinker@globe.com. Follow him @andrewnbrinker.

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While Defending Trump, Ramaswamy Insists Hes More Electable in the Fall

On Monday he decried the criminal prosecutions Mr. Trump faces as “unconstitutional and disgusting” but indirectly suggested he would be more electable because the “system” would keep Mr. Trump from reaching the White House. “I’ve respected him more in this race than every other candidate because it’s the right thing to do,” Mr. Ramaswamy said. “He was a good president for this country. But our movement cannot end with him.” Mr. Ramaswamy has often praised the former president and promised to pardon him, should he be convicted — earning rare praise from Mr. Trump during his campaign. But in recent months, he has tried to position himself as younger and less embattled than the former president, whom he has described as “wounded,” on the trail, and in a recent interview with NBC News and The Des Moines Register. “You’ve got the future of ‘America First’ standing right here, fresh legs to lead us to victory in this war,” he said, suggesting that he would use his knowledge of the law to go further than Mr. Trump did in enacting popular conservative policies. Elaine Tillman, 68, came into Mr. Ramaswamy’s event at the Pizza Ranch in Le Mars undecided, with plans to attend a Trump rally on Saturday. But after hearing Mr. Ramaswamy speak, she said she planned to caucus for him instead.

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Israeli Teenager Recounts Her Time as a Hostage in Gaza

Hila Rotem Shoshani had invited her friend Emily Hand over for a sleepover in Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel. The girls, then 12 and 8, woke early the next morning, Oct. 7, to the sound of thundering booms — the start of the deadliest attack in the history of their country. For about six hours, Hila and Emily hid in the home’s safe room with Hila’s mother, Raaya Rotem, 54, as Hamas attackers overran the kibbutz. Then armed gunmen burst in with guns and knives and took the three out into a landscape of horror, past dead bodies and burning buildings, to a car. One of the attackers noticed Hila clutching a stuffed animal. He grabbed it and tossed it aside. “I had it in my hand the entire time. I didn’t notice,” Hila said on Friday in an interview in New York, before she spoke at a rally in support of the remaining hostages. “When you’re afraid you don’t notice.” Hila was one of more than 30 children kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, and held until late November, when they, along with dozens of adults, were released during a brief truce. Hila, now 13, is the youngest of the returned hostages to speak out about the harsh conditions in which they were held, seeking to highlight the plight of more than 100 hostages who remain in Gaza.

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Senator honored Pearl Harbor vets, donations by Glasgow Lands (Letter)

I hope you all stayed warm on this chilly December week. I am keeping my fingers crossed about some snowfall in the coming weeks. Monday morning was a busy day on Beacon Hill, with a hearing for the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security and a hearing for the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery, which I chair. During the hearing, one of my bills, S. 1275, An Act Establishing a Commission to Study the Availability of a Continuum of Care for Persons, was heard. This bill would establish a commission to study the availability of resources and continuation of care for persons with substance use disorders. As committees begin wrapping up hearings ahead of reporting bills out, I look forward to continuing to advocate for legislation to support our communities. On Tuesday I had the honor of visiting the Chicopee Boys & Girls Club to celebrate state funding for their new teen center that will begin later this upcoming spring. I was proud to work alongside the Massachusetts Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs, and my colleagues, to secure over $70,000 for the teen center and am beyond excited for this project.

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Mass. has spent $30M on shelter system over last two weeks, Healeys admin. says in new report

Over the last two weeks, Massachusetts has spent about $30 million on its emergency shelter system, which continues to strain under an upsurge of homeless families in the state. The number of families in need of shelter has exploded in the past year, largely driven by an influx of immigrants coming into the country legally but unable to work under federal immigration laws.

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Excerpts From Dr. Claudine Gays Work

Three years earlier, David Covin, then a professor at California State University, Sacramento, wrote about “the dismissal of four Black male children from the volleyball team of the Tiete Yacht Club in May, 1978, because of their color.” His paper, “Afrocentricity in O Movimento Negro Unificado,” appeared in the Journal of Black Studies. Dr. Gay’s paper does not attribute the passage about the athletes to Dr. Covin, who died this year, nor to a source whom Dr. Covin credited in his paper. Dr. Covin’s name does not appear in the suggested further reading at the end of the paper. In a statement Wednesday, Harvard said: “While Gay’s 1993 work in Origins journal was initially included in the scope of the independent review, the independent panel and the subcommittee of the Corporation considered the article outside its purview due to the age of the article and because articles included in that journal generally do not include citations or quotations.” George Reid Andrews Dr. Gay is also accused of copying language, with slight modifications, in her paper “Between Black and White” from a 1992 paper “Black Political Protest in São Paulo, 1888-1988” by the history professor George Reid Andrews in the Journal of Latin American Studies. The Andrews paper says that the “rhetoric and aspirations” of a younger generation of Afro-Brazilians with “one or more years of university study” seemed removed from those of poor slum dwellers. Dr. Gay’s paper uses the phrase “aspirations and rhetoric,” reversing the order of those words, and refers to one or more years of “university education” rather than “university study.”

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Labor Dispute Closes Berlin, the Beloved Chicago Gay Bar

Berlin, a club that was a cornerstone of gay nightlife in Chicago, has closed after four decades. The bar’s owners announced that they were closing it last week after months of boycotts by workers and performers in support of a fledging union’s demands for higher wages, health insurance and improved security. “The magic that happened at 954 W. Belmont will never be recreated,” the bar said in a statement on its website. “It couldn’t be. It was a remarkable tornado of talented performers and staff, inspired friends and customers, a crazy location and a lot of dreams.” Patrons and former bartenders responded by flooding social media pages dedicated to the eccentric space with pictures and memories. “The early 90s at Berlin was a blur and an absolute blast!” one customer wrote on Facebook. The bar opened in 1983, as Chicago’s gay rights movement was coalescing around demands for more resources to address the AIDS epidemic.

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Biden Says Its Self-Evident That Trump Supported an Insurrection

President Biden said on Wednesday that it was “self-evident” that former President Donald J. Trump had supported an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, but that the courts would decide whether he should be on the ballot in 2024. The president was responding to a reporter’s question about the Colorado Supreme Court decision on Tuesday that said that Mr. Trump was disqualified from being on the 2024 ballot in the state’s Republican primary because he was part of an insurrection. “Not going to comment on it,” Mr. Biden said after landing in Milwaukee for a speech to the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce. And then he did. “It’s self-evident. You saw it all,” Mr. Biden said, adding that it would be up to the court to decide whether Mr. Trump was in violation of the 14th Amendment, which says that acts of insurrection can disqualify someone from office.

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Neri Oxman, wife of Bill Ackman, apologizes amid allegations of plagiarism

Business Insider’s reporting points to multiple instances of purported plagiarism by Oxman in her 2010 doctoral dissertation for MIT and other pieces of her published work. Ackman was a central figure in the push to remove Claudine Gay as president of Harvard University over her response to antisemitism on campus and instances of plagiarism in her own academic work. Gay resigned on Tuesday . Neri Oxman, an architect and former MIT professor who is married to billionaire investor Bill Ackman, is facing allegations of plagiarism in her academic writing following two reports by Business Insider. The Globe could not independently verify the online news publication’s reports Friday. Advertisement In response to the accusations against his wife, Ackman said on X, formerly Twitter, that he will conduct a plagiarism review of all MIT faculty and leadership. “It is unfortunate that my actions to address problems in higher education have led to these attacks on my family,” Ackman wrote on X Friday evening, less than an hour before Business Insider published a second story reporting further allegations of plagiarism by Oxman. “This experience has inspired me to save all news organizations from the trouble of doing plagiarism reviews.” In a later post on X, Ackman said he would extend his plagiarism review to include Business Insider journalists. Business Insider published its first article about Oxman’s work Thursday, which highlighted three paragraphs in her dissertation where Oxman failed to use quotation marks when quoting the work of other scholars, and a fourth paragraph where she paraphrased another author but did not cite their work. Shortly after the article was published online, Oxman responded Thursday in a post on social media where she apologized and acknowledged “errors” with those paragraphs in her 330-page dissertation titled “Material-based Design Computation.” “For each of the four paragraphs in question, I properly credited the original source’s author(s) with references at the end of each of the subject paragraphs, and in the detailed bibliography end pages of the dissertation,” Oxman said in a post on X. “In these four paragraphs, however, I did not place the subject language in quotation marks, which would be the proper approach for crediting the work. I regret and apologize for these errors.” Advertisement She said Business Insider did not give her enough time to review the source material, some of which is not available online. “When I obtain access to the original sources, I will check all of the above citations and request that MIT make any necessary corrections,” Oxman wrote on X. The report noted that the instances of plagiarism raised in Oxman’s dissertation were similar the examples found in Gay’s work, which Ackman amplified in his push for Gay’s removal as Harvard president. Ackman responded in his own post on X after Business Insider published its initial report. “You know that you struck a chord when they go after your wife, in this case my love and partner in life,” he wrote. “Part of what makes her human is that she makes mistakes, owns them, and apologizes when appropriate.” Business Insider published its second story Friday evening, reporting that Oxman “stole sentences and whole paragraphs from Wikipedia, other scholars, and technical documents in her academic writing.” The outlet reported that “at least 15 passages from her 2010 MIT doctoral dissertation were lifted without any citation from Wikipedia entries.” Advertisement About an hour before that story was published Friday, Ackman posted on X that Oxman was “just contacted” by Business Insider regarding additional instances of plagiarism in her work. “Business Insider told us that they are publishing their story this evening,” he wrote. “As a result, we don’t have time to research their claims prior to publication.” He then said he would launch a plagiarism review at MIT. “We will begin with a review of the work of all current @MIT faculty members, President [Sally] Kornbluth, other officers of the Corporation, and its board members for plagiarism,” he wrote. “We will share our findings in the public domain as they are completed in the spirit of transparency.” In response to a request for comment on Business Insider’s reporting and Ackman’s intent to review the work of MIT faculty and leadership, a university spokesperson said, “Our leaders remain focused on ensuring the vital work of the people of MIT continues, work that is essential to the nation’s security, prosperity and quality of life.” Messages were sent to Business Insider’s public relations department and a representative for Ackman and Oxman seeking further comment late Friday. Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com. Follow him @NickStoico.

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Aging dams in central and western Massachusetts to be removed in $25M project

BOSTON (AP) — Eight aging dams in central and western Massachusetts will be removed as part of a $25 million initiative announced Friday by state environmental officials. The structures to be dismantled include the abandoned high-hazard Bel Air Dam in Pittsfield. Removing the dams will restore fish and other wildlife habitats, increase biodiversity, improve water quality, promote climate resiliency and make communities safer, officials said. “This summer, we saw firsthand the catastrophic impacts of severe flooding and the stress and pressure it puts on our dams,” Gov. Maura Healey said. The floods earlier this year put a few dams at risk and raised concerns that the structures may increasingly be at risk as the region is hit by stronger and wetter storms. There are thousands of dams across New England and many were built decades if not centuries ago, often to help power textile mills, store water or supply irrigation to farms. The concern is they have outlived their usefulness and climate change could bring storms they were never built to withstand. Of the $25 million, $20 million will support the removal of Bel Air Dam, and $5 million will go toward the removal of the remaining seven dams. The removal of the Bel Air Dam will reduce the risk of downstream flooding that could affect nearly 500 parcels of land, including residential, business, commercial, and industrial areas. As part of the dam’s removal the state will dispose of contaminated sediments off-site to reduce health risks, officials said. The dam’s removal should also improve fish passage and improve ecological restoration of the west branch of the Housatonic River in Pittsfield, where the dam sits. The remaining seven dams are: Cusky Pond Dam in New Braintree; Schoolhouse Pond Dam in Sutton; Patrill Hollow Pond Dam in Hardwick; Thousand Acre Reservoir Dam in Athol; Arnold Pond Dam in Sutton; Salmon Pond Dam in Brookfield; and Weston Brook Dam in Windsor.

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Patients lobbying for correct diabetes diagnoses worry race may have played a factor in treatment

A roundup of conversations we're having daily on the site. Subscribe to the Reckon Daily for stories centering marginalized communities and speaking to the under-covered issues of the moment. When Phyllisa Deroze was told she had diabetes in a Fayetteville, North Carolina emergency department years ago, she was handed pamphlets with information on two types of the disease. One had pictures of children on it, she recalled, while the other had pictures of seniors. Deroze, a 31-year-old English professor at the time, was confused about which images were meant to depict her. Initially, she was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, as shown on the pamphlet with older adults. It would be eight years before she learned she had a different form of diabetes — one that didn’t fit neatly on either pamphlet. The condition is often called latent autoimmune diabetes of adults, or LADA for short. Patients with it can be misdiagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and spend months or years trying to manage the wrong condition. As many as 10 percent of patients diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes might actually have LADA, said Jason Gaglia, an endocrinologist at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. Deroze and three other LADA patients who spoke with KFF Health News, all Black women, are among those who were initially misdiagnosed. Without the correct diagnosis — which can be confirmed through blood tests — they described being denied the medicines, technology and tests to properly treat their diabetes. Three of them wonder if their race played a role. “That does seem to happen more frequently for African American patients and for other minoritized groups,” said Rochelle Naylor, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Chicago who researches atypical forms of diabetes. “Doctors, like any other person walking this planet, we all have implicit biases that impact our patient experiences and our patient care delivery.” Black patients have long struggled with bias across the U.S. health care system. In a recent KFF survey, for example, 55 percent of Black adults said they believed they needed to be careful at least some of the time about their appearances to be treated fairly during medical visits. Hospital software used to treat patients has been investigated for discrimination. Even a common test used to manage diabetes can underestimate blood sugar levels for patients who have sickle cell trait, which is present in nearly 1 in 10 African Americans. LADA ostensibly has nothing to do with race, but misconceptions about race, weight and age can all lead doctors to misdiagnose LADA patients with Type 2 diabetes, said Kathleen Wyne, an endocrinologist who leads the adult Type 1 diabetes program at Ohio State University. Type 2 diabetes develops in people, often over age 45, whose bodies cannot properly regulate their blood sugar levels. Type 2 accounts for at least 90 percent of diabetes cases in the U.S. and has a high prevalence among African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic populations. It can often be managed with lifestyle changes and oral medications. LADA is more akin to, or even thought to be another form of, Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition once dubbed “juvenile diabetes” because it was most often diagnosed in children. Type 1 occurs when the body attacks its cells that produce insulin — the naturally occurring hormone that regulates blood sugar by helping turn food into energy. Without insulin, humans can’t survive. LADA is difficult to diagnose because it progresses slowly, Gaglia said. Typical LADA patients are over 30 and don’t require injectable insulin for at least six months after diagnosis. But, like Type 1 patients, most will eventually depend on injections of pharmaceutical insulin for the rest of their lives. That delay can lead physicians to believe their patients have Type 2 diabetes even as treatment becomes less effective. “If you have someone who comes into your office who is obese and/or overweight and may have a family history of Type 2 diabetes — if you’re a betting person, you bet on them having Type 2 diabetes,” Gaglia said. “But that’s the thing with LADA: It unmasks itself over time.” Mila Clarke, who lives in Houston, finally saw an endocrinologist in November 2020, more than four years after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. During that visit, she recounted her struggles to manage her blood sugar despite taking oral medications and making significant changes to her diet and exercise regimens. “‘What you just explained to me, I believe, is a classic case of LADA,’” Clarke recalled being told. “‘Has anybody ever tested you for Type 1 antibodies?’” Because both Type 1 diabetes and LADA are autoimmune conditions, patients will have antibodies that Type 2 patients typically don’t. But, as Clarke recounted, getting tested for those various antibodies isn’t always easy. Clarke, now 34, had leaned into her Type 2 diagnosis when she received it in 2016 at age 26. She started a blog with nutrition and lifestyle tips for people with diabetes called “Hangry Woman,” and garnered tens of thousands of followers on Instagram. Clarke said she wanted to fight the stigma around Type 2 diabetes, which stereotypes often associate with being overweight. “Some of the harshest comments that I had gotten were from people with Type 1 who were like, ‘We’re not the same. I didn’t cause this. I didn’t do this to myself,’” Clarke said. “Well, neither did I.” Clarke also felt her initial doctor thought she just wasn’t working hard enough. When she learned about continuous glucose monitors, wearable electronic devices that allow patients to track their blood sugar around the clock, she asked her primary care doctor to prescribe one. The monitors are recommended for patients with Type 1 and, more recently, some with Type 2. “He flat-out told me, ‘No. It’s going to be too much information, too much data for you,’” she recalled. Clarke switched to a different primary care doctor who she felt listened better and who prescribed a continuous glucose monitor. (Clarke later became a paid ambassador for the company that manufactures her device.) The new doctor eventually referred Clarke to the endocrinologist who asked if she’d been tested for antibodies. The test came back positive. Clarke had LADA. “In the health care system, it’s really hard to vocalize your needs when you are a woman of color because you come off as aggressive or you come off as a know-it-all or you come off as disrespectful,” Clarke said. “My intuition was right this whole time, but nobody believed me.” Immediately, Clarke noticed an “eye-opening” difference in how she was treated. She started insulin injections and was referred to a dietitian and a diabetes educator. She wondered: Why wasn’t it easier to get tested for antibodies? Those tests are imperfect and can have false positives, said Gaglia of the Joslin center. Still, Ohio State’s Wyne argued that every diabetes patient should be tested for at least the most common antibody associated with Type 1. “Aren’t you saving lives if you’re identifying the Type 1 before they come in with DKA and die?” Wyne asked, referring to diabetic ketoacidosis, a serious complication of diabetes most commonly associated with Type 1. Deroze started asking her doctor for antibodies tests in 2017 after reading about a Type 2 blogger’s experience being newly diagnosed with LADA. Her endocrinologist denied her requests. She thinks the doctor thought it was impossible for her to have an autoimmune form of diabetes because of her race and weight. She sought a second opinion from a different endocrinologist, who also refused to test her. “I just felt unseen,” Deroze said. After a bout with diabetic ketoacidosis in 2019, Deroze finally persuaded her gynecologist to test her for antibodies. The results came back positive. One of the endocrinologists apologetically prescribed insulin and, later, an insulin pump, another ubiquitous piece of technology for people with Type 1. And for the first time, she encountered the words “diabetes is not your fault” while reading about Type 1 diabetes. It felt like society was caring for her in a way it hadn’t when she was misdiagnosed with Type 2. That’s troubling, she said, and so is how long it took to get what she needed. “My PhD didn’t save me,” said Deroze, who now lives in the Miami area. “You just see the color of my skin, the size of my body, and it negates all of that.” KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. This story also ran on NBC News. It can be republished for free.

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Putin Quietly Signals He Is Open to a Cease-Fire in Ukraine

President Vladimir V. Putin’s confidence seems to know no bounds. Buoyed by Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive and flagging Western support, Mr. Putin says that Russia’s war goals have not changed. Addressing his generals on Tuesday, he boasted that Ukraine was so beleaguered that Russia’s invading troops were doing “what we want.” “We won’t give up what’s ours,” he pledged, adding dismissively, “If they want to negotiate, let them negotiate.” But in a recent push of back-channel diplomacy, Mr. Putin has been sending a different message: He is ready to make a deal. Mr. Putin has been signaling through intermediaries since at least September that he is open to a cease-fire that freezes the fighting along the current lines, far short of his ambitions to dominate Ukraine, two former senior Russian officials close to the Kremlin and American and international officials who have received the message from Mr. Putin’s envoys say.

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To ease turnpike traffic in Westfield, give Hilltowns their own exit (Letter)

A recent article in The Westfield News (“Mayor Pushing Redesign of Exit 41 of I-90,” Dec. 1) highlighted plans to build rotaries in the vicinity of the Massachusetts Turnpike to alleviate the constant traffic jams in the area. Perhaps it’s time to build an interchange in Blandford to ease some of these issues. The service plazas in Blandford have existing gates that could be converted to entrances and exits for passenger cars only. With the gantry systems in place, the gates don’t need to be staffed. Residents from Blandford, Otis, Chester, Huntington and Russell could access these gates to alleviate the traffic issues in Westfield. David Lee

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People without assault rifles have right to freedom from fear (Letter)

A recent opinion piece (“America’s Rifle Fetish Is Destroying its Freedom,” The Republican, Nov. 2) by Jamelle Bouie describes a dystopian American society in which the possession of guns has become a fetish and one gun in particular, the AR-15 assault rifle, has become iconic. Mr. Bouie poses this question: “How free are you really when you know a trip to the grocery store or a morning in prayer or a day at school or a night at the movies can end in your death at the hands of a gun?” This question is particularly relevant, considering the 597 mass shootings this year.

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Defense Secretary Kept White House in the Dark About His Hospitalization

It took the Pentagon three and a half days to inform the White House that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had been hospitalized on New Year’s Day following complications from an elective procedure, two U.S. officials said Saturday. The extraordinary breach of protocol — Mr. Austin is in charge of the country’s 1.4 million active-duty military at a time when the wars in Gaza and Ukraine have dominated the American national security landscape — has baffled officials across the government, including at the Pentagon. Senior defense officials say Mr. Austin did not inform them until Thursday that he had been admitted to the intensive care unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The Pentagon then informed the White House. The Pentagon’s belated notification, first reported by Politico, confounded White House officials, one Biden administration official said. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council declined to comment on Saturday.

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Baltimore Sues A.T.F. Over Access to Gun Data

The City of Baltimore is suing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for blocking access to data on guns used to commit crimes — information it said was essential for targeting gun violence and identifying sellers who flood the city with weapons. In a lawsuit filed on Monday, the city’s lawyers argued that the A.T.F. had adopted an overly narrow interpretation of legislation enacted in 2003 by congressional Republicans, at the urging of the National Rifle Association. The law blocked public access to gun trace data collected by the federal government on weapons recovered at the nation’s crime scenes. The so-called Tiahrt Amendment, named for its sponsor, former Representative Todd Tiahrt, Republican of Kansas, prevents the use of federal funding to release information on traces logged in the federal firearms tracing database — amounting to a blackout on public disclosure. A spokeswoman for the A.T.F. did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The bureau’s lawyers are skeptical that the legal challenges to the Tiahrt Amendment will succeed in appellate court, according to officials with knowledge of the situation.

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Killing of Reuters Journalist Was Apparently Deliberate Israeli Strike, Group Says

An Oct. 13 strike that killed a videographer for the Reuters news agency and injured six others in southern Lebanon was carried out by the Israeli military and appeared to be a deliberate attack, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. The watchdog group said that evidence it had reviewed — including dozens of videos of the incident, photographs and satellite images, and interviews with witnesses and military experts — showed that the journalists were not near areas where fighting was taking place and that there was no military objective near their position. “The attack on the journalists’ position directly targeted them,” the report said, labeling the attack a war crime. The Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to the report. Reuters published its own investigation on Thursday and said that an Israeli tank crew had killed its journalist and wounded the others. “The evidence we now have, and have published today, shows that an Israeli tank crew killed our colleague Issam Abdallah,” the Reuters editor in chief, Alessandra Galloni, said in a statement. She called on Israel “to explain how this could have happened and to hold to account those responsible.” On Oct. 13, a week after Hamas attacks on Israel sparked an all-out war, the seven journalists from Reuters, Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse, the French news agency, were standing on a hilltop in southern Lebanon close to the border with Israel. They were filming and broadcasting cross-border shelling between the Israeli army and Lebanese militants allied with Hamas.

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The World I Knew Before Is Gone: Ecuador Reels After Days of Unrest

A sense of dread took hold in Ecuador on Wednesday, with the streets empty, classes canceled, and many people afraid to leave their homes after the disappearance of two gang leaders on Monday set off prison riots, police kidnappings and the on-air storming of a TV station. The violence, which left at least 11 people dead by Wednesday and prompted the president to authorize Ecuador’s military to take on the country’s powerful gangs, has put the South American country on edge. “I feel like the world I knew before is gone,” said María Ortega, a schoolteacher in Guayaquil, a large coastal city. “You can know how things start, but not how they’ll end.” In Guayaquil, where TC Televisión was briefly seized on Tuesday, public transit had resumed and some people ventured outside. TC Televisión was not broadcasting, with only colored lines appearing on the screen where news reports would usually appear.

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Tessa R. Murphy-Romboletti, primera mujer elegida presidenta del Concejo Municipal de Holyoke

Tessa Murphy-Romboletti is the executive director for Holyoke’s EforAll program. (Hoang 'Leon' Nguyen / The Republican)

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What Went Wrong for Ron DeSantis in 2023

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida woke up in Iowa with a familiar political headache. The man he is chasing in the polls, Donald J. Trump, had just been disqualified from the ballot in Colorado in yet another legal assault that Mr. Trump leveraged to cast himself as a victim. And so Mr. DeSantis trod carefully the next morning outside Des Moines when he called Mr. Trump a “high-risk” choice, alluding to “all the other issues” — 91 felony counts, four indictments, the Colorado ruling — facing the former president. “I don’t think it’s fair,” Mr. DeSantis said. “But it’s reality.” He was talking about Mr. Trump’s predicament. But he could just as easily have been talking about his own. Boxed in by a base enamored with Mr. Trump that has instinctively rallied to the former president’s defense, Mr. DeSantis has struggled for months to match the hype that followed his landslide 2022 re-election. Now, with the first votes in the Iowa caucuses only weeks away on Jan. 15, Mr. DeSantis has slipped in some polls into third place, behind Nikki Haley, and has had to downsize his once-grand national ambitions to the simple hopes that a strong showing in a single state — Iowa — could vault him back into contention. For a candidate who talks at length about his own disinterest in “managing America’s decline,” people around Mr. DeSantis are increasingly talking about managing his.

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Despite community outcry, Mittineague Elementary School in West Springfield is set to close

WEST SPRINGFIELD — Disappointed residents vow to keep fighting after the School Committee voted Tuesday to close their beloved Mittineague Elementary school. The fate of Mittineague Elementary, and future education for its 140 students, was decided in three votes. The vote to close was 4-2, with one member absent. School Committee members Robert Mancini and Kathy Alevras were not in favor of the closing. Julie Anne Wise was absent but sent in a letter indicating her support for the closing. More than 40 people attended. Some openly cried after the decision. A separate vote taken to redraw school boundary lines was supported unanimously. A 6-1 vote recommended the committee seek approval from the City Council to send a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for grant funding for a new school. An outside review of West Springfield’s enrollment and school building conditions warned that continuing to operate Mittineague could not be justified financially. But parents like Erin Placey say the town is moving too fast. They say the closing will change the entire landscape of elementary schools in West Springfield, moving away from a neighborhood school model. Resident and parent Rachel L. Knowles said during the public speaking time that with its vote the committee sent a clear message that history can be easily erased. “Students’ lives will change. It (the school’s closure) will hurt them and that will stay with them forever,” Knowles said. The district’s long-term plans include building a new school in place of the Tatham, Memorial and John Ashley elementary schools, renovating John R. Fausey Elementary to update and accommodate kindergarten classrooms, relocating students from Mittineague and redrawing boundary lines. According to Superintendent Stefania Raschilla, Mittineague students will be absorbed into the Phillip G. Coburn and Tatham elementary schools. Equalizing class sizes The main reason the district needs to redraw lines is to make class sizes equitable. Current class sizes range from 14 to 24 students per classroom. Once the lines are redrawn there will be about 18-22 students per class across the district, Raschilla said. The new boundaries will shrink the Memorial Elementary School enrollment boundary to account for the return of multi-language learners there and expand Tatham boundaries into the Mittineague area because they have fewer students. The number of classrooms will be adjusted at both Coburn and Tatham and two disability classrooms will be moved out of Coburn to other buildings in the district. Raschilla said transition and welcoming teams will be created for students. They will be seeking community input. The district will also address transportation needs, look at adjusting school times and the possibility of opening full-day pre-K and kindergarten classrooms at the old Mittineague building in effort to keep about 13 positions in the district. But first, the City Council will need to vote on approving sending a statement of interest to the MSBA by the deadline in April. Sending that statement is important because after 2025, the building authority will only take applications every other year, Raschilla said. Principal Mike Atkins, City Councilors Michael J. LaFlamme and Daniel M. O’Brien attended Tuesday. Atkins declined to comment. O’Brien said he believes the School Committee forced the vote through and that it is likely the council will not support the panel’s request for funding, if presented. “This was the wrong way to go about it. They (the school committee) think they know better about what people want; the people know what they want. … They could have found another way to do it,” O’Brien said. Mittineague Elementary School on Second Street in West Springfield. (Hoang 'Leon' Nguyen / The Republican)Leon Nguyen Mayor William C. Reichelt, who chairs the committee, said the district and committee spent a lot of time over the last year and a half determining steps to better serve students. “I understand as a Mittineague parent this is a difficult process and disheartening to hear,” Reichelt said. “There will never be an ideal time that everyone agrees on to close any school. We have to work together to do what is best for our community as a whole.” The School Committee has a responsibility to the entire district and the recommendations will support the future of the district and improve education in West Springfield, he said. Committee member Diana Coyne said she hopes families realize that all schools in the district have the same culture and community that make West Springfield a special place. “The recommendations didn’t come out of a vacuum, it came out of analysis, review and available public data from as far back as 2005,” she said. Coyne said that while she feels the weight of the decision, the committee needs to make fact-based decisions balanced with fiscal responsibility. Colleen Marcus, vice chair of the School Committee, said members of the Mittineague community were on the Student Population Projection Committee, which made the recommendations. All 13 members understood the impact a closing would have on the community, she said. The ‘no’ votes Alevras, a School Committee member who voted Tuesday against the closing, said her issue was how the meeting was handled. She said she was uncomfortable with voting on something that in her view had not be presented transparently on the agenda. Mancini said voted no because he thinks the decision was being rushed, especially through the holidays. Of all his years in public service, Mancini said he had not seen a more controversial issue. “The powerful testaments of people in the Mittineague community played a huge role in why I voted no,” Mancini said. Mancini encouraged families to find a bright side to the decision. He suggested that Mittineague supporters should keep in mind all that they accomplished together and the memories they share. “Don’t cry it is over, smile because it happened,” he said.

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Lawyer for Election Workers Says Damages From Giuliani Should Send a Message

A lawyer for two former Georgia election workers told members of a jury in federal court on Thursday that they should send a message in considering how much Rudolph W. Giuliani should have to pay for spreading defamatory lies about them as part of his effort three years ago to keep President Donald J. Trump in office. “Send it to Mr. Giuliani,” the lawyer, Michael J. Gottlieb, said in his closing argument. “Send it to any other powerful figure with a platform and an audience who is considering whether they will take the chance to seek profit and fame by assassinating the moral character of ordinary people.” The election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who were counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Fulton County, Ga., on Nov. 3, 2020, are asking for at least $24 million each from Mr. Giuliani for baselessly accusing them of cheating Mr. Trump out of votes and broadcasting that lie to millions of followers on social media. Judge Beryl A. Howell of the Federal District Court in Washington has already found that Mr. Giuliani, who served as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and helped lead the effort to overturn the 2020 election result, defamed the women. The jury in the civil trial is only being asked to determine what damages Mr. Giuliani should pay. The jurors adjourned on Thursday afternoon and were set to pick up their deliberations on Friday.

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How Trump Has Used Fear and Favor to Win Republican Endorsements

On his last day as president on Jan. 20, 2021, Donald J. Trump stood in a snapping wind and waved goodbye to relatives and supporters before he took his final flight on Air Force One back to Mar-a-Lago. No elected Republican of any stature showed up at Joint Base Andrews for the bleak farewell. Mr. Trump, at that moment, was a pariah among Republican elites. The party’s leaders in the House and Senate, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, blamed him for the Capitol siege. Party fund-raisers assured donors they were done with him. On conference calls, House Republican leaders contemplated a “post-Trump” G.O.P. Today, three years after Jan. 6 and more than a week before the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Trump has almost entirely subjugated the elected class of the Republican Party. As of this week, every member of the House Republican leadership is formally backing his campaign to recapture the White House. Mr. Trump has obsessed over his scorecard of endorsers, according to more than half a dozen Trump advisers and people in regular contact with him, most of whom insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations.

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SJC weighs Brookline tobacco bylaw

That means that at some point far into the future, literally no one would be allowed to buy tobacco in Brookline, regardless of his or her age. Currently, the legal age to purchase tobacco statewide is 21. Currently, no one born in the 21st century is allowed to buy tobacco in the Boston suburb of 60,000 people after Town Meeting voters adopted a first-in-the-nation bylaw in 2020. The rule went into effect about a year later, gradually prohibiting tobacco or e-cigarette sales to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2000. During the depths of the pandemic, Brookline adopted a public health measure unlike any in the country. Massachusetts’ highest court could now determine whether it can stay. Advertisement The Brookline rule has been hailed as a novel effort to curb youth tobacco use by going far beyond setting a minimum age, effectively banning future generations from ever purchasing tobacco. New Zealand last year adopted a similar policy, but Brookline’s bylaw remains the only one of its kind in the United States, though it’s something other towns hope to emulate. “We need to do more than what we’ve been doing,” said Maureen Buzby, the tobacco inspection coordinator for several Massachusetts communities, including Melrose, Stoneham, and Wakefield, where officials are weighing restrictions similar to Brookline’s. “We’ve done a lot of policy, a lot of regulation, a lot of state law. Frankly, they’ve worked as Band-Aids.” But now, a ruling by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court could undo the attempt at a wider salve. The high court’s justices this month heard a challenge from a group of Brookline businesses, whose attorneys argue that Brookline’s bylaw is unconstitutional and conflicts with the 2018 state law that set the legal age at 21. A ban, even implemented gradually, could have wide ramifications for convenience stores, where tobacco products account for more than one-quarter of merchandise sales nationally, according to a Massachusetts trade group representing local retailers. The lawsuit has also drawn the support of some of the tobacco’s industry’s biggest players hoping to stop the policy before it gains steam. Advertisement Backing Brookline’s bylaw is the state of Massachusetts, which argued in a brief that the town is addressing “a legitimate health concern.” Governor Maura Healey approved Brookline’s rule when she was attorney general. A slew of other policymakers, from California lawmakers to those in Hawaii, have proposed their own bans. While the legal nuances could shift from state to state, the Massachusetts SJC ruling could provide an important barometer, including clearing others in Massachusetts to pursue their own restrictions or sending them back to the drawing board. “I would think [tobacco companies] may consider it a bit of a long shot, but a potentially mortal threat to their industry,” said Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University’s School of Law, which is representing Brookline in the lawsuit. “What the SJC does in this case may not have any impact on whether a policy may withstand a legal challenge in other states,” he added. “But it certainly would show it’s possible, given the right legal environment, to implement a policy that is truly an end-game policy for tobacco sales.” Town hall on Washington Street in Brookline. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff It’s unclear when the SJC will issue its ruling. Technically, the high court will decide whether to uphold a lower court’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit, known as Six Brothers v. Brookline, where store owners argued Brookline’s tobacco ban undercuts the 2018 law and the intent of the Legislature to set a minimum age. Advertisement At the time, state policymakers noted the minimum age law would replace what had become a “confusing and bewildering patchwork” of rules across towns and cities, Patrick Tinsley, an attorney representing the Brookline retailers, said during the SJC hearing. Moreover, opponents of Brookline’s rule contend it violates equal protection guarantees in the state constitution. American Snuff Co. — a subsidiary of the tobacco giant American Reynolds — argued in a court brief that allowing someone born at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31, 1999 to buy cigarettes but permanently barring someone born one second later is “discriminatory treatment [that] cannot pass constitutional muster.” A company spokesperson declined to comment further. “At what point do adults have the freedom to make their own choices about the products they consume?” said Peter Brennan, executive director of the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, a trade organization that represents 7,000 retailers. The Brookline rule, he said, is a “sneaky, end-around way” toward an outright ban. “It sets a moving goalpost.” At a hearing this month, justices on the SJC considered the law’s weighty ramifications. Justice Scott L. Kafker said, in effect, the bylaw would eventually raise the minimum age “to the point where it renders everybody too young to buy.” Advertisement “Very clever,” he mused. “I just don’t know if that’s legal.” Attorneys for Brookline argue the bylaw is “not a minimum,” but a ban, which is legal under the 2018 state law allowing towns or cities to pursue their own rule that “limits or prohibits the purchase of tobacco products.” Katharine Silbaugh, a Boston University law professor and one of the leading petitioners of Brookline’s bylaw, argued that nicotine and tobacco shouldn’t be regulated like alcohol or cannabis, which “whether we’re right or not, we believe at some age, they are safe enough to use.” “It doesn’t make sense to have an age restriction that seems to indicate that you have become old enough to smoke,” she said. “You’re never old enough to smoke.” Town data indicate that tobacco use among high schoolers has steadily plunged: In 2013, for example, 26 percent of high schoolers said they used tobacco at some point. In a 2023 survey, just 3 percent of Brookline high schoolers said they had used tobacco in the previous 30 days, while 9 percent said they had vaped; 19 percent said they vaped at some point in their lives. Still, health experts caution: It’s hard to draw a direct connection to the town’s new bylaw. “We’ll never be able to point to a direct link [to the bylaw],” said Sigalle Reiss, Brookline’s public health director. But, she said, the policy is both an attempt to reduce exposure and “institute change across a whole community.” “We’re not naïve. We know Brookline is not an island,” she said. “But we do feel like one community has to take that first step.” Advertisement Health officials in Melrose, Stoneham, and Wakefield — three communities clustered north of Boston — have held public hearings on their proposed regulation, which would ban the sale of tobacco or e-cigarette products to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2004. But they’ve tabled any votes until after the SJC ruling, said Anthony Chui, the health director for all three communities. Should they, and perhaps others, adopt similar rules, proponents say that could eventually build momentum toward the adoption of a statewide law. But it often takes years for Beacon Hill to join such a groundswell. When the Legislature voted in 2018 to increase the legal age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21, half the state’s towns and cities, Boston included, had already done so, sometimes years earlier. Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.

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DeSantis Says Trumps Indictments Sucked Out All the Oxygen From Primary

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said that the indictments of former President Donald J. Trump had “distorted” the Republican presidential primary, tacitly admitting that the former president’s legal problems have helped him. “If I could have one thing change, I wish Trump hadn’t been indicted on any of this stuff,” Mr. DeSantis told David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network in an interview that aired on Thursday. He added that the indictments had “just crowded out, I think, so much other stuff and it’s sucked out all the oxygen.” With just weeks until Iowans cast the first votes in the race, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has struggled to gain ground on Mr. Trump and has had to focus more on battling former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina for second place. When Mr. DeSantis entered the race in May, he was widely regarded as the most viable challenger to Mr. Trump. That reputation frayed as his campaign struggled to articulate an effective message, organize in key early primary states and guard against internal turmoil. Last week, the top strategist for Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Jeff Roe, stepped down from his post.

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Falmouths plan to solve severe dispatcher shortage lands in Cape Cod court

A strategy to alleviate low staffing at a Cape Cod community’s emergency call center has put the town’s firefighters at odds with their local government. Amid a nationwide shortage of emergency dispatchers, firefighters in Falmouth were asked to fill shifts in their town’s 911 call center, a job for which they say they are inadequately prepared, according to legal filings. The firefighters also claim they will be forced to respond to calls with fewer hands, putting themselves and Falmouth’s citizens at risk. Town leadership says “the opposite is true” and that the changes were necessary with dispatcher staffing at “a critically low level.” Their dispute is now headed to court. Read more: Falmouth apartment fire on Main Street injures multiple people “The town took the action to enhance the safety of the public, police officers and firefighters in the face of an undisputed dispatcher staffing shortage,” Falmouth Town Manager Mike Renshaw said by email Monday. He stressed that emergency responses in Falmouth “will not be compromised.” The Falmouth Communications Center, which handles 911 calls for the town, is authorized for a staff of nine dispatchers, but its ranks have been depleted in the last year, Renshaw said. The center now has three full-time dispatchers, one of whom is on medical leave, he said. In October, with five dispatchers on staff, Renshaw issued an emergency order directing the Falmouth Police Department to have officers dispatch their members to calls, according to Renshaw and a legal filing from the firefighters’ union. After more dispatchers left their jobs, Renshaw said the town also asked the fire department to help staff the 911 call center. Read more: Transcripts of 911 calls from Lewiston shooting released by Maine authorities Late Friday evening, Falmouth Firefighters Local 1397 filed an emergency motion in Barnstable Superior Court, asking a judge to order the town to pause its plan to have first responders fill vacant dispatcher shifts. In part, the lawsuit says the on-duty firefighters detailed to work the emergency call center do not have the state-mandated training to work as dispatchers. “The town’s actions not only jeopardize the safety of Falmouth residents but also place our firefighters in precarious positions outside their assigned duties,” the union said in a statement. According to legal filings from the union, a call in early January involving “a carbon monoxide scare” was delayed by eight to 10 minutes “due to the detailed firefighter’s lack of experience and training in dispatch.” Renshaw said the town is working to fill the vacant dispatcher positions. Communities across the country have struggled to staff their emergency call centers as dispatchers report experiencing burnout, handling more frequent calls and feeling undertrained, according to the Associated Press. A nationwide survey conducted last year by Carbyne, a cloud technology company focused on emergency services, found 82% of dispatchers said their call center was understaffed. Karima Holmes, vice president and head of public safety at Carbyne and former director of the Office of Unified Communications in Washington, D.C., told the AP that staffing issues worsened during the pandemic and, like many jobs in public safety, it suffered from image problems after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. “People are not coming to the job because of people turning away from wanting to have public safety careers,” Holmes said. “But you add to that issues with lower pay, dealing with increased call volumes and people feeling burned out, and it becomes difficult to get people into the profession.” The lawsuit from the Falmouth firefighters’ union names the town and Renshaw as defendants. The sides are due in Barnstable Superior Court on Jan. 16, according to court records. Material from the Associated Press was used in this story.

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Red Cross has received handover of hostages being released Sunday, IDF says

National security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks with CNN on Sunday. CNN The Biden administration has “reason to believe” one of the Americans held hostage will be released Sunday, a top US official said Sunday. “We're dealing with Hamas. We are in a ‘don't trust, but verify’ situation here. And so we have reason to believe that there will be an American release today,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union." “Today should be a good day, a joyful day, but until we actually see it happen, we are going to remain really at the edge of our seat,” he said. Sullivan's comments confirm previous reporting from CNN that an American citizen is due to be among those freed today. Two American women and one child, 4-year-old Abigail Edan, are currently unaccounted-for and are expected to be part of the group of 50 women and children hostages released as part a four-day truce, now in its third day. No Americans were released as part of the deal on Friday or Saturday. Ten Americans are unaccounted for in total. The US, Sullivan said, has “growing optimism” that Edan will be returned, though he declined to provide a timeline. “We are now hopeful that Abigail will be released and reunited with her family. She turned four just two days ago. She has been through hell. She had her parents killed right in front of her and has been held hostage for the last several weeks,” Sullivan said. “But I am going to say that we have growing optimism about Abigail and we will now watch and see what happens.” Sullivan said that it is difficult to know the true status of the Americans being held. “We cannot say for certain whether all three of them are still alive. But we do know this: we have reason to believe that today, one American will be released,” he said.

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State grants fuel trail projects in Agawam and West Springfield

A $24 million investment will expand and maintain the state’s network of trails including paths in Agawam and West Springfield at the Bear Hole Reservoir. The Healey-Driscoll administration said Friday it aims to create connections between communities, promoting tourism, economic growth, and opportunities for transportation that help reach the state’s climate goals. According to Healey, outdoor recreation generates $11 billion in economic activity in Massachusetts. “By investing in our trails system, more people will look to Massachusetts for their next vacation in nature, and we can get our own residents moving out on our trails, whether to work or just to appreciate Massachusetts’ natural beauty,” Healey said in a statement. Mark Noonan, West Springfield’s conservation officer and assistant planner, said the town received $50,000 in 2022. A new bridge will help hikers reach Lost Pond in West Springfield.Staff Noonan said the town plans to use the state funding to build a bridge and create a path near Lost Pond, located in the Bear Hole Reservoir, near the Holyoke line. The town is in the process of finding a contractor and has until next year to spend the grant money, Noonan said in an interview Friday. Expanding DCR network Funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, the state investment makes possible projects in environmental justice communities that otherwise might have waited years, officials say. About $15 million will be used to build major trail systems within the Department of Conservation and Recreation trail network. Of the total grants, $6 million will go towards supporting the creation and upkeep of municipally owned trails in West Springfield, Agawam, Clarksburg, Wendell, Ashland, Boxford, Leominster, Becket, Granby, Dorchester, Milton, Mattapan, Waltham, Medford and Blackstone. The MassTrails Grant program provides matching grants, technical assistance and resources to individuals, municipalities, nonprofits and public bodies for the design, construction and maintenance of diverse, high-quality trails. They can include hiking trails, bikeways and shared-use paths. In June, the Healey administration announced $11.6 million in funding through the program to support 68 trail improvement projects.

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Deadly Iranian Strikes in Iraq and Pakistan Inflame Regional Tensions

Iran hit its neighbors Pakistan and Iraq with missile strikes on Tuesday, prompting strong denunciations from both countries and raising fears that upheaval in the Middle East could spiral out of control. Since the war in Gaza began in October, Iran has used its proxy forces against Israel and its allies. But on Tuesday, it said its latest missile strikes had been in response to terrorist attacks within its borders. The missile strikes, nevertheless, raised tensions in a region where conflict has now touched at least five nations. “They are contributing to the escalation of regional tensions — and it must stop,” the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement, after the strike on Iraq. Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, also denounced the strike on Iraq.

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Zelensky in Washington, and a Texas Abortion Case Ruling

The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about five minutes.

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School Committee election disputes continue between Gosselin and Gunther

WESTFIELD - Jeffrey Gosselin, who ran unsuccessfully for the Westfield School Committee in the Nov. 7 Municipal Election, filed a suit against the Westfield Democratic City Committee on Dec. 26, 2023 in Superior Court in Springfield. In the lawsuit, Gosselin charged the democratic committee and its chair Jeffrey Gunther with not following its bylaws when he was denied financial assistance for his campaign following a request for support that he said he made during the Sept. 14 and Oct. 12 meetings. Gunther also ran for the School Committee, and was elected.

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Former Harvard President Claudine Gay: This Is About More Than My Mistakes - The New York Times

On Tuesday, I made the wrenching but necessary decision to resign as Harvard’s president. For weeks, both I and the institution to which I’ve devoted my professional life have been under attack. My character and intelligence have been impugned. My commitment to fighting antisemitism has been questioned. My inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count. My hope is that by stepping down I will deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth. As I depart, I must offer a few words of warning. The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader. This was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society. Campaigns of this kind often start with attacks on education and expertise, because these are the tools that best equip communities to see through propaganda. But such campaigns don’t end there. Trusted institutions of all types — from public health agencies to news organizations — will continue to fall victim to coordinated attempts to undermine their legitimacy and ruin their leaders’ credibility. For the opportunists driving cynicism about our institutions, no single victory or toppled leader exhausts their zeal. Yes, I made mistakes. In my initial response to the atrocities of Oct. 7, I should have stated more forcefully what all people of good conscience know: Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks to eradicate the Jewish state. And at a congressional hearing last month, I fell into a well-laid trap. I neglected to clearly articulate that calls for the genocide of Jewish people are abhorrent and unacceptable and that I would use every tool at my disposal to protect students from that kind of hate.

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Opinion | Why I Cant Stop Writing About Oct. 7

Everything that was true before Oct. 7 became more so after it. Hate crimes against Jews, which had nearly quintupled in the previous 10 years, also quintupled from Oct. 7 to Dec. 7 compared to the same period in 2022. Subtext became text: “Gas the Jews” was the chant heard from protesters at the Sydney Opera House, “From the river to the sea” from the quads of once-great American universities. The same students who had been carefully instructed in the nuances of microaggressions suddenly went very macro when it came to making Jews feel despised. The same progressives who erupted in righteous rage during #MeToo became somnambulant in the face of abundant evidence that Israeli women had been mutilated, gang-raped and murdered by Hamas. The same humanitarians who cried foul over migrant “kids in cages” at the southern U.S. border didn’t seem particularly bothered that Israeli kids were being held in tunnels, or that posters with their names and faces were routinely torn down on New York street corners. All this is likely to get worse: A Harvard-Harris poll conducted this month finds that 44 percent of Americans ages 25 to 34, and a whopping 67 percent of those ages 18 to 24, agree with the proposition that “Jews as a class are oppressors.” By contrast, only 9 percent of Americans over 65 feel that way. The same generation that received the most instruction in the virtues of tolerance is now the most antisemitic in recent memory. Where does all this hatred come from? If your answer is Israel, then, to borrow a line I once heard from Leon Wieseltier, you aren’t explaining antisemitism; you’re replicating it. No self-respecting liberal would argue that Islamophobia is understandable because Muslims perpetrated the attacks of Sept. 11 and other atrocities. But somehow the types of excuses that are unthinkable when it comes to some minorities become “essential context” when it comes to Jews. As it is, the single-minded loathing of Israel is another expression of antisemitism. Turkey flies F-16s in bombing runs against Kurds — while relying on U.S. security guarantees backed up by nuclear weapons — and progressives shrug. But after Israel experienced the equivalent of more than a dozen Sept. 11s on a single day, some progressives instantly cheered it as an act of justified “resistance.” This side of the left, perhaps larger in cultural influence than it is in number, has the moral credibility of David Duke. Much of the right, with its dog-whistling obsession with “replacement theory” and its conspiracy theories about nefarious “globalists,” is no better. The fact that each side is in denial about its bigotry makes it that much more pernicious and pervasive. When progressives think the most despicable name in the world is Benjamin Netanyahu and the far right thinks it’s George Soros, we have a problem.

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Opinion | Denying the Gender-Based Violence of Oct. 7 Helps No One

In Israel and Gaza, war is being fought as wars have long been: with bodies and steel, on land and from the sky. Around the rest of the world, though, the Israel-Hamas war is being waged with propaganda, protest and social media posts, declarations and dismissals, all too often by ideologues speaking to an audience primed to believe them. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the too-long silence about, downplaying and even outright denial of the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas. Allegations of sexual violence on Oct. 7 were raised early on. But the attacks that day were so shocking and the casualty figures so high and the mission to figure out who was dead and who was kidnapped so urgent that it seems Israeli investigators prioritized identifying victims over in-depth forensic examinations. Stunned recovery teams made every effort to offer dignified treatment of the dead, often failing to photograph the bodies as they were found. Many victims, in accordance with traditional Jewish funeral customs, were buried as soon as possible.

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How a Russian Barrage Evaded Ukraines Defenses to Wreak Deadly Chaos

For months, Ukraine’s use of powerful Western-supplied air-defense systems to repel Russian missile attacks has provided its citizens with some reassurance that a protective shield was effectively in place over big cities such as the capital, Kyiv. On Friday, that shield partly cracked. In one of the biggest air assaults of the war, Russia launched so many missiles that the Ukrainian defenses seem to have been overloaded. Faced with a complex barrage of different airborne weapons, the Ukrainian Air Force said it had shot down only 87 of the 122 missiles fired by Moscow, about 70 percent of the total, with all hypersonic missiles and many ballistic missiles evading interception. Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the research group Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation, was blunt. “It overwhelmed Ukrainian air defenses,” he said. To be sure, air defenses are imperfect and the magnitude of the barrage played an important part in the number of missiles to slip through. But the bombardment also showed how Russia has learned the best ways to evade Ukraine’s air defenses and hit the country hard, military experts and Ukrainian officials said.

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Westfields Arm Brook Dam project clears federal hurdle before construction

WESTFIELD — The federal government recently ruled the rehabilitation of the Arm Brook Multipurpose Dam will not require an environmental impact statement before the project gets underway in 2025. “This is absolutely good news,” said Allison McMordie, the city engineer, when asked about the report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service on Nov. 22.

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Boston Dynamics wants to ban robots carrying guns

Executives from MassRobotics and Boston Dynamics have asked state lawmakers to advance a bill banning armed robots that, if passed, would be the first-in-the-nation to do so, according to supporters. The Joint Committee on the Judiciary held Tuesday a hybrid hearing where about 190 people signed up to testify on about 30 different bills with privacy ramifications, from protecting the privacy of 911 callers, to enhancing access to abortion care to banning government use of facial recognition technologies. The bill in question, "An Act to ensure the responsible use of advanced robotic technologies," seeks to make mounting a weapon on a robotic device unlawful — but includes exceptions for certain circumstances, such as for law enforcement and military use after proper warrants are obtained, or bomb squad officials trying to remotely disarm explosives. Overall, the bills prohibits the manufacture, sale, use or operation of a robotic device or drone that is equipped with a weapon, or the use of a robot to threaten, harass or restrain people. Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters. More on this story from Boston Business Journal

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No Labels Asks the Justice Department to Investigate Its Critics

No Labels, the centrist group that could field a third-party presidential bid, has asked the Justice Department to investigate what it calls unlawful intimidation by groups that oppose it. The group filed a complaint on Jan. 11, accusing a number of political figures and other critics of engaging in voter suppression and violating federal law, including the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which is often used to combat organized crime. Leaders of No Labels who described the complaint during a news conference on Thursday pointed largely to previously reported details of efforts to oppose the group, as well as incendiary statements that some of its critics had made on political podcasts. The group compared the efforts of its opponents to those of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s and ’60s and the fictional mob boss Tony Soprano. A montage of clips shown by the group included Rick Wilson, a founder of the anti-Trump Republican group the Lincoln Project, saying last spring that the group had to “be burned to the ground,” using an expletive — although the clip had been cut off before Mr. Wilson adds the word “politically.” (After being asked about the shortened clip, the group uploaded a version of the video with the full statement.)

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Azerbaijan Is Expected to Host the U.N. Climate Summit in 2024

The next United Nations climate change summit appears set to take place in Azerbaijan, a spokesman for the country said Saturday, resolving a bitter, monthslong political standoff over which nation should host the talks in 2024. Azerbaijan would be the third major oil and gas producer in a row to host the annual U.N. negotiations on tackling global warming, which is largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels. This year’s summit, known as COP28, is being held in the United Arab Emirates, the world’s seventh-largest producer of oil. Azerbaijan’s government is considered authoritarian by many analysts. Human rights groups have documented widespread corruption and political repression over the 20-year rule of the country’s president, Ilham Aliyev. The prolonged uncertainty over which country would host the next climate summit has cast a shadow over the current talks in Dubai, as tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine nearly derailed the ability of diplomats to find a new host. While the nearly 200 countries gathered here are focused on more complex questions like whether and how to curb their use of fossil fuels, the inability to select a site for the next conference loomed as a troubling sign for global cooperation.

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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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A Natural Gas Project Is Bidens Next Big Climate Test

On a marshy stretch of the Louisiana coastline, a little-known company wants to build a $10 billion facility that would allow the United States to export vast stores of liquefied natural gas. Supporters of the project, known as CP2, say the export terminal would be a boon for the United States economy and help Europe decrease its reliance on gas imported from Russia. They also claim that because burning natural gas produces fewer planet-warming emissions than burning coal, the project is a good thing for the climate. But a nationwide movement is working to stop the export terminal from ever being built. Opponents, including major environmental groups, scientists and activists, say that CP2 would lock in decades of additional greenhouse gas emissions, the main driver of climate change. They add that the project would be harmful to the people who live in the area, as well as the fragile ecosystem that supports aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico. It will be up to the Biden administration to decide whether or not the project moves forward. In the coming months, the Energy Department is expected to rule on whether the export terminal is in the “public interest,” a subjective determination that could have far-reaching consequences for the country’s natural gas industry.

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Cease-Fire Will Begin Friday Morning, Qatar Says

Tal Idan, her face tear-stained and exhausted but her voice unwavering, was clinging to a singular goal last week. “We are going to have a good celebration,” she said at the end of a five-day trip through Washington and New York. “I’m not giving up that we will be able to do that next Friday.” Friday is the fourth birthday of Ms. Idan’s niece Avigail Idan, who is among the roughly 240 Israelis who were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Before the attack, Ms. Idan was focused on her three children and the solar-panel cleaning company that she runs with her husband in northern Israel. But on that day, her husband’s brother Roy Idan, 43, and his wife, Smadar Idan, 38, were fatally shot at the Kfar Azza kibbutz. Ms. Idan’s life’s mission now is to raise Avigail’s siblings — Michael, 9, and Amelia, 6, both of whom survived the violence — and to help bring their sister home. “I have a 3-year-old niece who has no parents anymore,” she said. “I’m her voice now.” As Israelis and Palestinians wait anxiously for the implementation of a temporary cease-fire deal — in which Israel would swap 150 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the return of 50 kidnapped Israelis — Avigail’s family feels hope that she could be among the hostages freed. White House officials said on Tuesday that they expect the agreement to include the release of three Americans: two women and a toddler. Avigail, whose name has also been spelled “Abigail” in the U.S. media, is a dual Israeli and U.S. citizen. On her trip to the United States last week, Ms. Idan met with journalists in New York and lawmakers in Washington, including Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Senator Ro Khanna of California. “I wanted them to know: How does it feel to wake up one morning and to realize you’re in hell,” she said. A day after the hostage deal was announced, Ms. Idan was at home with her family, feeling anxious. “I find myself barely breathing through the last 24 hours,” she said. “Every hour that goes by feels like forever.” On the morning of Oct. 7, as terrorists swarmed the kibbutz, Smadar Idan was shot in front of her children, Ms. Idan said she was told by Michael and Amelia. Roy Idan was outside the house, holding Avigail in his arms. As Michael and Amelia ran to their father, they watched him get shot and killed while holding their sister. They assumed she was dead too and raced back into their home. Covered in her father’s blood, Avigail ran toward a neighbor, her aunt said. The man brought Avigail into his home to hide with his wife and children and then left the house to find a gun. “Ten minutes later, when he got back, all were gone,” Ms. Idan said. After 14 hours of hiding in a closet, with their mother’s body on the other side of a fabric partition, Michael and Amelia were rescued by an Israeli soldier and brought to Ms. Idan’s husband, Amit, she said. “They are not OK,” Ms. Idan said of Michael and Amelia. “They hear the wind blow, and they are shaking.” But, she added, “they are survivors and heroes,” as is their sister. “To be able to escape herself out of her father’s hands and to run away for life and to manage to rescue herself with nobody else out there — that’s amazing,” said Ms. Idan said of Avigail. “She’s a hero. But there is a long way for us. First of all, she needs to be back home. She needs to be with her brother and sister. That’s the only thing that’s left for her.”

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North Korea launches suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile that can reach distant U.S. bases

World News North Korea launches suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile that can reach distant U.S. bases The Joint Chiefs of Staff called the launch a provocation that poses a serious threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula. A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea on Sunday, its neighbors said, in its first missile launch this year, as the North is expected to further raise regional animosities in an election year for its rivals South Korea and the United States. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) SEOUL, South Korea (A.P.) — North Korea fired a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile into the sea on Sunday, South Korea’s military said, two months after the North claimed to have tested engines for a new harder-to-detect missile capable of striking distant U.S. targets in the region. The launch was the North’s first this year. Experts say North Korea could ramp up its provocative missile tests as a way to influence the results of South Korea’s parliamentary elections in April and the U.S. presidential election in November. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that it detected the launch of a ballistic missile of an intermediate-range class from the North’s capital region on Sunday afternoon. It said the missile flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) before landing in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Advertisement: The Joint Chiefs of Staff called the launch a provocation that poses a serious threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula. It said South Korea’s military will maintain its readiness to overwhelmingly respond to any provocations by North Korea. The South Korean assessment suggests North Korea could have launched a new intermediate-range ballistic missile, whose solid-fuel engine it said it had tested in mid-November. The missile is mainly designed to hit U.S. military bases in the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, which is about 3,400 kilometers (2,110 miles) from Pyongyang, the North’s capital. With a range adjustment, the missile can also be used to attack closer targets — the U.S. military installations in Japan’s Okinawa island, according to Chang Young-keun, a missile expert at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy in Seoul. Built-in solid propellants make missile launches harder to detect than liquid-fueled missiles, which must be fueled before launch and cannot last long. North Korea has a growing arsenal of solid-fuel short-range missiles targeting South Korea, but its existing Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile is powered by liquid-fuel engines. Japan’s Defense Ministry said its analysis showed the missile traveled at least 500 kilometers (300 miles) at the maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (30 miles), data that suggests North Korea may have fired a short-range and not an intermediate-range missile. Advertisement: Japan and South Korea said they closely exchanged information about the launch with the United States, but they didn’t immediately explain the discrepancy in data. The last time North Korea performed a missile launch that was publicly announced was Dec. 18, when it test-fired its Hwasong-18 solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile, the North’s most advanced weapon. The Hwasong-18 is the country’s only known solid-fuel ICBM and it’s designed to strike the mainland U.S. On Jan. 5, North Korea fired a barrage of artillery shells near the disputed western sea boundary with South Korea, prompting South Korea to conduct similar firing exercises in the same area. South Korea accused North Korea of continuing similar artillery barrage in the area for the next two days. The site is where the navies of the two Koreas have fought three bloody sea battles since 1999, and attacks blamed on North Korea killed 50 South Koreans in 2010. In recent days, North Korea has also been escalating its warlike, inflammatory rhetoric against its foes ahead of an election year in South Korea, and the U.S. Leader Kim Jong Un, during visits last week to munitions factories, called South Korea “our principal enemy” and threatened to annihilate it if provoked. Advertisement: Experts say Kim likely wants to see South Korean liberals win the election and pursue rapprochement with North Korea, and for former U.S. President Donald Trump to be elected again. They say Kim may believe he could win U.S. concessions like sanctions relief if Trump returns to the White House. Negotiations over North Korea’s advancing nuclear arsenal have been dormant since the Kim-Trump diplomacy broke down in 2019. Kim has since focused on enlarging his nuclear and missile arsenals in what foreign analysts think is an effort to boost his leverage. In recent months, North Korea has also been expanding its military and other cooperation with Russia. The U.S. government said it has evidence that missiles provided by North Korea to Russia had been used in the war in Ukraine. In a joint statement last week, the U.S., South Korea and their partners said the missile transfer supports Russia’s war of aggression and provides North Korea with valuable technical and military insights. North Korea and Russia announced Sunday that North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui will visit Russia from Monday to Wednesday at the invitation of her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. “Pyongyang’s show of force should be of concern beyond Seoul, as its military cooperation with Moscow adds to the violence in Ukraine, and because it may be more willing to challenge the U.S. and its allies while global attention is fixed on the Middle East,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. Advertisement: Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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North Korea launches suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile that can reach distant U.S. bases

World News North Korea launches suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile that can reach distant U.S. bases The Joint Chiefs of Staff called the launch a provocation that poses a serious threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula. A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea on Sunday, its neighbors said, in its first missile launch this year, as the North is expected to further raise regional animosities in an election year for its rivals South Korea and the United States. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) SEOUL, South Korea (A.P.) — North Korea fired a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile into the sea on Sunday, South Korea’s military said, two months after the North claimed to have tested engines for a new harder-to-detect missile capable of striking distant U.S. targets in the region. The launch was the North’s first this year. Experts say North Korea could ramp up its provocative missile tests as a way to influence the results of South Korea’s parliamentary elections in April and the U.S. presidential election in November. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that it detected the launch of a ballistic missile of an intermediate-range class from the North’s capital region on Sunday afternoon. It said the missile flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) before landing in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Advertisement: The Joint Chiefs of Staff called the launch a provocation that poses a serious threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula. It said South Korea’s military will maintain its readiness to overwhelmingly respond to any provocations by North Korea. The South Korean assessment suggests North Korea could have launched a new intermediate-range ballistic missile, whose solid-fuel engine it said it had tested in mid-November. The missile is mainly designed to hit U.S. military bases in the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, which is about 3,400 kilometers (2,110 miles) from Pyongyang, the North’s capital. With a range adjustment, the missile can also be used to attack closer targets — the U.S. military installations in Japan’s Okinawa island, according to Chang Young-keun, a missile expert at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy in Seoul. Built-in solid propellants make missile launches harder to detect than liquid-fueled missiles, which must be fueled before launch and cannot last long. North Korea has a growing arsenal of solid-fuel short-range missiles targeting South Korea, but its existing Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile is powered by liquid-fuel engines. Japan’s Defense Ministry said its analysis showed the missile traveled at least 500 kilometers (300 miles) at the maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (30 miles), data that suggests North Korea may have fired a short-range and not an intermediate-range missile. Advertisement: Japan and South Korea said they closely exchanged information about the launch with the United States, but they didn’t immediately explain the discrepancy in data. The last time North Korea performed a missile launch that was publicly announced was Dec. 18, when it test-fired its Hwasong-18 solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile, the North’s most advanced weapon. The Hwasong-18 is the country’s only known solid-fuel ICBM and it’s designed to strike the mainland U.S. On Jan. 5, North Korea fired a barrage of artillery shells near the disputed western sea boundary with South Korea, prompting South Korea to conduct similar firing exercises in the same area. South Korea accused North Korea of continuing similar artillery barrage in the area for the next two days. The site is where the navies of the two Koreas have fought three bloody sea battles since 1999, and attacks blamed on North Korea killed 50 South Koreans in 2010. In recent days, North Korea has also been escalating its warlike, inflammatory rhetoric against its foes ahead of an election year in South Korea, and the U.S. Leader Kim Jong Un, during visits last week to munitions factories, called South Korea “our principal enemy” and threatened to annihilate it if provoked. Advertisement: Experts say Kim likely wants to see South Korean liberals win the election and pursue rapprochement with North Korea, and for former U.S. President Donald Trump to be elected again. They say Kim may believe he could win U.S. concessions like sanctions relief if Trump returns to the White House. Negotiations over North Korea’s advancing nuclear arsenal have been dormant since the Kim-Trump diplomacy broke down in 2019. Kim has since focused on enlarging his nuclear and missile arsenals in what foreign analysts think is an effort to boost his leverage. In recent months, North Korea has also been expanding its military and other cooperation with Russia. The U.S. government said it has evidence that missiles provided by North Korea to Russia had been used in the war in Ukraine. In a joint statement last week, the U.S., South Korea and their partners said the missile transfer supports Russia’s war of aggression and provides North Korea with valuable technical and military insights. North Korea and Russia announced Sunday that North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui will visit Russia from Monday to Wednesday at the invitation of her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. “Pyongyang’s show of force should be of concern beyond Seoul, as its military cooperation with Moscow adds to the violence in Ukraine, and because it may be more willing to challenge the U.S. and its allies while global attention is fixed on the Middle East,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. Advertisement: Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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Finance Committee wont recommend $1M public safety plan to Holyoke City Council

HOLYOKE — With questions still looming around the sustainability of the $1 million public safety initiative called Ezekiel’s Plan, the Holyoke Finance Committee voted unanimously to refer the plan to the City Council without a full recommendation on Monday. The Holyoke City Council is set to vote on the safety plan at its meeting tonight. If passed, Ezekiel’s Plan, also known as Operation Safe Streets, would include several city departments, local, state and federal agencies, working together to reduce violent crime and improve quality of life in Holyoke. While there are still more conversations to be had, Holyoke Mayor Joshua A. Garcia reminded the Finance Committee that the plan was created to mitigate and prevent tragedies, like the one stemming from a shooting on Oct. 4 that claimed the life of a newborn baby boy named Ezekiel. “Vote or don’t,” Garcia said. “The community wants to get started and (is) tired of waiting around for local government, who they feel like doesn’t care about them.” The plan includes funding for increased property inspections, creating the homeless liaison position, tenant and neighborhood protections, and a new community response division to be appointed by Garcia, if passed. According to Garcia, the community response division will aid residents with housing and neighborhood issues that often lead to or attract illegal activity, violence and homelessness. When announcing Ezekiel’s plan on Oct. 30, Garcia said it would be paid for with several sources, which included the federal American Rescue Plan Act, the city’s capital stabilization fund, opioid settlement money and other local appropriations. On Monday, Finance Committee Vice Chair and City Councilor Kevin A. Jourdain teased out several positions and expenditures in the plan he was opposed to, including $50,000 to support a health inspector position. “The question is, what’s the long-term sustainability we are committing to? Do we have an extra $50,000 every year to fund that position? It says here they’re going to do housing-, trash- and permit-related inspections. Is that position going to bring in revenue of $50,000 or more?” Jourdain asked. While funding projections have not been outlined, fees, inspections, permitting and enforcement are typically revenue sources an inspector would bring in, said Sean Gonsalves, the director of the Holyoke Board of Health. Jourdain also said he doesn’t agree with spending $90,000 for housing and legal counsel for tenants. “Our job is to check apartments. Make sure that people live in safe and sanitary housing conditions. That’s always been a responsibility of a municipality, but buying lawyers for people to get in fights with their landlord is not the duty of city government,” Jourdain said. Israel Rivera, city councilor and chair of the Public Safety Committee, also questioned portions of the safety initiative that included legal counsel for tenants, the sustainability of five police officers and overtime, why a task force would be created to travel outside of Holyoke, and what a homeless liaison’s role and responsibilities would look like. The city's Finance Committee won’t recommend public safety plan to Holyoke City Council. Pictured here is Mayor Joshua Garcia, speaking after a deadly Oct. 4 shooting in Holyoke. (Don Treeger / The Republican, File) Garcia said funding amounts for each line item are not set in stone, and the safety plan is packaged together for flexibility. “It is more like these are the things that we are looking to do, and here’s what we’re looking at for costs. The $1 million is a flat line item,” Garcia said. For example, Garcia said, during his presentation at a public safety meeting on Nov. 29, youth programs are yet to be identified. “It’ll be a process of soliciting proposals from organizations,” Garcia said. Garcia proposed the $1 million comprehensive public safety initiative as a part of a supplemental budget, but then on Nov. 21, Holyoke City Council passed the supplemental budget without funding the public safety plan. During a Nov. 29 City Council meeting, Garcia said he pulled back on the public safety plan to further explore and explain funding sources with the Finance Committee. One of the main reasons Ezekiel’s Plan was pushed back to the Finance Committee was because of concerns about adding the additional police officers, and how to pay their salaries after the one-time ARPA funding is used up, Joseph M. McGiverin, the chair of the Finance Committee, said during the November meeting. The original public safety plan was to include hiring 13 additional foot and bike patrol police officers; that has now been dropped to five and will be sustained through attrition funding when other officers retire within the next few years. Funding for the plan originally included the installation of a citywide surveillance camera system, but that has been funded by the city’s supplemental budget. It also included a crime analyst position, which might be brought back to the City Council for a future vote.

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Veterans, Gold Star families celebrated holiday season with senator (Letter)

I hope everyone is staying warm this week. This one was certainly one of the colder ones that we have had so far this season. I just want to remind everyone too that should you be in need of utility assistance or think you might qualify, my staff is readily available to assist. On Monday, four of my own bills had a hearing before the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, related to improving our commonwealth’s public safety systems and supporting our law enforcement officers. This is the just the start of the legislative process and I’m looking forward to continuing to advocate for these bills in the new year. After the hearing, I was honored to join hundreds of Gold Star families for 12th annual Military Friends Foundation military tree dedication in the Statehouse, as well. The Military Friends Foundation is a wonderful nationwide organization that does incredible work supporting those who have lost a loved one who served in the military. It was a truly special event of recognition and remembrance and a big thanks to this group for organizing, as well as inviting me.

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More homes and AI: Mass. Gov. Maura Healey unveils 2023 economic development plan

Building more homes, attracting more global talent, and applying artificial intelligence in all key sectors are just some of the main priorities Gov. Maura Healey has listed for Massachusetts in her 2023 economic development plan. Healey’s “Team Massachusetts: Leading Future Generations” plan sketches out the Democratic administration’s economic priorities, broadly grouping them under three categories: fundamentals, talent and sectors. “Massachusetts has a unique opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of our country a better path forward,” the report reads. “To do so, we need to work together as a team, leveraging the strengths in all of our sectors and regions.” The plan was a result of year-long discussions between state officials and Massachusetts residents, businesses, local politicians and stakeholders across the Commonwealth, officials said. Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao was expected to speak on the plan on Wednesday in front of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies. As part of her plan, Healey wants to invest in the “fundamentals” to spark economic growth. That includes boosting housing production, improving the state’s public transit system, and pouring more state funds into rural and Gateway cities. The state is also trying to be a “global talent magnet” by launching programs to retain and attract talent including college graduates, immigrants, non-college graduates and trades/professions, Healey’s office said. In the “sectors” category, the state aims to advance its leadership in life sciences, health care, advanced manufacturing and robotics, artificial intelligence, tourism and climate technology, according to the report. With the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution right around the corner, Healey also wants to boost Massachusetts’ tourism industry. “Massachusetts is at an inflection point and the stakes are high,” Hao said in a statement. “This economic development plan puts us on a path towards ensuring our state is the best place for people to start and grow their careers and for companies to start and scale, all while being a great place to live.”

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Wu to formally apologize for Boston's Stuart murder investigation

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu will be publicly acknowledging the harm caused by the city to the Black community during one of the darkest periods in Boston's history, the Stuart murder case.In 1989, Charles Stuart told police that a Black man shot and killed his pregnant wife, Carol DiMaiti Stuart.Stuart's accusation resulted in the racist harassment of Black men, particularly those living in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood, by city officials and the Boston Police Department.Months after Carol Stuart's death, it was revealed that her husband had orchestrated her murder. Charles Stuart committed suicide by jumping off the Tobin Bridge.Wu announced Tuesday that she will be formally issuing an apology to Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett, two Black men who were wrongfully arrested in connection with Carol Stuart's death. "This dark time in the city’s history exacerbated distrust between Boston’s Black community and the Boston Police Department. Acknowledging this painful moment and apologizing for the city’s wrongdoing is an effort to aid in the healing of those still living with this trauma and our city as a whole," Wu said in a statement.Wu will be hosting a press conference at 10 a.m. on Wednesday at Boston City Hall, which is where she will issue the formal apology to Swanson and Bennett.Previous coverage: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu will be publicly acknowledging the harm caused by the city to the Black community during one of the darkest periods in Boston's history, the Stuart murder case. In 1989, Charles Stuart told police that a Black man shot and killed his pregnant wife, Carol DiMaiti Stuart. Advertisement Stuart's accusation resulted in the racist harassment of Black men, particularly those living in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood, by city officials and the Boston Police Department. Months after Carol Stuart's death, it was revealed that her husband had orchestrated her murder. Charles Stuart committed suicide by jumping off the Tobin Bridge. Wu announced Tuesday that she will be formally issuing an apology to Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett, two Black men who were wrongfully arrested in connection with Carol Stuart's death. "This dark time in the city’s history exacerbated distrust between Boston’s Black community and the Boston Police Department. Acknowledging this painful moment and apologizing for the city’s wrongdoing is an effort to aid in the healing of those still living with this trauma and our city as a whole," Wu said in a statement. Wu will be hosting a press conference at 10 a.m. on Wednesday at Boston City Hall, which is where she will issue the formal apology to Swanson and Bennett. Previous coverage:

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Newton approves pared-down zoning plan to increase housing production

While Newton City Council approved a sweeping zoning change Monday meant to increase housing production in its village centers, some councilors say changes to the plan to reduce its scope means the city is still not doing enough to address its housing crisis. The new zoning ordinance will allow multifamily housing by right in certain areas in Newton’s village centers, and will increase the height restrictions for buildings in those areas. While the city’s plan goes above the requirements of a new state law that forced Newton to make the changes which had been discussed for a few years, it is a scaled-back version of the original proposal brought to the City Council, and was seen by many as a necessary compromise. “There is a lot that’s good in this. It is beginning to restore what was allowed in this city ... up until 1987 (when Newton passed more restrictive zoning),” said Councilor Deborah Crossley, who leads the Zoning and Planning Committee, at Monday’s meeting. “In our time, where we have this serious housing crisis and we have this existential climate crisis, it has become necessary for us as a community, as a commonwealth, as a nation to understand how our development patterns have strangled us. ... I don’t know why it had to take almost three years to do a better plan, a much better plan, in order to get this piece of it, but I’m very pleased that we’re getting the piece of it.” Read more: Opposing groups with same name cause confusion in Newton housing debate The MBTA Communities Act passed in 2021 requires Newton, as well as 176 other municipalities served by the MBTA, to have at least one zoning area near public transit where multifamily housing is allowed by right. The plan is estimated to allow for 8,745 new housing units to be built, 415 above the 8,330 required by the state, although there is no guarantee that any housing will be developed in these areas. Newton’s new ordinance, known as the Village Center Overlay District (VCOD), will be submitted to the state for approval as its plan for complying with the law before its end-of-year deadline. While state approval is needed for the city’s compliance with the MBTA Communities Act, the ordinance will still go into effect regardless of the state decision. Newton, which has 13 village centers rather than one downtown, designed the VCOD to allow multifamily housing in these centers, despite strongly voiced opposition from some residents. The original proposal would have targeted all 13 village centers, but the final plan passed Monday focuses only on six, Newton Centre, Newton Highlands, Waban, West Newton, Newtonville and Auburndale, encompassing just over 3% of the city’s total land area. Buildings covered by the overlay district will be limited to 3.5 or 4.5 stories, depending on the area. Developments that have at least 50% affordable units will be allowed to add an additional story. Some councilors expressed concerns that the high percentage would prevent affordable developments from being economically feasible. Councilor Alicia Bowman pointed out that affordable housing advocates had recommended projects with 35% affordability be allowed two additional stories and those with 25% affordability be allowed one extra story. “Nonprofit developers of affordable housing said, ‘This is what would make it possible for us to build to increase the amount of affordability in units,” she said. “The nonprofit developers can still and will still hopefully propose a project or two or three in the city in the coming years for 100% affordability, but going to 50% is definitely going to take out the for-profit developers.” One major concern from proponents of the VCOD was the inclusion of the village of Auburndale, which some had suggested removing from the plan. An MBTA commuter rail station there is slated for major upgrades in the next few years, and the estimated $170 million project hinges on state funding that could have been taken away if more housing was not allowed there. “The state has made clear that housing is their No. 1 priority, so it was made clear to us that if we don’t rezone in and around Auburndale, the Healey administration will lower that area on their prioritization list,” said Councilor Joshua Krintzman. “I’m not willing to give up the transportation infrastructure upgrades along the commuter rail and I don’t want to gamble with other people’s use of the commuter rail.” Advocates for the proposal celebrated the decision on Tuesday, saying that it was a step forward for the city. “Given a decades-long history of exclusionary zoning and the sad fact that multi-family housing has been the third rail of Newton politics for decades, this is an advancement worth celebrating,” wrote Charles River Chamber CEO Greg Reibman in an email to Chamber members. “Newton will be a better, more welcoming and more economically vibrant city because of it.” The Newton For Everyone Coalition, a group formed to support the VCOD proposal, said in a statement that its passage was “the most significant zoning update in decades.” Read more: Brookline OKs home rule petition to bring back rent control in town “These environmentally responsible reforms will build village vitality and support our businesses. They are the result of three years of public outreach, analysis, debate, and compromise,” the group said. “There is still more to be done to bring housing opportunities and economic development to the additional six villages not included in the new zoning.” Still, not everyone was happy with the vote. Councilor Alison Leary, who along with Councilor Brenda Noel were the only dissenting votes due to their disappointment with the amendments curbing the ordinance’s scope (Councilor Holly Ryan was absent for the vote), said she hoped the council would revisit and expand the VCOD in its next term. “What we’ve done is essentially eviscerated our work in the last three years,” Leary said. “We’ve undercut so much and given up so much that very little, I think, will get built.”

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My Students Can Show Us the Way Forward on Free Speech - The New York Times

My students also report that they are treading lightly outside the classroom as they take on the issues of the moment in their own spaces. They say they are more worried about causing offense with their choices of words or being found ill informed than they are about scoring points. Rather than digging in with dogmatic positions, most of them seem as unsure as the rest of us about just where the lines are. Mainly, I think my students can remind us of the purpose of higher education and, consequently, the kind of speech culture it demands. What they have learned in my free speech class, I hope, is not just the history of laws around speech but also two different but complementary ways of navigating speech, each of them tied to a different function of the modern university. Students go to college largely to gain knowledge that will be useful in the here and now: the workplace, the democratic public sphere and private life. Importantly, that includes how to think about all sides of a given problem. It also includes how to get along with others across differences. But neither of these tasks is done without some informal rules. In my classroom, when we are conversing about the history of speech, we are also following a series of speech protocols that we’ve worked out in practice. No one, for example, can speak on top of anyone else, and no one can personalize the conversation in ways that draw attention to individuals rather than arguments. Free speech was never imagined, even by its earliest advocates, as a free-for-all. This is something that needs to be instilled. College, though, is also the place where one learns to question and to develop thoughtful critiques of the world one is being prepared to enter. If we think of the university as a training ground for imagining a better world — whether from a left, right, center or altogether different perspective — then a very wide latitude for speech is essential as well. Any position that has political salience in today’s discourse should be sayable on campus, whether formally moderated in a classroom or screamed on the quad. No, that does not mean we have to give space to pure expressions of hatred for any group of people or, in the example of last week, tolerate hypothetical “calls for genocide.” But it does mean we have to allow for, even encourage, the airing of varied positions on all unsettled questions, including those that turn on the expression “from the river to the sea” or the term “intifada,” like it or not. This mixture of rules and freedoms makes for a difficult standard. It gets harder all the time as student bodies become more diverse, outside politics become more polarized, and the internet amplifies the sensational and turns the local into the global in an instant.

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Chicopee to hold hearing on public access television contract Tuesday

CHICOPEE — Mayor John Vieau and the city’s Cable TV Advisory Committee will host a public cable license renewal hearing at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. The city is preparing to negotiate a new contract with Spectrum (Charter Communications), which funds public access television studio ChicopeeTV, before the current agreement expires in November 2025. The current contract began on Dec. 1, 2015, and expires Nov. 30, 2025, unless terminated. The contract ensures that Charter Communications funds about $1 million a year to help support operations at ChicopeeTV, which broadcasts public, educational and governmental programming. Before negotiations are made, residents have the chance to share feedback on what they like and dislike about what public access television provides. “This is the time for residents to share the positive experiences they had with ChicopeeTV,” said Andrew Vernon, chief information officer for the city. Vernon said ChicopeeTV is community media, meaning that residents can stop by the facility and use the available equipment for free. Vernon, who also chairs the Cable Advisory Committee, said license renewal hearings happen once every 10 years and are required by law. The hearing will take place at the City Hall Auditorium. Representatives of Spectrum will be at the meeting, Vernon said.

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Mexico Authorities Rescue 31 Migrants Abducted Near Border With U.S.

Tens of thousands of people have made their way to the border region, where they are encouraged to use a U.S. Customs and Border Protection app to present themselves at a legal border crossing to enter the United States. But while the migrants bide their time, cartels are seizing on kidnap-for-ransom opportunities. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico said on Wednesday that the authorities had managed to reduce kidnappings nationwide, but he acknowledged that groups abducting migrants were especially active in Tamaulipas and other states, including San Luis Potosí, Nuevo León and Coahuila. Mexico’s security secretary, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, said on Wednesday that the latest case in Tamaulipas had also raised attention given the number of people targeted. “This type of event occurred with one, two, three migrants,” Ms. Rodríguez said, “but this number in this area is atypical.” The mass abduction in Tamaulipas on Saturday night is one of the largest such cases since last May, when nearly 50 migrants, including 11 children, were kidnapped from a bus in the central state of San Luis Potosí. Officials mobilized 650 police and army troops to search for the migrants, all of whom were found in an area where another mass kidnapping occurred a month earlier. In Tamaulipas, the abduction of migrants is becoming a reliable revenue stream for criminal groups active in the border region, including the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel.

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DCR Traffic Advisory: Morrissey Blvd. rolling lane closure this week

Maureen Dahill is the editor of Caught in Southie and a lifelong resident of South Boston sometimes mistaken for a yuppie. Co-host of Caught Up, storyteller, lover of red wine and binge watching TV series. Mrs. Peter G. Follow her @MaureenCaught.

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Bruised by War-Related Boycott, Artforum Seeks a Reset

A skeleton crew of editors needed to take a hacksaw through the December issue of Artforum magazine. There were only a few weeks between the sudden firing of its editor in chief and a print deadline for the glossy’s annual “Year in Review” issue. The fallout had been swift when Artforum’s owner fired the editor, David Velasco, after the magazine published an open letter about the Israel-Hamas war that supported Palestinian liberation and initially omitted mention of the victims of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. At least six members of the editorial team resigned and nearly 600 writers signed letters boycotting the magazine and its sister publications like ARTnews and Art in America. Regular contributors like the critic Jennifer Krasinski and the art historian Claire Bishop requested to have their articles pulled from the December issue. Others such as the filmmaker John Waters, the curator Meg Onli and the artist Gordon Hall also withdrew their writing. The “Year in Review” issue that has begun arriving to subscribers is a week later than usual and noticeably slimmer. At 150 pages of articles and advertisements, it is about a third smaller than last December’s 224-page issue.

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Under Argentinas New President, Fuel Is Up 60%, and Diaper Prices Have Doubled

Over the past two weeks, the owner of a hip wine bar in Buenos Aires saw the price of beef soar 73 percent, while the zucchini he puts in salads rose 140 percent. An Uber driver paid 60 percent more to fill her tank. And a father said he spent twice as much on diapers for his toddler than he did last month. In Argentina, a country synonymous with galloping inflation, people are used to paying more for just about everything. But under the country’s new president, life is quickly becoming even more painful. When Javier Milei was elected president on Nov. 19, the country was already suffering under the world’s third-highest rate of inflation, with prices up 160 percent from a year before. But since Mr. Milei took office on Dec. 10 and quickly devalued the Argentine currency, prices have soared at such a dizzying pace that many in this South American country of 46 million are running new calculations on how their businesses or households can survive the far deeper economic crunch the country is already enduring.

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Opinion | The New Labor Playbook

As the Opinion video above explores, these are heady times for organized labor. Unions have recently scored big victories in the auto industry and Hollywood; an increasing number of health care workers are starting to organize; and the threat of a strike resulted in big gains for hospitality workers in Las Vegas. Elsewhere, baristas, nail salon and fast food workers, graduate students, warehouse and retail workers, tech employees, domestic workers and ride-share drivers have been mobilizing as unions enjoy levels of public support not seen since the 1960s. But it’s not all good news: The percentage of workers who belong to a union plunged to its lowest level on record in 2022. In this video, Jeff Seal, a video journalist and comedian, argues for the wider use of an industry mechanism known as a minimum standards council to strengthen the labor movement and empower workers.

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With the End of the Cease-Fire, Concern Grows Over the Oldest Israeli Hostages Left Behind

Nurit Cooper, 79, is one of the Israeli hostages released by Hamas. But her son, Rotem Cooper, continues to press for the urgent release of the remaining hostages, especially those who are old and sick. He has a personal stake in the matter. His father, Amiram Cooper, who will turn 85 on Dec. 11, remains a hostage. “A concrete arrangement is needed to rescue the elderly and the people with chronic conditions. And we know that time is of the essence,” Rotem Cooper said earlier this week. “With the elderly, a few weeks or a few days could make the difference between people making it out alive or not.” As Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza on Friday, his worry intensified. “I and my family are all very concerned about the safety of my father now that the war is raging again,” he said. “We were hoping for the cease-fire and hostages exchange to resume with the release of elderly hostages like my father.” Amiram and Nurit were kidnapped from kibbutz Nir Oz. According to what he has learned from his mother, who was freed on Oct. 23 after 17 days of captivity, and others who have been released in recent days, his parents and others were kept underground in tunnels, five prisoners in a small room with little light or ventilation. The sandy ground had a flimsy porous covering over it. There was a mattress and a few pillows. Food was scarce. Most days they were given pita with olive oil. Occasionally there were cheese and cucumbers. But more concerning, Mr. Cooper said, was that he had been told both that his father had not been receiving much of his needed medication and that he continued to struggle with undiagnosed ailments he was experiencing before he was kidnapped. “He has a lot of stomach pain,” said Rotem Cooper, “and we don’t know what it is, but obviously they’re not going to take him for a CT scan.” The deprivation of medical care is likely an issue impacting many, if not all, the older hostages — as well as those with chronic conditions. To try to prevent the prisoners from muscle atrophy or conditions that can arise from lack of movement while being imprisoned in a small room, Hamas guards encouraged the older hostages to walk daily, Rotem Cooper said. Image Nurit Cooper. Credit... Hostages and Missing Families Forum, via Associated Press But navigating the sandy ground of the dark tunnels was challenging for his aging parents and their fellow prisoners, he said, especially because the Hamas gunmen took his father’s eyeglasses when they abducted him and broke his mother’s shoulder. His mother, now living with her daughter in Israel, is working to gain strength through physical therapy. The rest of her recovery is more complicated, her son said. “Mentally,” he said, “she’s definitely doing better. She is more engaged with the people and becoming more independent. But one thing that you have to keep in context is that part of recovery is getting back to what you used to do.” For Nurit Cooper, this is not possible. “My father is still kidnapped” Rotem Cooper said, “and she can’t live in her home at the kibbutz. No one lives there anymore.”

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Ukraine, Stalled on the Front, Steps Up Sabotage, Targeting Trains

“Russian special services should get used to the fact that our people are everywhere,” a senior official with the Ukrainian intelligence service, known as the SBU, said after the second rail attack, offering details of the operation on the condition of anonymity for security reasons. The details of the attacks were confirmed by the official and two other senior Ukrainian officials familiar with the operation, and corresponded with details released by the Russia authorities, videos from the scenes and reporting by Russian media outlets. The Russian security services, known as the FSB, said soon afterward that they had detained two people suspected of organizing several arson attacks on behalf of Kyiv, including one man they said installed magnetic mines on the train that exploded in the tunnel. Russian Railways claimed that 120 workers cleared the tunnel in a matter of days and said that train traffic had resumed. Ukrainian intelligence officials said it could take months to restore the mountain pass to full working order. It is impossible to verify either account. Ukraine is not alone in using guerrilla tactics. Russia is also employing spies, saboteurs and collaborators, and it targets trains, as well. The Polish authorities convicted 14 people on Dec. 19 on charges of undertaking sabotage and propaganda activities under the direction of Russian intelligence, Poland’s Interior Ministry said in a statement. Their main targets, the ministry said, were “trains transporting military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine and preparing for train derailments.” Trains are vital to both sides, as they were designed to be the backbone of the Soviet supply system. But the bold attack on the tunnel in Russia’s Far East is likely to be of particular concern to the Kremlin, said Emily Ferris, a research fellow specializing in Russia at the Royal United Services Institute in Britain.

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Russia Launched a Large and Complex Air Attack on Ukraine

Russian forces fired more than 150 missiles and drones into cities across Ukraine today, hitting factories, hospitals and schools in what Ukrainian officials said was the largest air assault since they began tracking them last year. At least 30 people were killed, more than 160 were wounded and critical infrastructure was damaged, the authorities said. The barrage included hypersonic and cruise missiles that were designed to overwhelm and confuse Ukrainian air defenses, which have successfully shot down a vast majority of attacks in recent months. Today, however, more than 40 missiles and drones hit their marks. One Russian rocket also traveled through a Polish border area near Ukraine for three minutes, briefly violating NATO airspace, Poland’s military said. But unlike the Russian drones that crashed in September in Romania, the rocket did not hit anything on the ground in Poland.

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Trump Meets With Teamsters President as Union Weighs 2024 Endorsement

Sean M. O’Brien, the general president of the Teamsters union, sat down with former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday at Mr. Trump’s seaside mansion, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla. Kara Deniz, a spokeswoman for the union, said the meeting was simply one of a series of meetings the Teamsters plan to have with all the presidential candidates. But this particular meeting, which the union detailed in a lengthy post on social media that was accompanied by a picture of Mr. O’Brien and Mr. Trump, came at a remarkable moment. At a public hearing in November, Senator Markwayne Mullin, a staunchly pro-Trump Republican from Oklahoma, called Mr. O’Brien a “thug,” a “bully” and a coward, and challenged him to a fight. President Biden has called himself the most pro-union president in history, as have several leaders of organized labor, and the Teamsters endorsed his candidacy in 2020. In December, Mr. Biden issued an executive order mandating what are known as project labor agreements — which establish fixed work, wage and labor standards at construction sites — for all federal contracts exceeding $35 million. That order was a potential boon to the Teamsters union, which is likely to control transportation at many of those sites and would have to be brought into contract talks as funds from Mr. Biden’s signature domestic achievements start to flow.

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New York AG seeks over $370M from Trump, co-defendants for 'ill-gotten gains'

New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking over $370 million from former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants in his highly publicized civil fraud trial. James demanded the financial penalty as repayment for profits she argues were illicitly gained, according to a document filed to the court on Friday. The attorney general argues, "The conclusion that defendants intended to defraud when preparing and certifying Trump’s SFCs is inescapable; the myriad deceptive schemes they employed to inflate asset values and conceal facts were so outrageous that they belie innocent explanation." Back in September, Engoron ruled that Trump and the Trump Organization had committed fraud while building his real estate empire, by deceiving banks, insurers and others, by overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing. "The myriad deceptive schemes they employed to inflate asset values and conceal facts were so outrageous that they belie innocent explanation," James wrote. Trump and his family have denied any wrongdoing and have claimed that the former president has repeatedly said his assets were actually undervalued. Fox News Digital's Stepheny Price and Maria Paronich contributed to this report.

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For Anti-Trump Republicans, It All Might Come Down to New Hampshire

With his usual bluntness, Chris Christie used a recent event in New Hampshire to lay out why he thought the state’s primary election was more important than the Iowa caucuses — and what he saw as its tremendous stakes. “It’s pretty clear that the caucus system is going to renominate the former president, but that’s not what happens here in New Hampshire,” Mr. Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, said at a diner in Amherst, N.H. “It seems to me that the people from the Live Free or Die State would be the last people who would want to nominate someone who’s going to be a dictator.” As former President Donald J. Trump’s stranglehold on Iowa Republicans shows no sign of lessening, New Hampshire has become the most critical state for Nikki Haley, Mr. Christie and the small, increasingly desperate contingent of the Republican Party that wants to cast aside Mr. Trump. It is the only state where polling shows Ms. Haley within striking distance of the former president, and the only place where Mr. Christie has gained any sort of foothold. While Iowa’s caucuses on Monday are likely to be a slugfest for second place, New Hampshire’s primary on Jan. 23 has an outside chance of serving up an upset victory for Ms. Haley.

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Spelman, a Historically Black Womens College, Receives $100 Million Gift

Spelman College, the women’s school in Atlanta, announced on Thursday that it had received a $100 million donation, which its officials called the largest-ever single gift to a historically Black college. The gift comes from Ronda E. Stryker, a trustee of Spelman, and her husband, William D. Johnston, chairman of the wealth management company Greenleaf Trust. Ms. Stryker serves as director of the medical equipment company Stryker Corporation, which was founded by her grandfather. In an announcement, Spelman College said that $75 million of the gift had been earmarked for scholarships, and that the remaining money would go toward improving student housing and developing an academic focus on public policy and democracy. In a statement, Spelman’s president, Helene Gayle, said the college was “invigorated and inspired” by the couple’s generosity, adding, “This gift is a critical step in our school’s mission to eliminate financial barriers to starting and finishing a Spelman education.”

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Peter Magubane, 91, Who Fought Apartheid With His Camera, Is Dead

Peter Magubane, a Black South African photographer whose images documenting the cruelties and violence of apartheid drew global acclaim but punishment at home, including beatings, imprisonment and 586 consecutive days of solitary confinement, died on Monday. He was 91. His death was confirmed by family members speaking to South African television news broadcasts. No other details were provided. Such were the challenges and perils facing Black photographers in South Africa’s apartheid-era segregated townships, Mr. Magubane liked to say, that he took to hiding his camera in hollowed-out bread loaves, empty milk cartons or even the Bible, enabling him to shoot pictures clandestinely. “I did not want to leave the country to find another life,” he told The Guardian in 2015. “I was going to stay and fight with my camera as my gun. I did not want to kill anyone, though. I wanted to kill apartheid.”

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Springfield to collect Christmas trees in January; plus a post-holiday recycling advisory

SPRINGFIELD — The Department of Public Works will collect Christmas trees on residents’ regular recycling days for most of January. The tree pickup program runs from Jan. 2 to 26. Trees should be placed on the curb, free of all decorations. They should not be placed in plastic bags, and trees that are covered in snow or buried in snowbanks will not be collected, city officials said. Residents also can drop their trees off at Bondi’s Island at no charge. For more information about holiday collections, people can call the city’s landfill at 413-787-7840. In other holiday refuse requirements, the following should be recycled: flattened, corrugated, cardboard boxes with no tape, and paperboard gift boxes; greeting cards with no metallic inks or glitter; gift wrap, gift bags and tissue wrap, free of foil or glitter; paper shopping bags regardless of handle; paperbacks and phone books; junk mail; and aluminum cans and foil. The following should not be recycled: ribbons, bows and tinsel; packing peanuts and any type of plastic foam; holiday lights; glass, such as light bulbs, dishes, glasses, Pyrex, ceramics and any broken glass; plastic bags, pizza boxes and used paper plates, cups, napkins and toilet tissue.

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The U.S. Asked Israel to Scale Down Its War Effort

President Biden’s national security adviser urged Israel today to end its large-scale ground and air campaign in the Gaza Strip and transition to a more targeted phase in its war against Hamas, American officials said. Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, did not specify a timetable during his meetings with top Israeli officials. But four American officials said that Biden wanted Israel to switch to more precise tactics in around three weeks or soon thereafter. The new phase that the Americans envision would involve the use of smaller groups of elite Israeli forces that would move in and out of population centers in Gaza, carrying out more precise missions to find and kill Hamas leaders, rescue hostages and destroy tunnels. But it's not clear when, or if, Israel would agree to move to lower-intensity fighting. In response to the American advice, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel released a statement saying that “Israel will continue the war until we complete all of its goals.” The Biden administration has said in recent weeks that it wants to take steps to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. Life there has been very grim for Palestinians, our Middle East correspondent Raja Abdulrahim told us.

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Opinion | The Things We Disagree on About Gaza

I’ve been very critical of Israel’s counterattack on Gaza, which appears to have killed a woman or child about once every eight minutes for the past three months. Many of my readers and friends disagree with these columns and are pained by what they see as my unfairness toward Israel. Too often, opinionated people bypass the most compelling arguments on the other side. Let me instead try to confront head-on the kinds of criticism I’ve received: Israel was attacked. Children were butchered. Women were raped. So why are you criticizing Israel rather than the Hamas terrorists who started this war? That’s a fair question. Yes, Hamas started this war with its brutal attack on civilians, and it has been indifferent to Palestinian lives. As someone who has reported regularly from Gaza over the years, I’m aghast at the admiration some American leftists show for an organization as cruel, misogynistic and economically incompetent as Hamas; it’s an echo of the left’s appalling admiration for Mao a half-century ago. Israel was understandably shattered by what happened on Oct. 7, and I appreciate that trauma and share that sadness. But Hamas’s indifference to human life must never be an excuse for us to become indifferent. It’s too late to save those massacred on Oct. 7, but we can still try to reduce the toll in Gaza this month and this year.

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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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Opinion | Why Wasnt DeSantis the Guy?

Right before the blizzard conditions hit Iowa ahead of the caucus, in a barbecue place with arcade games and waiters in red T-shirts weaving through reporters with beers and baskets of fried food, Ron DeSantis came onstage, as he does, to Poison’s “Nothin’ but a Good Time.” This is a fratty song, and the vibe of the place was retro, much like a T-shirt I saw a guy wearing at a DeSantis event in 2022. The back read “Can’t Miss DeSantis” and featured a cartoon drawing of Mr. DeSantis, flanked by palm trees, playing beer pong. The existence of the T-shirt suggests that it once seemed possible, to someone anyway, to adopt the MAGA intellectual ethos of using the state to rebalance society and smash ideological enemies, and also be relaxed, normal, above it. Or maybe the intellectual part was never involved: There was a kind of conservative who liked the idea of a young governor making the libs cry from time to time, but whose fundamental premise was “the Free State of Florida,” where a person could get back to living their lives, unbothered. And that’s where you’d find the theoretical Mr. DeSantis, ironically playing beer pong at a Bucs tailgate after church and a Home Depot run. This is reading a lot into a T-shirt, but ideas and realities about who candidates are, and what voters really want, seem central to understanding the last few years in politics. And even in 2022 that T-shirt stood out for the way its relaxed, fun bro diverged from the harder, more lawyerly governor who promised an updated, aggressive social conservatism that would use most tools of the state to battle academics and bureaucrats.

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Trump Turns His Attention to Iowa as Caucuses Grow Near

Former President Donald J. Trump will return to Iowa on Friday for the first time this year, and will hold four campaign rallies in two days there as he looks to cement his dominant lead in the polls as the Iowa caucuses draw nearer. Mr. Trump has visited the state infrequently, at least compared with his rivals in the Republican primary. His schedule this weekend is an unusually concentrated burst of campaigning for him that more closely resembles the way that other candidates have barnstormed the state. But the former president has remained popular in Iowa. His events consistently draw hundreds, if not thousands, of supporters — dwarfing the attendance at more traditional meet-and-greets and voter town halls. In speeches over the last month, he and his allies have urged his supporters to caucus and have asked them to ensure their friends and neighbors help deliver a strong victory to Mr. Trump on caucus night. Even as Mr. Trump turns his attention to Iowa, he continues to campaign as if he is already the Republican nominee. His speeches focus heavily on how he expects to roundly defeat President Biden in November, with only glancing attacks at his two closest, relatively speaking, rivals in the race, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor.

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Israel-Hamas War Israeli Troops Accidentally Kill Three Hostages

Chen Goldstein-Almog, who, along with her three surviving children, was among the hostages released by Hamas in exchange for the release of prisoners by Israel in November. The strangest part of her seven-week ordeal, said Chen Goldstein-Almog, formerly an Israeli hostage of Hamas, were the long, almost intimate conversations she had with her captors. They talked about their families, their lives and the extreme danger they all faced. One of the gunmen holding her even apologized for the killing of her husband and one of her daughters by other Hamas gunmen, she said. “It was a mistake and against the Quran,” he told her, Ms. Goldstein-Almog remembered. She said a long silence followed, and the room she and three of her children were being held in immediately filled with tension. “I didn’t respond,” she said. She was distraught about their deaths, but at that moment, she said, “I didn’t feel I could express any negative feelings.” Ms. Goldstein-Almog, 48, and the three children were kidnapped on Oct. 7 from the Kfar Aza kibbutz, near the border of Gaza and one of the worst hit during the Hamas terrorist attacks. Her husband and eldest daughter were killed. Image Buildings in Kfar Aza that were damaged during the attack on Oct. 7. Credit... Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times She and the surviving children — another daughter, Agam, 17, and two sons, Gal, 11, and Tal, 9 — were released in late November as part of the exchange of prisoners between Israel and Hamas that has since ceased. In an interview this week, she shared details about her ordeal. She said she and the children were held together, treated “respectfully” and not physically harmed. But she said that over the course of various moves during their captivity, she had met other hostages who were badly treated, including two women who said they were sexually abused. Mostly, they were held in a room in an apartment in Gaza, she said, with the windows closed except for a bit of fresh air in the early mornings. But the heavily armed captors also moved Ms. Goldstein-Almog and her children to different apartments, tunnels, a mosque, even a destroyed supermarket, she said. With the Israeli military pounding Gaza, each transfer was terrifying, and the men holding them, she said, didn’t always seem to know what to do. Describing one move, she said: “It was the middle of the night. Everything was dark. They started deliberating among themselves. I could see the helplessness on their faces.” “When we were out into the street, in total darkness, there was a shot above us,” she continued. “We were pressed against the wall, and I could see a laser pointer, as if we were being targeted from above.” And she was thinking: That’s our air force up there. “It was crazy,” she said, “this absurdity.” Three of Ms. Goldstein-Almog's children, Agam, Tal and Gal, were kidnapped with her on Oct. 7 from the Kfar Aza kibbutz, one of the communities hit hardest in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks. Her husband and eldest daughter were killed. Her conversations with her guards sometimes went on for hours, she said, maybe because she was once a social worker and knew how to keep someone in a long, deep conversation — her only way of trying to make sure, she said, that she and the children would be safe. The guards taught her son Gal 250 words in Arabic to keep him occupied and brought him a notebook to study. She said the family and the guards regularly discussed what to eat. Most days they survived off pita bread with cheese, usually feta. In the early days there were also a few vegetables. She said the guards told her they were members of Hamas. The lead guard seemed educated and spoke Hebrew, she said. In the apartment where they stayed the longest, he sometimes invited the family to join in cooking in the kitchen, though even in these moments, the guards carried pistols. The guards would escort them to the bathroom on request, and allowed them to sleep. Each member of the family had emotional ups and downs. Sometimes they would talk about what happened on Oct. 7, or would realize no cease-fire was near. The captors didn’t like it when the children cried, she said. They asked immediately for them to stop. “And if for a moment, I would sit and sink in my thoughts,” she said, the lead captor “would directly ask me what I was thinking. I couldn’t move from room to room without an armed guard accompanying me. Once, my two sons were arguing, and the guard raised his voice at one of them, which was scary.” Image Residents of Kfar Aza watching news about the release of hostages from their kibbutz, in Shefayim, Israel, last month. Credit... Amit Elkayam for The New York Times There were even moments when the guards cried in front of them, she said, worried about their own families. “We were in daily danger,” she said. “It was fear at a level we didn’t know existed.” She couldn’t stop replaying the death of her husband, Nadav, 48, whom she started dating in high school and who was killed in front of their eyes along with their oldest daughter, Yam, 20, a soldier just two months from the end of her service. At the end of their captivity, the lead guard turned to Ms. Goldstein-Almog and gave her a warning: Don’t go back to your kibbutz, he said. Don’t return to a place so close to Gaza. Go to Tel Aviv or somewhere farther north, she remembers him saying. Because we are coming back. Ms. Goldstein-Almog’s response? “Next time you come,” she said she told them, “don’t throw a grenade. Just knock on the door.”

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Defense Secretary Kept White House in the Dark About His Hospitalization

It took the Pentagon three and a half days to inform the White House that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had been hospitalized on New Year’s Day following complications from an elective procedure, two U.S. officials said Saturday. The extraordinary breach of protocol — Mr. Austin is in charge of the country’s 1.4 million active-duty military at a time when the wars in Gaza and Ukraine have dominated the American national security landscape — has baffled officials across the government, including at the Pentagon. Senior defense officials say Mr. Austin did not inform them until Thursday that he had been admitted to the intensive care unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The Pentagon then informed the White House. The Pentagon’s belated notification, first reported by Politico, confounded White House officials, one Biden administration official said. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council declined to comment on Saturday.

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Trump Wants Prosecutors Held in Contempt in Federal Election Case

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump said on Thursday that they want the special counsel, Jack Smith, and two of his top deputies to be held in contempt of court and sanctioned for violating a judge’s order that effectively froze the criminal case accusing Mr. Trump of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. The lawyers in their request seek to force Mr. Smith and his team to explain why they should not be held in contempt and possibly pay a portion of Mr. Trump’s legal fees. The request was the latest aggressive move in what has quickly turned into a legal slugfest between the defense and prosecution, underscoring how critical the issue of timing has become in the election subversion case. The spat began last month when Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the case in Federal District Court in Washington, put all of its proceedings on hold until Mr. Trump resolved his attempts to have the underlying charges dismissed with claims that he has immunity from prosecution in the case. Those arguments will be heard on Tuesday by a federal appeals court in Washington and are likely to make their way to the Supreme Court for another level of review.

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NYU Langone Fired Him for His Posts on the Mideast War. Hes Suing.

A prominent doctor is suing NYU Langone Health after he was fired as director of its cancer center over his social media postings about the Israel-Hamas war. The lawsuit could propel NYU Langone — a major New York hospital — into the center of a national debate over how much power private institutions have to fire employees over their online postings. Laws protecting employees from being fired for what they say or do outside of the office vary widely by state. In New York, the law is somewhat unclear, lawyers say. But as tensions and protests escalate over the violence in the Middle East, the issue of what sort of speech is protected or acceptable has roiled American businesses and campuses. The wrongful termination lawsuit was brought by Dr. Benjamin Neel, a cancer biologist whose laboratory at NYU Langone conducts research on breast cancer, ovarian cancer and treatments for leukemia. Before he was fired, Dr. Neel had reposted a variety of anti-Hamas political cartoons, including two with offensive caricatures of Arab people, and messages on the social media platform X, like one that appeared to question the extent of the death toll in Gaza from Israel’s relentless bombing campaign. He is far from the first person to lose his job over his public reactions to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, or Israel’s subsequent airstrikes and invasion of Gaza. Journalists have lost jobs, and law students have had job offers rescinded. Palestine Legal, an advocacy group, says it has received over 80 requests since Oct. 7 for help over people’s firings. Multiple doctors have also lost their jobs or been suspended for statements about the war. At Johns Hopkins Hospital, a pediatric cardiologist was placed on leave after being accused of calling Palestinians “bloodthirsty morally depraved animals” in online postings, according to a news report. He later wrote his colleagues an apology for what he said were “regrettable, hurtful messages,” according to a local news report. An emergency room doctor at Lenox Hill Hospital, on the Upper East Side, was fired after being accused of posting “Zionist settlers getting a taste of their own medicine” following the Oct. 7 attacks. The doctor declined to comment. Dr. Neel is one of two doctors whom NYU Langone has removed for online postings since the war began last month. The first, Dr. Zaki Masoud, a trainee at NYU Langone’s hospital in Mineola, Long Island, was “removed from service,” according to the hospital, after he was accused of posting a message on Instagram in defense of the Hamas attack. An online petition calling on the hospital to reverse course and reinstate Dr. Masoud has garnered 89,000 signatures. He could not be reached for comment. Dr. Neel’s lawsuit, filed last week in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, claims that NYU Langone feared a backlash after firing Dr. Masoud and so decided to fire Dr. Neel as well — in an “ill-considered plan to feign the appearance of even-handedness.” Dr. Neel claims that an executive vice president at the hospital told Dr. Neel that his online posts were “making it hard” to justify firing others, like Dr. Masoud. “Dr. Neel was offered up as a sacrificial lamb,” the suit claims. Most of the social media posts at issue were reposts of political cartoons, according to the lawsuit. One of the cartoons takes aim at western defenders of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The cartoon shows a protest in which demonstrators are holding aloft signs justifying torture and rape. Another cartoon questions whether negotiating a two-state solution is viable with Hamas in power. Dr. Neel also shared a post questioning the accuracy of a list of approximately 7,000 people that the Hamas-run Health ministry in Gaza said had been killed during Israel’s bombing campaign. Dr. Neel continues to be a tenured professor at NYU Langone Health and to oversee a laboratory, but he was terminated from his job as director of the hospital’s Perlmutter Cancer Center — resulting in his hospital pay being slashed by about two-thirds, his lawyer, Milton Williams, said. Dr. Neel’s research has focused on the communication between healthy cells and “how this is disrupted in cancer,” his lawyer said. As director of the cancer center, he oversaw more than 1,000 employees, according to his lawyer. The lawsuit claims that Dr. Neel was told his social media posts were deemed to be an “intentional breach” of NYU Langone’s Code of Conduct and Social Media Policy and that he failed to meet “the standards expected of a physician in a leadership role” and had hurt the hospital’s reputation. “Several times since last month, we reminded all employees of our high standards, as well as our Code of Conduct and Social Media Policy,” NYU Langone said in a statement responding to the lawsuit. “Nonetheless, Dr. Ben Neel, as a leader at our institution, disregarded these standards in a series of public social media posts and later locked his Twitter/X account. NYU Langone stands by our decision and looks forward to defending it in court.” Dr. Neel’s lawsuit claims that support for Israel is a component of his Jewish identity. NYU Langone’s decision to punish him for his online posts amounts to religious discrimination, the lawsuit claims. In addition to accusing NYU Langone of discrimination, the lawsuit also claims that New York law protects workers from being fired for social media outside of work hours — a debatable proposition. A few states, such as Connecticut, have restricted the ability of employers to fire employees for their opinions or speech. New York’s protections for workers are more limited, but one safeguard is a law that prohibits employers from firing people for “legal recreational activities.” The law, which began as a bill intended to protect cigarette smokers from being fired for tobacco use, ended up providing broader protection. The law cites a few examples of legal recreational activities: sports, hobbies, exercise, reading, watching television. But recreation is “highly subjective,” said an appellate lawyer, Joseph Pace, who has written about the issue, and New York courts have said little about online activities. “At the moment, it’s an open question whether blogging and tweeting will be deemed protected ‘recreational activity,’” Mr. Pace wrote in an email. The lawsuit could put NYU Langone under the microscope in the widening debate. Dr. Neel’s court filings include several emails that expressed pro-Israel opinions sent among top NYU Langone officials denigrating other universities across the country for how they responded to protests and student demands related to the war. In one email, a top hospital official wrote something insulting about the president of Harvard. In another email, Dr. Robert Grossman, the longtime chief executive of the hospital, called Stanford a piece of excrement and said that the University of Pennsylvania was “similarly feculent.” Dr. Grossman — who is such a significant figure at the hospital that New York University’s medical school is named after him — also seemed to suggest that N.Y.U. students who protested against Israel should face punishment. “They should take away their scholarships,” Dr. Grossman wrote in a message to Dr. Neel in October. Dr. Neel’s lawyer, Mr. Williams, said that his client’s online postings were “tepid” compared to views some hospital leaders shared in their emails to one another. “Grossman was suggesting they take away scholarships, when all Ben was doing was challenging those who celebrate the deaths of innocent Israeli citizens,” he said. In a statement, NYU Langone said Dr. Neel’s decision to share those emails was just him “lashing out for being held accountable.” “The emails referenced in the suit were among colleagues and Dr. Neel is now making them public in an effort to pressure NYU Langone,” the statement said.

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Haley, Asked About the Cause of the Civil War, Avoids Mentioning Slavery

Nikki Haley, the Republican presidential candidate and former governor of South Carolina who for years has wrestled with how to approach issues of race, slavery and the Confederacy, found herself again confronted with those subjects at a town hall event on Wednesday in New Hampshire, hundreds of miles north of the Mason-Dixon line. Her answer to a simple yet loaded question by an audience member in the city of Berlin — “What was the cause of the United States Civil War?” — showed just how much she continues to struggle with such topics. “I mean, I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are,” she said eventually, arguing that government should not tell people how to live their lives or “what you can and can’t do.” “I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people,” she said. “It was never meant to be all things to all people.”

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Where Is Navalny? A Search Is On for the Missing Russian Dissident.

After two weeks without word from Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, his lawyers and allies, fearing the worst, are running a frantic campaign to find him. Their efforts have included requesting information from dozens of Russian prisons and taking to social media to raise awareness of Mr. Navalny’s disappearance and to call on the Russian government to reveal his whereabouts. Many Russians living abroad have gone to their country’s diplomatic missions to protest. Some have held up posters saying “Where is Navalny?” Dmitri S. Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, told journalists on Friday that the Kremlin had “neither the possibility, nor rights or desire to trace the fate of convicts,” referring to Mr. Navalny.

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In lawsuit, Andrea Campbell is 2nd attorney general to target neo-Nazi group

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office will wage a legal fight against a regional neo-Nazi organization, accusing it of a pattern of escalating harassment against the LGBTQ community, newly-arrived immigrants and others. The lawsuit, announced Thursday, opened a second legal front for National Socialist Club 131. The organization and its leader are already fighting a civil rights lawsuit brought earlier this year by New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella. That case was initially dismissed as “unconstitutionally overbroad” by a New Hampshire Superior Court judge and is now headed to the state Supreme Court, potentially signaling an uphill battle for Campbell’s suit. William Gens, a Boston lawyer who represents the neo-Nazi group’s leader in Formella’s lawsuit, said Campbell’s complaint was like the New Hampshire case but “on steroids.” He cast doubt that Massachusetts prosecutors could provide sufficient evidence to back their claims. National Socialist Club 131, typically abbreviated to NSC-131, “has engaged in a concerted campaign to target and terrorize people across Massachusetts and interfere with their rights,” Campbell said in a statement Thursday. “Our complaint is the first step in holding this neo-Nazi group and its leaders accountable for their unlawful actions against members of our community.” Her complaint, filed in Suffolk County Superior Court, targets NSC-131 as an organization, as well as two of its leaders, Christopher Hood and Liam McNeil. Hood is the defendant in the New Hampshire lawsuit. Campbell’s office alleges that NSC-131 repeatedly harassed children’s story hours hosted by drag queens, events meant “to promote inclusivity of LGBTQ+ individuals.” The neo-Nazi organization protested at four events in 2022 and 2023, where members threatened and intimidated attendees and attacked members of the public, the lawsuit claims. On five occasions since the fall of 2022, NSC-131 members protested outside hotels sheltering migrant families in Kingston, Woburn and Marlborough. The lawsuit accuses the group of threatening and intimidating the hotel residents and employees, trespassing and interfering with hotel operations. NSC-131 has broadcast images of the protests on its social media channels. The group is considered a neo-Nazi organization by the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center and says its goals are to resist its perceived enemies — including Jews, communists, non-whites and drag performers — in the New England area. Last year, an NSC-131 gathering in Portsmouth, New Hampshire resulted in the civil rights complaint from the state’s attorney general. The group hung a banner from a highway overpass that read “Keep New England White.” Formella’s office said Hood and other members trespassed to broadcast their message of hate — thus opening them to a civil rights complaint. A New Hampshire Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuit on First Amendment grounds in June and has twice rejected arguments from the attorney general’s office to reconsider his ruling. The matter is now headed to the state Supreme Court. Gens, of the law firm Gens & Stanton, said last month that while he didn’t agree with his client’s message, he would still “defend their right to say it.” “We have a long tradition in our society of permitting that, no matter how offensive it may be,” Gens said. Reached by phone on Friday, Gens said it was “likely” but not confirmed that he would again represent Hood, since the Massachusetts lawsuit had not yet been served. He had read the complaint, though. “It reminds me of the New Hampshire matter but kind of on steroids,” Gens said. “It’s very sloppy. There are all sorts of things in there that I doubt could ever be proven. Ultimately no matter how it comes out it will be a massive waste of the taxpayers’ money.” Gens also referenced another case that prosecutors were unsuccessful in bringing against Hood, in which he was charged last year with affray, a legal term for public fighting, after an altercation with counter-protesters outside a drag queen story hour in Boston. Boston Municipal Court Judge Maureen Flaherty ordered a not guilty verdict in June, finding that prosecutors provided insufficient evidence for the jury to make an informed ruling, according to the Boston Globe. Campbell’s complaint also alleges that NSC-131 has “regularly conducted ‘patrols’” of neighborhoods across the state where members trespassed and vandalized public and private property. Social media posts show that members carried weapons, including knives and batons, during their patrols, the lawsuit says. The New England chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights group focused on antisemitism and other extremist ideologies, applauded Campbell’s lawsuit. “NSC-131′s heinous activities have been disrupting, intimidating and threatening our communities for too long,” the organization said on social media. The lawsuit “sends a message that our laws can hold them accountable for the hate they spread.”

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Putin Vows to Keep Up Bombardment After a Russian City Is Hit

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia vowed on Monday to continue missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, in retaliation for what he called a “terror” attack on the Russian city of Belgorod last week. “They want to scare us, to create a certain uncertainty inside the country,” Mr. Putin said during a televised meeting with the veterans of the war in Ukraine. “From our side, we will build up the strikes.” Mr. Putin’s rare public comments about an attack on the Russian territory comes as his armed forces in recent days have pummeled Ukrainian cities with some of the largest rocket strikes since the start of the invasion, and as both sides look for ways to break a stalemate on the battlefield. The cycle of strikes and retaliation is raising fears of escalating civilian casualties in the conflict, which began in February 2022.