Datasets:

Kevinger

/

hub-report-raw

like 0

b544ac24bd91d509631c25663f9191df

politics

Rep. Jim McGovern condemns Henry Kissinger after diplomats death at 100

Following the death of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at age 100 on Wednesday, condemnation for his record under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford exploded on social media. Kissinger died at his Connecticut home on Wednesday. In the 1970s, he served under Nixon and Ford as a national security advisor, secretary of state and sometimes both, according to the AP. He attended Harvard University and earned a B.A. in 1950 and a Ph.D. in 1954, according to his biography on the State Department’s website. He went on to be an advisor to several presidents in the decades after Ford’s electoral defeat in 1976. Of the many who spoke out, one Massachusetts politician shared his thoughts on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Remembering all the lives Henry Kissinger destroyed with the terrible violence he unleashed in countries like Chile, Vietnam, Argentina, East Timor, Cambodia, and Bangladesh,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-2nd District, posted Thursday. “I never understood why people revered him. I will never forgive or forget.” Remembering all the lives Henry Kissinger destroyed with the terrible violence he unleashed in countries like Chile, Vietnam, Argentina, East Timor, Cambodia, and Bangladesh. I never understood why people revered him. I will never forgive or forget. — Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) November 30, 2023 A popular reaction seen across social media was sharing a passage from chef and television host Anthony Bourdain. In 2001, he wrote about Kissinger on a trip to Cambodia in a tie-in book for his Food Network show “A Cook’s Tour.” “Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands,” Bourdain wrote. “You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with (former television host) Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking.” “Witness what Henry did in Cambodia — the fruits of his genius for statesmanship — and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to (former Yugoslav and Serbian president Slobodan) Milošević,” he continued. “While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.” Staunch criticism of Kissinger’s record goes back decades. The same year “A Cook’s Tour” was published, the late journalist Christopher Hitchens called the diplomat a war criminal in his book “The Trial of Henry Kissinger,” where he cites the deaths of millions as being a result of Kissinger’s diplomacy. Kissinger’s tenure drastically impacted several countries, including Vietnam, Chile, Argentina, East Timor, Greece, Cyprus, Bangladesh and Cambodia, among many others. Biographer and Yale University professor of history Greg Grandin has estimated that the deaths of 3 million people around the world were a result of Kissinger’s time in the White House, according to The Intercept.

f97f47e79b65421fb6d940ec8d7ee998

politics

Opinion | Trump Dreams of Economic Disaster

Did Donald Trump just say that he’s hoping for an economic crash? Not exactly. But what he did say was arguably even worse, especially once you put it in context. And Trump’s evident panic over recent good economic news deepens what is, for me, the biggest conundrum of American politics: Why have so many people joined — and stayed in — a personality cult built around a man who poses an existential threat to our nation’s democracy and is also personally a complete blowhard? So what did Trump actually say on Monday? Strictly speaking, he didn’t call for a crash, he predicted one, positing that the economy is running on “fumes” — and that he hopes the inevitable crash will happen this year, “because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover.” If you think about it, this isn’t at all what a man who believes himself to be a brilliant economic manager and supposedly cares about the nation’s welfare should say. What he should have said instead is something like this: My opponent’s policies have set us on the path to disaster, but I hope the disaster doesn’t come until I’m in office — because I don’t want the American people to suffer unnecessarily, and, because I’m a very stable genius, I alone can fix it.

624f2bc74849b5deb7c2ac767a74cfe3

politics

Mayor Wu to announce update on Welcome Home Boston

Mayor Wu to announce update on Welcome Home Boston Share Copy Link Copy UNVEIL TODAY. TODD KATIE ANTOINETTE. GOOD MORNING. TODAY WE WILL BE GETTING AN UPDATE ON A PROGRAM CALLED WELCOME HOME BOSTON. AND THIS PARCEL HERE IN DORCHESTER IS ONE THAT THE MAYOR WILL BE HIGHLIGHTING AS SHE UNVEILS THE FIRST ROUND OF DEVELOPMENT TEAMS CHOSEN TO BUILD ON VACANT CITY OWNED LAND. AND THE CITY HAS ALLOCATED $58 MILLION IN FEDERAL FUNDING TO FAST TRACK THE PRODUCTION OF NEW AFFORDABLE HOUSING. MAYOR WU ANNOUNCED THIS PROGRAM BACK IN JANUARY DURING HER STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS, MAKING THIS PITCH TO DEVELOPERS, LOCAL BUILDERS WILL WORK WITH US TO DESIGN HIGH QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HOMES THAT ENHANCE THE SURROUNDING NEIGHBORHOOD AND WILL GIVE YOU THE LAND FOR FREE. I THINK DEVELOPERS WILL TAKE YOU UP ON YOUR PITCH TO THEM. WE HOPE SO. IT’S A GREAT DEAL. AND THESE ARE IT’S A WIN WIN. AGAIN, THAT WAS BACK IN JANUARY AND WE NOW KNOW THE ANSWER IS YES. MAYOR WU SAYS THIS INITIATIVE WILL CREATE NOT JUST NEW, AFFORDABLE HOMES ON VACANT CITY OWNED LAND, BUT ALSO CREATE GENERATIONAL WEALTH. AND THERE WILL BE QUITE A BIT OF DEVELOPMENT RESULTING FROM THIS PROGRAM DURING HER STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS IN JANUARY, THE MAYOR SAID THAT THE CITY HAS 150 VACANT LOTS IN NEIGHBORHOODS READY TO BE DEVELOPED. REPORTIN GET LOCAL BREAKING NEWS ALERTS The latest breaking updates, delivered straight to your email inbox. Your Email Address Submit Privacy Notice

74b55d1c5dc04ec40560bdcfd12b0cdc

politics

Parents say new Amherst leader harmed trans students; administrator says shes being targeted

Palestinians search for casualties at the site of a blast in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday. A brief cease-fire in Gaza will begin Friday morning and the first hostages will be released several hours later, Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Thursday, setting out a timeline for what would be the most significant diplomatic breakthrough since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel prompted a full-blown war. Israel and Hamas have been locked in indirect negotiations to clinch the final details of the agreement, which includes a four-day pause in hostilities during which at least 50 women and children held hostage in Gaza would be exchanged for 150 Palestinian women and minors imprisoned in Israeli jails. Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s foreign ministry, told reporters that the pause in fighting would begin at 7 a.m. Gaza time (midnight Eastern) on Friday. A first group of 13 hostages would be released starting at 4 p.m., along with an undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners, he said, calling it “the first glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.” Each day of the pause, Israel and Hamas will receive daily lists of the hostages and prisoners to be released, with Qatar passing them between the two parties, Mr. al-Ansari said. Everyone set to be freed was alive, he said, adding that hostages from the same family “will be released together.” Hamas’s military wing confirmed in a statement on Telegram that the cease-fire would begin at 7 a.m. The Israeli prime minister’s office did not confirm the timing, but said it had received an initial list of names of the hostages who would be released, without specifying how many, and had contacted their families. The cease-fire agreement announced early Wednesday between Israel’s government and Hamas raised hopes for a respite in the fighting and for families to be reunited with their loved ones. But for the next day and a half, talks snagged on the details, underscoring the fragility of the agreement and the intense mutual mistrust. The agreement also included an increase in humanitarian aid for Gaza, and on Thursday Hamas said that 200 trucks carrying relief supplies and four fuel trucks would enter the territory on a daily basis during the cease-fire. There was no immediate comment by Israel, which has largely banned fuel from entering Gaza since the war kicked off, saying Hamas would divert it for military purposes. Across Israel, the families of some of the roughly 240 people held hostage began to count down the hours, hoping their loved ones might be among those released over the four-day pause. Palestinians in Gaza greeted the prospect of even a temporary cease-fire with a mix of relief and caution after seven weeks of Israel’s withering airstrikes and ground invasion. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, Gazan health officials say that more than 12,700 people have been killed in the territory by Israel’s retaliatory attacks. Shadi Hijazi, a 23-year-old construction worker in Gaza, said that the deal would offer a reprieve from thundering Israeli airstrikes and would allow some Gazans to grieve their losses. “I will live in safety, even if it’s temporary and short, without hearing explosions near or far,” he said in a phone interview. Even as the cease-fire loomed, the Israeli military continued to fight in Gaza on Thursday, said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, and air-raid sirens warning of incoming rocket fire resounded in some southern Israeli communities. The chief spokesman for the Israeli military, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said on Thursday night, the eve of the cease-fire, that “the takeover of the north of the Gaza Strip is only the first stage in a long campaign.” Iyad Abuheweila and Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.

8a2d74555fbcedd6e489454d128182c6

politics

Israel-Hamas War U.S. Strikes at Houthis in Yemen for a Second Day

Tal Becker, left, the legal counselor for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Malcolm Shaw, a lawyer, on Thursday at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Israel, a state founded in the aftermath of a genocide against the Jewish people, defended itself on Friday against accusations of perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. Six lawyers stood in The Hague before the International Court of Justice to present Israel’s counterargument to a claim, brought on Thursday by South Africa, that the war it has waged in Gaza since October has violated the international Convention against Genocide, enacted after the Holocaust. The court is a legal arm of the United Nations that settles disputes between states. Israel began striking Gaza after Hamas, the armed group based in the territory, raided Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and abducting roughly 240 others. More than 23,000 Gazans have been killed since October, or roughly 1 in 100 residents of the territory, according to Gazan health officials. More than 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have fled their homes, according to the United Nations. In Israel’s defense on Friday, its lawyers said that the Israeli military had worked to preserve civilian life, giving noncombatants two weeks to leave northern Gaza before Israel invaded the area in late October and, after freezing aid delivery at the start of the war, later enabling its daily supply. (Israel has been permitting trucks carrying medicine and other supplies to enter Gaza, but United Nations officials say that the amounts have failed to meet the needs of the residents.) “Israel’s efforts to mitigate the ravages of this war on civilians are the very opposite of intent to destroy them,” Galit Raguan, one of the six representatives, said during the hearing. “If Israel had such intent, would it delay a ground maneuver for weeks, urging civilians to seek safer space and, in doing so, sacrificing operational advantage?” Ms. Raguan asked. “Would it invest massive resources to provide civilians details about where to go, when to go, how to go, to leave areas of fighting?” South Africa’s argument had rested in part on dehumanizing statements made by Israeli leaders and politicians, some of which called for the forced displacement of Gazans and, in one case, dropping a nuclear bomb on the territory. “Israel’s political leaders, military commanders and persons holding official positions, have systematically and, in explicit terms, declared their genocidal intent,” Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, a lawyer for South Africa, told the court on Thursday. But Israel’s lawyers said that some of those statements had been taken out of context, while others were made by people without executive power over the military campaign. The lawyers drew a contrast between the incendiary comments and assertions by senior Israeli officials that emphasized adherence to the rules of war. The court’s judges will now decide whether to call on Israel to adopt provisional measures, such as a cessation of hostilities, while it spends months assessing the merit of the genocide claim. The judges did not set a date for the announcement of that decision and, in any case, the court has few means of enforcing its rulings. Nevertheless, Israel’s lawyers argued that it would set a dangerous precedent if the judges ordered Israel to halt its offensive. They said that could allow international law to be used as a means of preventing states from defending themselves against terrorist attacks committed by groups like Hamas. The Israeli lawyers also said it was Hamas that was guilty of genocidal acts on Oct. 7, and they blamed the group for bringing destruction on civilians in Gaza by embedding their fighters in residential areas. Heavy symbolism hung over the proceedings, as Israel’s representatives addressed the paradox of Israel, a state created to protect Jews from genocide, standing accused of the same crime. “For some, the promise of ‘never again for all peoples’ is a slogan,” said Tal Becker, who opened Israel’s defense. “For Israel, it is the highest moral obligation.” Hours after the hearing ended, Germany announced that it would intervene as a third party in the case — a process that would allow the country to offer the court its own perspective on the genocide law. Germany said there is “no basis whatsoever” to the case, a move in keeping with its longstanding support for Israel. Since the defeat of the Nazi regime, Germany has rooted much of its post-Holocaust identity in the idea of supporting the Jewish state. Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting from Haifa, Israel.

d2a2cb7c6da792d82eb0982f49998e71

politics

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

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

c8d9c2fb5efc9c5430ec1b90862c314b

politics

Feyla McNamara uplifts Indigenous voices in the fight for reproductive rights

In recognition of Native American Heritage Month in November, MassLive asked readers to identify people who are leaders from the Indigenous community throughout the state, working to make a difference in their own area of interest, be it politics, education, business or the arts. MassLive will publish profiles of these leaders through November. These are people our readers have identified as inspirational, who may be doing good acts for their communities. They are being recognized for their accomplishments, leadership and commitment to inspire change. Feyla McNamara is the co-executive director at Tides for Reproductive Freedom. (Hoang 'Leon' Nguyen / The Republican)Leon Nguyen Feyla McNamara Age: 37 Community: Holyoke Her story: Feyla McNamara’s mission as a Mohawk/Mi’kmaw Indigenous advocate and activist for the right to reproductive choice led her to become Co-Executive Director of the first abortion fund in Massachusetts founded and led by people who have had abortions along with queer, Black and Indigenous people called Tides for Reproductive Freedom. “The right to bodily autonomy and the pursuit of pregnancy, or not, is intrinsic to my people’s beliefs, aligning with the beliefs of many of the other Indigenous Nations across the Americas,” McNamara said. “This work is important to our community because our people had, and still have, our own beliefs and practices around abortion prior to colonization,” she said of Tides for Reproductive Freedom’s activism. McNamara, a former high school history teacher, explained her organization financially aids Indigenous communities by paying for abortions with donated funds and provides rides to and from appointments. She said this gives people the right to “get the healthcare they choose” as abortions can cost thousands of dollars and be a financial strain. In addition, Tides helps uplift Indigenous voices in the conversation around reproductive rights, McNamara added. She said her community’s healthcare systems, such as the federally-funded Indian Health Services, are “complicated.” Legislation called the Hyde Amendment stops federal funds for being used for abortions, McNamara said, but Tides’ financial assistance works around the federal law. “Abortion is just one prong of Reproductive Justice, which states that it is our right to have a child, our right to not have a child, and our right to parent a child or children in safe and healthy environments,” she said. “To me, abortion is sacred. The right to bodily autonomy is ingrained in I how view the world,” she explained. From advocating for sex education beyond abstinence in middle school, to driving friends to Planned Parenthood for birth control, to holding loved ones after their abortions and affirming loved ones in choosing pregnancy, McNamara said she was “literally born into this work” as a birthing person and it’s a part of who she is. In her words: “Do not just remember us in November and forget about us the other 11 months of the year... Seriously, please reach out to local Native communities if there’s work you want to partner with us on or ways you can help us get some land back. That’s also serious; we need powwow grounds for the Odenong Powwow in the Five College area or a little beyond — grounds accessible by bus, flat-ish for dancing, and maybe big enough that we could do a medicine garden on it too.” We’re always open to hear about more inspiring people. If you’d like to suggest someone else who should be recognized, please fill out this form.

e5b148ac577889cb9b746d32abdbea27

politics

Doormat Treatment: Congestion Pricing Plan Riles New Jersey Leaders

The mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., called New York’s congestion pricing plan “doormat treatment.” A New Jersey congressman said pricing details disclosed for the first time late Wednesday showed that New York was “sticking it to Jersey families.” Gov. Philip D. Murphy insisted that “as a conceptual matter,” he supports congestion pricing, but not this version of the plan, and not in his backyard. “Everyone in the region deserves access to more reliable mass transit,” Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, said in a statement. “But placing an unjustified financial burden on New Jersey commuters is wrong.” New York’s proposal to create new tolls to discourage people from driving into Manhattan has been embraced by environmentalists as a way to induce motorists to use mass transit, reduce congestion on the city’s most traffic-choked roads and curb climate-warming vehicle emissions. Once the plan is implemented, motorists who drive into Midtown and Lower Manhattan — whether they are coming from New Jersey, Staten Island, Westchester or anywhere else — will pay significantly more in tolls.

25454f027594a85b6133d42033412c5a

politics

India and Maldives Trade Barbs After Modis Beach Visit

Since the 1970s, the Maldives has become one of the global jet set’s preferred resort destinations, earning $3 billion in tourism revenues in 2019, worth about a quarter of its national economy. After coronavirus pandemic-related lockdowns took effect, when outbound Chinese tourism stopped in its tracks, India became the Maldives’ biggest source of high-spending visitors. India had always kept tinier Lakshadweep under wraps. Until recently its islands saw only 10,000 visitors a year, nearly all of them Indian. In 2021, Mr. Modi’s government indicated that it saw great untapped potential there. If Lakshadweep’s coral-shaped lagoons can be sold to the world as an alternative to the Maldives, they would strike at the small country’s economic lifeblood. Just as the war of words with India hit fever pitch, with some Indian celebrities swearing they would restrict their luxury vacations to India’s own shores, the Maldives’ new president, Mohamed Muizzu, was starting a five-day state visit in China. His trip was planned much earlier, but rivalries with India were already on the agenda. The Maldives, like several other countries around South Asia, has for years bobbed along the surface of a great-power competition between India and China. Successive governments have been more pro-China, like Abdulla Yameen’s, from 2013 to 2018, or pro-India, like the one led by Ibrahim Mohamed Solih until November. Mr. Muizzu, who defeated him in the polls, had campaigned on a platform of “India Out.” Mr. Muizzu had already broken with tradition by skipping visiting India and spending his first state visit in Turkey. So it was little surprise that he chose China for his second state visit. His government also intends to eject the 80 or so Indian military personnel who operate aircraft based in the Maldives.

89a386503d675b22d7fd28ffff4c242d

politics

Israeli Invasion Plans Target Gaza City and Hamas Leadership

The Israeli military is preparing to invade the Gaza Strip soon with tens of thousands of soldiers ordered to capture Gaza City and destroy the enclave’s current leadership, according to three senior Israeli military officers who outlined unclassified details about the plan. The military has announced that its ultimate goal is to wipe out the top political and military hierarchy of Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza and led last week’s terrorist attacks in Israel that killed 1,300 people. The assault is expected to be Israel’s biggest ground operation since it invaded Lebanon in 2006. It would also be the first in which Israel has attempted to capture land and at least briefly hold onto it since its invasion of Gaza in 2008, according to the three senior officers. The operation risks locking Israel into months of bloody urban combat, both above ground and in a warren of tunnels — a fraught offensive that Israel has long avoided because it involves fighting in a narrow and tightly packed sliver of land populated by more than 2 million people. Israeli officials have warned that Hamas could kill Israeli hostages, use Palestinian noncombatants as human shields, and have strewn the territory with booby traps.

425782993fff237b93f5d1d8d0fbfe1c

politics

After-school Satan Club at Connecticut elementary school raises eyebrows in town

There are concerns over a new after-school club in Lebanon, Connecticut. The "Satan Club" is set to meet at Lebanon Elementary School starting next month and that's gotten the attention of parents. Organizers say it's not what you think. “There’s just a lot of people that just don’t want to hear what we’re about. They don’t want to hear what we believe," June Everett said. Everett is the campaign director for the after-school program of the satanic temple. She said they view Satan as a literary figure. “We look at Satan as a symbol of being the ultimate rebel and standing up against tyrannical authority,” she said. Get New England news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NECN newsletters. Everett said the club was requested by a parent and got district approval this week to operate. But, it doesn’t involve any religion. “We do not teach about Satan. We do not teach them songs to sing to their friends. There’s no proselytizing that takes place at all with our club,” she said. Everett said instead, kids will be doing activities that focus on science and rationalization while building empathy and tolerance for all creatures, and she wants to push back on misconceptions. “We do not worship the devil. We’re not sacrificing goats or babies. We are simply having equal access to the space that we have a right to,” she said. A right that was given thanks to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling (Good News Club v. Milford Central School) that allowed an evangelical Christian group, the Good News Club, to use school buildings after hours. Lebanon Elementary School has a Good News Club meeting every week at school. "We do not believe any religious organization should be operating out of our public schools but if they have the right to be there, then we would like to be there as well for our members and our families," Everett said. In a statement, Lebanon Public Schools Superintendent Andrew Gonzales said: “The Lebanon Public Schools (LPS) allows outside organizations to use LPS facilities, in accordance with Board Policy 1007. As such, LPS must allow community organizations to access school facilities, without regard to the religious, political or philosophical ideas they express, as long as such organizations comply with the viewpoint-neutral criteria set forth in the policy. Not everyone will agree with, or attend meetings of, every group that is approved to use school facilities. However, prohibiting particular organizations from accessing our school buildings based on the perspectives they offer or express could violate our obligations under the First Amendment and other applicable law and would not align with our commitment to non-discrimination, equal protection and respect for diverse viewpoints.” People in town have mixed feelings. “This is a free country. We’re supposed to have freedom of religion or no religion so I can understand both sides of the story,” said Dori Dougal, who lives in Lebanon. The After School Satan Club is set to begin next month. The temple said five students have signed up to join so far.

8f5076aca03ed8616c8115706aa8d232

politics

Massachusetts Senate to review bill stripping Boston City Council of grant approval authority

An “embarrassing” vote by the Boston City Council has led to movement on Beacon Hill, where a bill that would strip the body of its authority to approve public safety grants was referred to a legislative committee for review. State Sen. Nick Collins, a Democrat from South Boston, introduced the bill at an informal Senate session Monday, saying that he filed for a change in state law, after the Boston City Council voted, 6-6, last week to block a $13.3 million counter-terrorism grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The vote was slammed by outgoing City Councilor Michael Flaherty, who described the Council’s action as “nonsensical and embarrassing.” Funding in the grant would go to not only Boston, but surrounding communities including Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Quincy, Revere, Somerville and Winthrop, which are all part of what’s known as the Metro Boston Homeland Security Region, according to the feds. The legislation was co-sponsored by state Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Republican from Sutton. It has garnered early support from the respective presidents of the Boston City Council and the city’s largest police union, but was criticized by Sen. Lydia Edwards, who used to sit on the Council. “The bill in front of us that we would like to move swiftly would no longer allow for such delay or blocking,” Collins said on the Senate floor. “This Legislature has had to reauthorize funds time and again for the City Council in Boston, (which) has thwarted resources for those purposes.” The Senate referred the bill to the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, which Collins chairs, for further review. A Wu spokesperson said the mayor intends to refile the grant, which represents the region’s annual funding source in the new year after a new City Council is sworn. Seven votes are needed to pass it. “Many communities across this region over the weekend had to shut down synagogues because of bomb threats, the rise of antisemitism,” Collins said. “We were a launching pad for 9/11 and we remember all too well the pain of the marathon bombings in 2013.” While the bill was filed in direct response to the Boston City Council’s vote to block the counter-terrorism grant, the potential change in state law would impact all cities and towns. It would allow all public health and safety funding to be allocated to the intended cities and towns upon approval of the state Legislature and governor, thereby bypassing local bodies like the Boston City Council, as “no approval from the intended grant recipient shall be necessary.” “My initial thought is it’s way too broad,” said Edwards, an East Boston Democrat who departed the City Council in April 2022. “I think it may be like taking a hatchet to a scalpel job. “If the concern is about how federal funds are not given out to other cities and towns because of one city like Boston being fiduciary, then I think that there’s a way in which we could talk about that and think about different ways in which fiduciaries work locally,” Edwards added. “Maybe in general we shouldn’t have certain funds for regional purposes be allocated to only one city to hold.” Edwards said she would be happy to discuss potential changes along those lines, “but I’m not ready, nor do I think it’s fair to just automatically say certain topics are off local limits.” Before being elected to the state Senate, representing Revere, Winthrop and parts of Boston, Edwards spent four years on the Boston City Council. She said she was among the council members who voted down grant funding for the police department’s Boston Regional Intelligence Center, money earmarked by the state to improve technology to fight crime, gangs and terrorism. Her ‘no’ vote at the time was driven by a lack of information on what that particular grant funding would be used for, Edwards said. Those questions have since been answered, she said, pointing to the Council’s vote to approve four years’ worth of BRIC funding in October. “I think it’s overreach for anyone to take that authority away from local authorities,” Edwards said, saying that part of the Boston City Council’s function is “to hold these departments accountable.” Collins said he is “always open to discussion and debate, and there will be ample opportunity for that, but we can’t afford any further delay.” He would be open, for example, to paring down the language to make the change applicable only to the Boston City Council. “We all have to answer to our districts and I am more concerned about the families, children and elderly who could not attend their houses of worship this weekend due to terrorist threats amidst the rising tide of antisemitism, rather than protecting the perpetual political posturing taking place that serves only to put the public’s health and safety at risk,” Collins told the Herald. David B. Starr, a rabbi at Brookline’s Congregation Mishkan Tefila, said the rise in antisemitism, including this past weekend’s bomb threats, has been “pretty shocking” and “pretty scary” for Jewish people who have “felt very safe in America” since the end of World War II. “Psychologically, it’s hard,” Starr told the Herald. “Communally, it’s hard in terms of trying to figure out what to do.” While the proposed bill would take away local approval authority, it has the support of Council President Ed Flynn, who said that holding a formal vote on the counter-terrorism grant would be his “highest priority.” “We can no longer play politics with public safety issues and the lives of residents of Boston and Massachusetts,” Flynn told the Herald. “We can’t fail the residents once again.” It is also favored by the city’s largest police union, the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, headed by Larry Calderone, who said it was “irresponsible” for the Council to vote down $13 million in anti-terrorism funding for the region. “These monies are a necessity and a priority to keep the general public safe,” Calderone told the Herald. “And if it’s money coming from a grant through the federal government, then we should be accepting it.”

84cbe5223c8fd9954f144e0aebffd160

politics

Four-day truce begins in Israel-Hamas war, sets stage for release of dozens of Gaza-held hostages

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A four-day truce in the Israel-Hamas war took effect early Friday, setting the stage for the exchange of dozens of hostages held by militants in Gaza in return for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The halt in fighting promised some relief for Gaza’s 2.3 million people, who have endured weeks of Israeli bombardment, as well as families in Israel fearful for the fate of their loved ones taken captive during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. The cease-fire kicked off at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and is to last at least four days. During this period, Gaza’s ruling Hamas group pledged to free at least 50 of the about 240 hostages it and other militants took on Oct. 7. Hamas said Israel would free 150 Palestinian prisoners. Both sides will release women and children first. Israel said the truce would be extended an extra day for every additional 10 hostages freed. The truce-for-hostages deal was reached in weeks of intense indirect negotiations, with Qatar, the United States and Egypt serving as mediators. If it holds, it would mark the first significant break in fighting since Israel declared war on Hamas seven weeks ago. The agreement raised hopes of eventually winding down the war, which has leveled vast swaths of Gaza, fueled a surge of violence in the occupied West Bank and stirred fears of a wider conflagration across the Middle East. Israel has pushed back against such speculation, saying it was determined to resume its massive offensive once the truce ends. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was quoted as telling troops Thursday that their respite will be short and that the war would resume with intensity for at least two more months. A first group of 13 women and children held by Hamas will be freed Friday afternoon, according to Majed al-Ansari, the spokesman of the Qatari foreign ministry. Three Palestinian prisoners, also women and minors, are to be released for every freed hostage. Israel’s Justice Ministry published a list of 300 prisoners eligible to be released, mainly teenagers detained over the past year for rock-throwing and other minor offenses. The return of hostages could lift spirits in Israel, where their plight has gripped the country. Families of the hostages have staged mass demonstrations to pressure the government to bring them home. Netanyahu’s office said it notified the families of hostages listed for release Friday. Increased aid for Palestinians will start to enter Gaza “as soon as possible,” al-Ansari said Thursday. The hope is that the “momentum” from this deal will lead to an “end to this violence,” he told reporters. Hamas said 200 trucks a day will enter Gaza carrying aid. Qatar said the aid will include fuel, but has given no details on quantities. Israel cut off all imports at the start of the war, except for a trickle of food, water and medical supplies allowed in from Egypt. The lack of fuel has caused a territory-wide blackout, leaving homes and hospitals reliant on faltering generators. The war erupted when several thousand Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking scores of hostages, including babies, women and older adults, as well as soldiers. Hamas is expected to demand a large number of high-profile prisoners in return for soldiers. The Israeli bombardment, now in its seventh week, has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, which resumed its detailed count of casualties in Gaza from the war. The ministry had stopped publishing casualty counts since Nov. 11, saying it had lost the ability to do so because of the health system’s collapse in the north. The new numbers were not fully broken down, but women and minors have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead. The figures do not include updated numbers from hospitals in the north. The ministry says some 6,000 people have been reported missing, feared buried under rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its death tolls. Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas fighters, without presenting evidence for its count. Israeli airstrikes continued in the final hours ahead of the truce. On Thursday afternoon, a strike leveled a residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. At least 12 people were killed, according to officials at nearby Al-Aqsa Hospital. One resident, Hosni Moharib, said his wife and several children were killed and other relatives remained buried under the rubble. “It exploded on the house, striking the babies and young children. Everyone in the house, they are all dead,” he said, bursting into tears. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the war after the truce expires to destroy Hamas’ military capabilities, end its 16-year rule in Gaza and return all the estimated 240 captives held in Gaza by Hamas and other groups. “We will continue it until we achieve all our goals,” Netanyahu said, adding that he had delivered the same message in a phone call to U.S. President Joe Biden. Washington has provided extensive military and diplomatic support to Israel since the start of the war. In Gaza’s city of Khan Younis, Palestinians welcomed the respite of the upcoming cease-fire but said four days would do little to relieve the humanitarian disaster caused by the war. “God willing, it becomes a total cease-fire,” said Jihan Qanan. “People have had houses brought down on their heads, they’ve been expelled ... There’s no homes, no money, no possessions. The whole world is wrecked.” ___ By WAFAA SHURAFA, BASSEM MROUE and DAVID RISING Associated Press

c7b8ce25a100c9278fc93824e7cc1968

politics

Biden Plans Speech Casting Election as a Fight for Democracy

President Biden is returning to the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Friday to try to define the 2024 presidential election as an urgent and intensifying fight for American democracy. Mr. Biden is expected to use a location near the famous Revolutionary War encampment of Valley Forge and the looming anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to cast preserving democracy as a foundational issue to the 2024 campaign, according to a senior Biden aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the remarks. The address, which builds on previous speeches about safeguarding American institutions and combating political violence, represents a bet that many Americans remain shaken by the Jan. 6 attack and Donald J. Trump’s role in it. Leaning on a phrase used by America’s first president, George Washington, around the time he commanded troops at Valley Forge, Mr. Biden is expected to suggest that the 2024 election is a test of whether democracy is still a “sacred cause” in the nation, the aide said.

3631892a1d79477fbc78ee3c1871e7ca

politics

Can He Condemn the Killings Without Causing More Pain?

And then there were the Israeli hostages still being held captive at the center of the conflict. George understood at least a little about what that was like, too. He was the first American ever kidnapped in Gaza, in 1989, when three Palestinian refugees abducted him and demanded that Israel release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for his life. The extremists held George at gunpoint in a safe house for 29 hours before eventually releasing him unharmed, and then instead of retreating into fear or hatred, George returned to America and devoted his career to helping refugees start new lives and heal from conflict. “One violation of human rights does not justify another,” he wrote, in another attempt at a statement on behalf of his nonprofit, Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, in New Haven, Conn. “It doesn’t matter whether we call it a cease-fire or a humanitarian pause. Let’s not quibble over terminology. The killing must stop.” Even at the risk of inviting controversy, he felt compelled to speak up on behalf of the people and places he loved. He sent a draft of the statement to his board of directors, but some of them thought it might be interpreted as too political and potentially divisive. A few blocks away, students at Yale University were disrupting the campus by holding concurrent demonstrations in support of either Jews or Palestinians. The head of the local Service Employees International Union had been forced to resign after publicly voicing support for “our comrades” in Gaza. Dozens of companies and nonprofits across the state were being torn apart by internal divisions over a conflict on the other side of the world, and George wanted to protect his nonprofit, IRIS. He had led the organization as it grew from eight employees in the late 1990s to more than 150. Together they helped to house, clothe, feed, educate, protect and support more than 800 refugees who arrived each year in Connecticut. That work required an annual budget of $14 million, a third of which came from private donors with their own opinions and connections to the conflict in the Middle East.

6c1e760ac77d67b7e5c41c82645d6c07

politics

The Bombshell Colorado Ruling

It has been clear for months that politics and the law were going to bump into one another in next year’s presidential race, with Donald Trump playing a dual starring role: criminal defendant and a candidate for the country’s highest office. This week, that awkward bump turned into a head-on collision. It is now clear that the courts — especially the Supreme Court — could shape the contours of the election in extraordinary and previously unimaginable ways. In case you missed it, there was big news: Yesterday, Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled that Trump is disqualified from holding office again because of his actions leading up to Jan. 6. The Colorado ruling is based on a provision of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, which bars people who have engaged in insurrection from holding office. Trump’s campaign immediately said it would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

d0c7db8df6bf1d20ac5ed6b0c1fc8eee

politics

Texas abortion: Kate Cox case reveals broader antiabortion strategy

On the surface, this would seem to be exactly the kind of rare exception Texas lawmakers had in mind when they passed their state’s highly restrictive abortion laws. Cox’s physician told her that she is at high risk of suffering life-threatening complications — and that her ability to have a third child will be compromised — if she carries her pregnancy to term. But when a Texas judge granted Cox’s request for an emergency order to obtain an abortion, the state’s attorney general not only appealed the decision but threatened each of three hospitals at which Cox’s doctor has admitting privileges with criminal and civil penalties if they performed the abortion . Kate Cox, a woman in Dallas who is 20 weeks pregnant with a child diagnosed with trisomy 18, an almost-always fatal condition, was the first person after the fall of Roe v. Wade to go to court to get an emergency order permitting abortion . Cox’s case was historic in other ways, too: For decades, court orders for abortions generally were granted only for minors acting without parental consent . Advertisement On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked the lower court’s emergency order, pending further review. Get The Primary Source Globe Opinion's weekly take on politics, delivered every Wednesday. Enter Email Sign Up Regardless of how this particular case is resolved, the attorney general’s initial response raised a troubling question: Can a state really punish doctors for carrying out a procedure explicitly allowed by a court order? Kate Cox, 31, got permission from a state judge to obtain an abortion, but it's unclear whether she will be blocked from proceeding. Uncredited/Associated Press The answer is that a court order, or injunction, like the one Cox got offers unclear protection, especially in Texas. Start with SB8, the law that lets anyone in Texas sue an abortion doctor or anyone “aiding or abetting” them for at least $10,000 per abortion. SB8 made headlines in 2021 because of its bounty structure, which seemed to incentivize complete strangers to target abortion doctors and anyone in a patient’s support network who could qualify as an accomplice. The law also contained a little-noticed provision that prevented defendants from shielding themselves with a court order overruled by a later court, even if the court order was in effect when the abortion took place. Advertisement It’s worth asking whether this is constitutional. The 14th Amendment still guarantees due process of law, which requires defendants to have notice of what is prohibited — and when. How can doctors and other defendants have notice that an order issued by a court is no good before another court has even weighed in? US Supreme Court precedent is less clear on this than we would hope. In 1920, the court decided Oklahoma Operating Company v. Love, a case that involved Oklahoma’s anti-monopoly laws. Justice William Brandeis addressed the possibility that a party challenging a law would win an injunction early in litigation only to lose later. Brandeis’s opinion reasoned that when this happened, there should be no penalty for actions taken “pendente lite,” or during the litigation, so long as a plaintiff had reasonable grounds for a challenge. Winning a court order certainly suggests that a challenge had a reasonable foundation. But the Supreme Court muddied the waters in 1982 in Edgar v. MITE Corporation, which struck down an Illinois law on corporate takeovers. Two of the dissenting justices, Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan, suggested that an injunction early in a legal battle offered “permanent protection from penalties for violations of the statute that occurred during the period the injunction was in effect.” The majority didn’t address Marshall and Brennan’s assertion, but Justice John Paul Stevens wrote separately to argue that the court simply didn’t have the authority to create this kind of protection. Advertisement The Supreme Court’s decision in Oklahoma Operating Company v. Love is still the law, but the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, and other conservatives are betting it won’t be for long. Other antiabortion activists have even broader aspirations. Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas solicitor general, has argued that states have the authority to prosecute people for abortions that occurred when Roe was the law because the Supreme Court later overruled it. If people can be prosecuted for actions taken in reliance on a court’s word, the implications will be radical. Abortion opponents in recent decades have prioritized the idea of criminal punishments for anyone who assists abortion, especially doctors. In the the aftermath of the 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, physicians in restrictive states have steered clear of violating criminal laws, and the patients who have managed to access abortion have traveled to other states or ordered pills online. But doctors relying on a valid court order might assume they are protected and feel obligated to intervene in cases like Cox’s. If Paxton’s theory works, that could open the door to more prosecutions of doctors. Texas law authorizes penalties up to life in prison for performing abortion. Advertisement This threat will serve to discourage doctors from performing abortions, even in cases where patients ultimately prevail in court. Given that pregnancy lasts only so long, even merely delaying a procedure for someone like Cox might stop an abortion from taking place at all — never mind what the law says about exceptions. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was unprecedented in the fact that it destroyed an individual right that had existed for decades. Cox’s case is a reminder that Dobbs may be just the beginning. If some abortion opponents have their way, anyone who convinces a court to recognize their rights would have to look over their shoulder, wondering if a later court will change course. Mary Ziegler, a contributing writer for Globe Ideas, is a professor of law at the University of California, Davis. Her latest book is “Roe: The History of a National Obsession.”

13d240217deafc63266f020a3b95cd34

politics

Howie Carr takes on City Hall

If the persistent rumors about ambulance calls to Mayor Michelle Wu’s house are so “baseless,” then why has the City of Boston been stonewalling me for 14 months in my attempts to obtain the very records that will put the lie to the scurrilous gossip once and for all? It’s not like I haven’t been patient. I filed my first Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the city on Oct. 9, 2022. Fourteen months ago. The secretary of state’s Public Records Division just ordered the city to turn over the documents, known as Computer Assisted Dispatch (CAD) records, that show all police, fire and ambulance calls to her home. Those records do exist. I sent the hackerama CAD documents for randomly selected addresses in the city, and guess what – they all included ambulance calls. They’re very easy to get, unless you ask for the mayor’s house. First they refused to send me the CAD records for the mayor’s address. Last December, they sent me some worthless spreadsheets and basically claimed they didn’t know what I was asking for. That’s when I sent them the real CAD records from places where members of the protected classes don’t live. Finally, last September, 11 months after I first asked for the documents (under the law they had 10 days to respond), they sent me a version of CAD document for the mayor’s address in Roslindale. With all the relevant parts redacted, by way of being listed as “Default.” Now they’re saying that the city “does not release ambulance or health records for any resident of Boston.” But once again, the city hacks are not telling the truth. Here’s a story from the Boston Globe, dated March 26 of last year, about these so-called “baseless” rumors regarding Wu: “Records of January and February emergency calls show no ambulance was dispatched to her (Wu’s) home to collect her for medical treatment.” So the records of emergency calls to 15-17 Augustus Ave. in Ward 18 are apparently public… but only for the Globe. To reiterate, they’re not public for the Herald, or for anybody else. Just the Boston Globe. Have I got that right? Rules for thee but not for me. I wonder if the Globe actually saw the unexpurgated CAD records? Or did they just take the word of Mayor Wu? After all, the paper’s motto is, “Afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable?” And who could possibly be more comfortable than the hacks at City Hall? All I’m asking for is what they gave the Boston Globe – but not just for those two months. I want all the CAD records for the mayor’s house, dating back to 2021. And when I get ‘em, I’ll put everything out there, for everyone to see just how baseless and pathetic the rumors are. I ask for no special treatment. I merely ask to be treated like a “reporter” for the Boston Globe. Some people have asked me, why did I drag my own feet so long? Why did I wait over a year before I appealed the city’s obvious, blatant stonewalling? The reason is, believe it or not, Boston City Hall is no longer a major beat, for me or anybody else. In my own recent personal experience, if I want to make sure I get the minimum number of downloads for my podcasts, or next to no clicks for my columns – I just have to write about city politics. For most Americans who work for a living and pay taxes, anything about politics in the city of Boston has become a “feel-good story.” It’s called a feel-good story because it makes them feel good that they don’t live in the city anymore and thus don’t have to deal with all the insanity, depravity and corruption. I know this first-hand. These last 14 months, every time City Hall gave me another run-around, I felt good – that I sold my little condo on Marlborough Street and was no longer paying (directly anyway) for all the happy horse bleep. The flack for Michelle Wu is named “Ricky” Ricardo Patron. He’s from Wisconsin, and now he’s the spokesman for the mayor, who’s from Illinois. He was born in 1988, and she was born in 1985. Here’s his take on the records that the Globe is entitled to, but not the Herald. “This is another pathetic and baseless rumor from the conspiracy theory crew longing for 1970’s Boston.” Is Ricky Ricardo talking to me – 1970’s Boston? What do any of those comrades know about 1970’s Boston? What do the Hamas terrorists call Israelis? Colonial settlers, isn’t it? Can those of us now slurred as “1970’s Boston” start referring to the blow-ins running City Hall as “colonial settlers?” The colonial settlers of the Mideast have been there a lot longer than Patron, Wu et al. have been flopping here in Boston as colonial settlers at the public trough. If these drifters who so obviously despise us are in fact colonial settlers, then what is the “1970’s Boston” population? Are we native Americans, or the Palestinians of New England? Personally, I don’t have a lot of nostalgia for 1970’s Boston. What I remember from back then was Democrats – white Democrats – stalking me with guns, not to mention C-4 explosives they got from other Democrats in the Boston office of the FBI. On Wednesday, when I first tweeted out the letter from the Secretary of State ordering the city to turn over the real ambulance documents, a female friend texted my wife and asked her what was involved in this dispute. My wife told her friend what was really going on, and her friend texted back to her: “But aren’t all liberal women basket cases?” One way or another, City Hall, the story is going to get out. (Order Howie’s new book, “Paper Boy: Read All About It!” at howiecarrshow.com or amazon.com.)

e7924302cdbc812774d1151a9a6ecb7a

politics

Westfield Mayors office withdraws City Hall sign application

WESTFIELD - At the Tuesday, Jan. 2, Planning Board meeting, Westfield Building Commissioner Carissa Lisee, representing Mayor McCabe, asked the board to withdraw without prejudice an application for an electronic message board outside City Hall. The board unanimously agreed. In an interview Friday, McCabe said his office didn’t believe they had the votes to get the sign approved. The sign faced criticism at a Dec. 19 Planning Board meeting for being out-of-character with the Court Street district. Ward 2 City Councilor Ralph Figy called it a “flashing neon sign” and said it would encourage more electronic signs in the area as well. Board members agreed, noting similar signs have been turned down as well. However, McCabe was not disappointed in this outcome. Getting input from others and seeking solutions gives people pause, he said.

0a193943878f0caab7cc652f9e3e8ea4

politics

Springfield Black leaders call for boycott of African American newspaper that called them Uncle Toms

SPRINGFIELD — The City Council will allow more police retirees to direct traffic, provide security and conduct crowd control at bars by extending the age they are permitted to work. The council voted 12-0 on Monday to allow retirees to work as special police officers until they reach 70. The decision came after the police unions requested the extension, City Councilor Lavar Click-Bruce said. The City Council created special police officers in 2018 through a home-rule petition that needed approval from the council, mayor, governor and both houses of the state Legislature. The program was designed to allow retirees up to the age of 65 to fill extra-duty job, such as directing traffic at construction sites or working security at stores and bars. Typically, the jobs are filled by regular police officers as overtime duties, but there is more work than interested officers can cover. Full-time officers get the first right of refusal on available jobs, Click-Bruce said. The retirees, who retain arrest powers and the right to carry firearms, are paid by private companies at a set hourly rate, which was $51.04 an hour when the order was initially adopted. City Councilor Michael Fenton said the council set the age limit at 65 when the ordinance was created, and he isn’t sure why. “I think it is too young,” he said. “On its face, it is very good. We will retain expertise and knowledge,” Councilor Victor Davila said. “I am thrilled with that.”

1990d195408aff20d89a9c5241b8cd61

politics

Opinion | Hamas Bears the Blame for Every Death in This War

On Friday the Israeli government gave civilians in the northern Gaza Strip 24 hours to evacuate to the southern part of the territory, in anticipation of a major military offensive. Hamas, for its part, “told Gaza residents to stay put, despite Israel’s deadline,” Reuters reported the same day. Reasonable people can criticize Israel for not allowing enough time for civilians to get out of harm’s way: There are, especially, elderly, disabled and sick Gazans — and those who help them — who may be effectively homebound. Reasonable people can also oppose other measures that Israelis have taken in response to the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It seems neither right nor smart for Israel to cut off water and electricity to Gaza until Hamas’s hostages are returned — not because Israel shouldn’t do whatever it takes to obtain their release but because the people who suffer most from the action are the ones who have the least say over the fate of the hostages. Hamas’s leaders, I’m sure, have amply supplied themselves and their forces with fuel, generators, potable water and other essentials. But what reasonable people cannot debate is the cynicism with which Hamas is conducting its side of the war. It’s a cynicism the wider world should not reward with our credulity, lest we once again turn ourselves into Hamas’s useful idiots.

1318ef8554168e90ab33ae644fdf394d

politics

Kissinger Left the State Department a Half Century Ago. But He Never Left His Old Job.

When Henry Kissinger turned 100 this year, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken toasted him at one birthday celebration in New York, and the C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, did so at another in Washington. There was a reason: Kissinger managed to retain his role as adviser to Washington’s key policymakers a half century after he left office, oftentimes because what he did then was so relevant to the crises of today. Mr. Kissinger spoke with Mr. Blinken regularly, including as recently as last month, Mr. Blinken said. He had also consulted with previous secretaries of state, including Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton (who took heat for those conversations during her presidential campaign), John Kerry and Mike Pompeo. But he wasn’t some retired coach, reminiscing about the good old days. Instead, he remained the ultimate back-channeller, especially to leaders in China. In July, Mr. Kissinger secretly flew to China — by private jet, since it’s an arduous flight even if you are not 100 years old — at the specific invitation of Xi Jinping, who called him an “old friend” and, during a lengthy dinner, told him “China and the United States’ relations will forever be linked to the name ‘Kissinger.’” It was a calculated move. Mr. Xi was making clear that he wanted to move back toward the warmth that surrounded President Richard M. Nixon’s opening to China in the early 1970s, engineered by Mr. Kissinger in secret interchanges and a remarkable, also secret trip to China. And the July visit helped set up Mr. Xi’s summit meeting with President Biden, outside of San Francisco, this month. On that same trip, Mr. Kissinger was celebrated at the U.S. Embassy, where R. Nicholas Burns, the current U.S. ambassador, lives in a house that Mr. Kissinger helped get constructed when the United States had a representative to China, but full diplomatic recognition had not yet happened. Mr. Kissinger met with the embassy’s vast staff, talking about what the process of opening the relationship was like — in an era when it seemed inconceivable China would become the world’s second-largest economy. The Kissinger conversations with secretaries of state and presidents were not only about navigating the downward spiral in relations with Beijing. He was engaged in strategy discussions on Russia, with whom he negotiated SALT I, a major arms-control treaty. He weighed in on artificial intelligence, a passion of his in recent years and a subject he wrote about at length, often with Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive who grew close to the former secretary of state. To Mr. Kissinger’s many critics, this fervor for remaining involved, decades after he could have retired, showed a thirst for power or an effort to burnish his legacy, which he knew was tarnished by charges he forgave massacres, bombings and the deaths of thousands when doing so served his diplomatic purposes. But the reason his advice was sought out goes to the depth of his experience: When Mr. Kissinger died on Wednesday, Mr. Blinken was headed to Israel in an effort to win a longer pause in a bloody conflict. Mr. Kissinger had flown the same path, in November 1973, exactly 50 years ago, during his famous shuttle diplomacy.

13fc8035eebf88f80f0c5c3ea07ee77f

politics

Amherst union, superintendent spar over whether HR staffer should resign

President Biden on Friday delivered a ferocious condemnation of Donald J. Trump, his likely 2024 opponent, warning in searing language that the former president had directed an insurrection and would aim to undo the nation’s bedrock democracy if he returned to power. On the eve of the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Mr. Trump’s supporters, Mr. Biden framed the coming election as a choice between a candidate devoted to upholding America’s centuries-old ideals and a chaos agent willing to discard them for his personal benefit. “There’s no confusion about who Trump is or what he intends to do,” Mr. Biden warned in a speech at a community college not far from Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, where George Washington commanded troops during the Revolutionary War. Exhorting supporters to prepare to vote this fall, he said: “We all know who Donald Trump is. The question is: Who are we?” In an intensely personal address that at one point nearly led Mr. Biden to curse Mr. Trump by name, the president compared his rival to foreign autocrats who rule by fiat and lies. He said Mr. Trump had failed the basic test of American leaders, to trust the people to choose their elected officials and abide by their decisions.

59e61bffc5684bf821f25543a09e13d6

politics

Fears of violence on Mass. campuses are silencing many on Israel-Hamas war

As the Israel-Hamas war continues to play out in the Middle East, a fear of violence on college campuses in Massachusetts is leaving some hesitant to speak up about their beliefs. UMass Amherst history professor Jon Olsen said a recent incident where a UMass student was accused of punching a Jewish student during a vigil on campus left him worried that students were so affected by events across the world that they would be moved to physical violence.

9e92942bdee01a0d417cec774a448524

politics

Appeals court maintains most of Trump gag order in federal election subversion case

CNN — An appeals court has largely upheld the gag order against former President Donald Trump in the federal election subversion case, saying he can be barred from talking about witnesses as well as prosecutors, the court staff and their family members. But the court said the gag order does not apply to comments made about special counsel Jack Smith, a change from the original gag order. Friday’s lengthy opinion came from all three judges who heard Trump’s appeal at the DC Circuit Court nearly two weeks ago, and was written by Judge Patricia Millett. “Mr. Trump’s documented pattern of speech and its demonstrated real-time, real-world consequences pose a significant and imminent threat to the functioning of the criminal trial process in this case,” the appeals court wrote. The court said that Trump’s campaign for the 2024 presidency “does not alter the court’s historical commitment or obligation to ensure the fair administration of justice in criminal cases.” “We do not allow such an order lightly. Mr. Trump is a former President and current candidate for the presidency, and there is a strong public interest in what he has to say,” the court said. “But Mr. Trump is also an indicted criminal defendant, and he must stand trial in a courtroom under the same procedures that govern all other criminal defendants. That is what the rule of law means.” This is a breaking story and will be updated.

18c03a2e7200d90248166d20d6f3eee4

politics

Boston looks at possibility of creating a Universal Basic Income

Boston officials are considering a proposal to become the next Massachusetts city to test the creation of a Guaranteed Basic Income program.Members of the Boston City Council's Ways and Means Committee discussed the issue for more than two hours on Monday, and it appears again on the agenda for Wednesday's meeting of the full council. The proposed order is a first step, which would require that the City Council hold a hearing to discuss the implementation of a Temporary Guaranteed Income Program for individuals living below the poverty line in the city. It was offered by Councilor Kendra Lara and six other members of the council. Within the proposed order, councilors site statistics including that almost 1-in-5 Boston residents are living in poverty and that the child poverty rate is almost 1 in 3. It also references experiments with Universal Basic Income in Cambridge, Chelsea and the State of Alaska. "A Boston (Guaranteed Basic Income) trial program would provide important qualitative and quantitative data to further actions that have been taken at the state level to pass legislation that would provide a guaranteed minimum income to all Massachusetts families," the proposal states. If a hearing on the subject is ordered, the council would be required to invite stakeholders to provide input on the program, including the Economic Opportunity and Inclusion Department, Treasury, Equity and Inclusion Department and community advocates. Boston officials are considering a proposal to become the next Massachusetts city to test the creation of a Guaranteed Basic Income program. Members of the Boston City Council's Ways and Means Committee discussed the issue for more than two hours on Monday, and it appears again on the agenda for Wednesday's meeting of the full council. Advertisement The proposed order is a first step, which would require that the City Council hold a hearing to discuss the implementation of a Temporary Guaranteed Income Program for individuals living below the poverty line in the city. It was offered by Councilor Kendra Lara and six other members of the council. Within the proposed order, councilors site statistics including that almost 1-in-5 Boston residents are living in poverty and that the child poverty rate is almost 1 in 3. It also references experiments with Universal Basic Income in Cambridge, Chelsea and the State of Alaska. "A Boston (Guaranteed Basic Income) trial program would provide important qualitative and quantitative data to further actions that have been taken at the state level to pass legislation that would provide a guaranteed minimum income to all Massachusetts families," the proposal states. If a hearing on the subject is ordered, the council would be required to invite stakeholders to provide input on the program, including the Economic Opportunity and Inclusion Department, Treasury, Equity and Inclusion Department and community advocates.

7403ecf7e4fb0bb0fae1860f78784f2f

politics

Maine state official who removed Trump from ballot was targeted in swatting call at her home

Crime Maine state official who removed Trump from ballot was targeted in swatting call at her home Shenna Bellows was not home when the swatting call was made, and responding officers found nothing suspicious. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows speaks at the inauguration of Gov. Janet Mills, Jan. 4, 2023, at the Civic Center in Augusta, Maine. A swatting call was made Friday, Dec. 29, 2023, to the home of Bellows. A man called emergency services saying he broke into a house in Manchester, Maine, which turned out to be Bellows' home. No one was home at the time, and responding officers found nothing suspicious. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File) AP A fake emergency call to police resulted in officers responding Friday night to the home of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows just a day after she removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause. She becomes the latest elected politician to become a target of swatting, which involves making a phone call to emergency services with the intent that a large first responder presence, including SWAT teams, will show up at a residence. Bellows was not home when the swatting call was made, and responding officers found nothing suspicious. Advertisement: Suspects in swatting cases are being arrested and charged as states contemplate stronger penalties. Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was the target of a swatting attempt at her Georgia residence on Christmas morning, the congresswoman and local police said. A man in New York called the Georgia suicide hotline claiming he had shot his girlfriend at Greene’s home and was going to kill himself. Police said investigators were working to identify the caller and build a criminal case. Another New York man was sentenced in August to three months in prison for making threatening phone calls to Greene’s office in Washington, D.C. While the Maine Department of Public Safety did not share a suspected motive for the swatting attempt against Bellows, she had no doubts it stemmed from her decision to remove Trump from the ballot. The swatting attempt came after a conservative activist posted her home address on social media. “And it was posted in anger and with violent intent by those who have been extending threatening communications toward me, my family and my office,” Bellows told The Associated Press in a phone call Saturday. A call was made to emergency services from an unknown man saying he had broken into a house in Manchester, according to the Maine public safety department. Advertisement: The address the man gave was Bellows’ home. Bellows and her husband were away for the holiday weekend. Maine State Police responded to what the public safety department said ultimately turned out to be a swatting call. Police conducted an exterior sweep of the house and then checked inside at Bellows’ request. Nothing suspicious was found, and police continue to investigate. “The Maine State Police is working with our law enforcement partners to provide special attention to any and all appropriate locations,” the public safety statement said. Bellows said the intimidation factors won’t work. “Here’s what I’m not doing differently. I’m doing my job to uphold the Constitution, the rule of law.” Beyond Bellows and Greene, other high-profile politicians who have been swatting call targets include U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. Bellows said she, her family and her office workers have been threatened since her decision to remove Trump from the ballot. At least one Republican lawmaker in Maine wants to pursue impeachment against her. “Not only have there been threatening communications, but there have been dehumanizing fake images posted online and even fake text threads attributed to me,” said Bellows, who has worked in civil rights prior to becoming secretary of state. Advertisement: “And my previous work taught me that dehumanizing people is the first step in creating an environment that leads to attacks and violence against that person,” she said. “It is extraordinarily dangerous for the rhetoric to have escalated to the point of dehumanizing me and threatening me, my loved ones and the people who work for me.” She said the people of Maine have a strong tradition of being able to disagree on important issues without violence. “I think it is extraordinarily important that everyone deescalate the rhetoric and remember the values that make our democratic republic and here in Maine, our state, so great,” she said. The Trump campaign said it would appeal Bellows’ decision to Maine’s state courts, and Bellows suspended her ruling until that court system rules on the case. The Colorado Supreme Court earlier this month removed Trump from that state’s ballot, a decision that also was stayed until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether he would be barred under the insurrection clause, a Civil War-era provision which prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.

895045a4cd20e9e1409b23d6b0ddf31d

politics

NH Gov. Sununu to endorse Nikki Haley for president, sources say

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu is coming off the sidelines in the Republican presidential race, with three sources telling NBC News he's endorsing Nikki Haley. The backing of the popular governor, who isn't running for reelection next year, could be an important factor in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Sununu hasn't announced an endorsement, but he is scheduled to appear with Haley at a 6 p.m. town hall in Manchester on Tuesday night. A representative shared a statement from Sununu to NBC News ahead of the event: "I look forward to joining Nikki at her town hall this evening — it’s going to be a lot of fun!" Get New England news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NECN newsletters. Sununu has built a reputation as a centrist, at times criticizing former President Donald Trump, who's been leading the polls in New Hampshire and elsewhere in the 2024 primary. We speak to New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu about local politics and the Republican primary in his state. Sununu at one point was discussing possibly running for the Republican nomination for president, but eventually said he wouldn't seek it. This is a breaking news story that will be updated.

e2f861ba2a3304c24b5c9ceca30956b0

politics

AP Exclusive: Americas Black attorneys general discuss race, politics and the justice system

The American legal system is facing a crisis of trust in communities around the country, with people of all races and across the political spectrum. For many, recent protests against police brutality called attention to longstanding discrepancies in the administration of justice. For others, criticism of perceived conflicts of interest in the judiciary, as well as aspersions cast by former President Donald Trump and others on the independence of judges and law enforcement, have further damaged faith in the rule of law among broad swaths of the public. Yet many Black attorneys understood the disparate impact the legal system can have on different communities long before the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police. Many pursued legal careers and entered that same system to improve it, with some rising to one of its most influential roles, the top enforcement official: attorney general. There is a record number of Black attorneys general, seven in total, serving today. Two Black attorneys, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, have served as U.S. attorney general. And the vice president, Kamala Harris, was the first Black woman elected attorney general. In that same moment of increased representation, the U.S. is gripped by intense debates regarding justice, race and democracy. Black prosecutors have emerged as central figures litigating those issues, highlighting the achievements and limits of Black communal efforts to reform the justice system. The Associated Press spoke with six sitting Black attorneys general about their views on racial equity, public safety, police accountability and protecting democratic institutions. While their worldviews and strategies sometimes clash, the group felt united in a mission to better a system they all agreed too often failed the people it’s meant to serve. A spokesperson for Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview. All interviewed attorneys general are Democrats. Each attorney general discussed how their backgrounds informed their approach to the law. “I loved math, and I thought I was going to become an accountant. Clearly, that went a different direction as life happened,” said Andrea Campbell, the attorney general of Massachusetts. She soon began a career providing legal aid in her community because “most of my childhood was entangled with the criminal legal system.” Anthony Brown and Kwame Raoul learned from their fathers, who were both physicians and Caribbean immigrants. Raoul, now the attorney general of Illinois, said he learned “to never forget where you came from and never forget the struggles that others go through.” Brown’s father drew satisfaction from knowing that he made a difference in people’s lives and taught him the importance of public service. “I saw that every day as a kid growing up,” said Brown, a retired army colonel now serving as attorney general of Maryland. Letitia James, the New York attorney general, said she came from “humble beginnings” and was “shaped by those who know struggle, pain, loss, but also perseverance.” Aaron Ford, the attorney general of Nevada, attributed his achievements “because the government helped in a time of need to get to my next level.” And Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, was raised on stories of his grandparents organizing Black voters in Louisiana at the height of Jim Crow, when they endured bomb threats and a burned cross at their home. “That’s who raised me. Because of that, I have a sensitivity to people who are being punished for trying to do the right thing. And that’s what we dedicate our work to. And there’s a lot more to it,” Ellison said. On reducing disparities in the criminal justice system The American criminal justice system is plagued with well-documented inequality and racial disparities at every level. And while an outsized portion of defendants are people of color, prosecutors are mostly white. Many Black prosecutors entered the legal profession to bring the perspective of communities most impacted by the system into its decision-making processes. “If we are in these roles, I think people expect, and rightfully so, that we will take on criminal legal reform, that we will take out bias that exists in criminal or civil prosecutions, that we will focus on communities of color and do it in such a way that recognizes those communities are often overpoliced and under-protected,” Campbell said. Efforts at reforming the justice system have been mixed. The disparity between Black and white rates of incarceration dropped by 40% between 2000 and 2020, according to a September 2022 report by the Council on Criminal Justice. But while the number of people incarcerated overall across that period slightly fell, policing and sentencing policies vary by state, leading to divergent realities across regions. Brown has made reducing Maryland’s high rate of Black male incarceration his “number one strategy priority.” Maryland has the highest percentage of Black people incarcerated of any state, though Southeastern states like Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi have higher total populations of incarcerated Black people. He created a civil rights division in his office and obtained greater powers from Maryland’s general assembly to prosecute police-involved killings and bring such cases under civil rights law. Both Brown and Campbell said that such reform efforts were in pursuit of both improving equity and law enforcement. Better prison conditions and fairer justice systems, Campbell argued, reduce issues like recidivism and promote trust in the justice system overall. “You can have accountability while also improving the conditions of confinement,” Campbell said. On addressing police misconduct For Ellison, improving outcomes in the legal system can’t happen without ensuring fair and equitable policing across communities. “We want the system of justice to work for defendants and for victims both. And there’s no reason it shouldn’t,” Ellison said. He believes involvement from attorneys general is “probably” needed “in order for it to happen.” Ellison, who successfully prosecuted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for Floyd’s murder, doesn’t believe such a high-profile case of accountability for police misconduct, by itself, signaled a meaningful shift in police relations with underserved communities. “One of my big worries after the Floyd case is that now people get to say, ‘Well, you know, we convicted that guy. Move on,’” Ellison said. Ellison reflected on how his experience as a Black man informed Chauvin’s prosecution. “I knew right off that, based on my life experience, they’re probably going to smear (Floyd),” Ellison said, referencing the various tropes he had expected the defense to use. “If I hadn’t walked the life that I walk, I’m not sure I would have been able to see that coming.” He also noted that no federal policing legislation had been passed since the national protests in the wake of Floyd’s murder. That didn’t mean progress had not been made in Ellison’s eyes, who pointed to various states and local reforms, including in Minnesota, which have enacted higher standards on police training, reforms on practices like no-knock warrants and instituted chokehold bans. Such changes were often facilitated by Black lawmakers and law enforcement officials. Raoul recalled working on police reform measures with Republican legislators, several of whom were former law enforcement officers. “Being a Black man in a position of power during that particular time gave me a voice where I was able to get unanimity,” Ford said. Campbell doesn’t see public safety and racial justice as mutually exclusive. “You can absolutely make sure that we are giving law enforcement every tool they need, every resource they need to do their jobs effectively, while at the same time taking on the misappropriation of funds, police misconduct, police brutality. All of that can happen at once,” she said. On protecting democracy and the rule of law On issues such as voting rights and election interference, Black prosecutors have also drawn national attention for litigating cases examining potential election fraud and voter disenfranchisement. “I took an oath of office when I got elected to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Nevada,” Ford said. “And I didn’t know that literally meant we’d be protecting democracy in the sense that folks would be pushing back on the legitimacy of our elections and undermining our democracy.” In the aftermath of the 2020 election, his office litigated six lawsuits against Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and allied groups, which argued without evidence that widespread voter fraud had corrupted Nevada’s elections. In November, Ford’s office opened an investigation into the slate of electors Nevada Republicans drafted that falsely certified Trump had won the state’s votes in the Electoral College. The lawsuit is the latest in a string of efforts by prosecutors at all levels of government to pursue potential criminal wrongdoing by Trump and his allies in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Two Black prosecutors, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in New York, are prosecuting cases on related issues, as is a special counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. The efforts have not come without criticism. Trump has lambasted James, Bragg and Willis with language often evoking racist and stereotypical tropes, such as using terms like “animal” and “rabid” to describe Black district attorneys. James, who has sued Trump in a civil fraud case in which she argues the real estate mogul misrepresented the values of his assets around the world in financial statements to banks and insurance companies, said Trump tends to use his multiple legal entanglements “as a microphone” to sow more distrust for governmental institutions. “He unfortunately plays upon individuals’ fears and lack of hope and their dissolution in how the system has failed them. That’s why he’s garnered so much support,” James said of Trump. “He claims he wants to make America great again, but the reality is that America is already exceptional,” James said. “It’s unfortunate that we are so polarized because of the insecurities of one man.” On public safety and community needs Public safety, the cost of living and other material needs are top of mind for most Americans since the coronavirus pandemic caused a spike in crime and economic anxiety. Attorneys general have broad mandates in administering resources, meaning they often can be nimbler in responding to pressing challenges than legislators. “You don’t solve crimes unless you have communities that trust that they can go to law enforcement,” said Raoul, the Illinois attorney general. “And people don’t trust that they can go to law enforcement if they think that law enforcement is engaging in unconstitutional policing.” Ellison and James both said a top priority was housing. “We’ve sued a lot of bad landlords,” Ellison said. James said she was focused on real estate investors buying large amounts of working- and middle-class housing across her state, as well as cracking down on deed theft and rental discrimination in New York City. Ellison has also established a wage theft unit in his office, which he says was informed by the experience of Black Americans. The prosecutors learn from each other’s crime-fighting techniques but aren’t uniform in their strategies. Ford said he “can’t just do a cut and paste job” for constituencies as diverse as his. But Raoul, for instance, has spearheaded a crackdown on retail store theft in Illinois that Brown has begun to emulate in Maryland. “We do have significant authority to do a lot at once,” Campbell said. “Divisiveness” at the federal level has prompted many people to turn to local and state officials for action, she said. On increasing Black representation among prosecutors Even as the number of high-profile black attorneys in the legal system has risen, many Black lawmakers, district attorneys, attorneys general, and judges are often still a barrier breaker in their communities and, in some cases, the country. While the interviewed officials say they stay in touch with all their peers, they also lean on their fellow Black attorneys general in unique ways. “Keith Ellison and I served together in Congress. He was an inspiration to me when I was making the decision to move from Congress to the attorney general,” Brown said. The group is in frequent communication through texts, calls and even joint travel domestically and abroad as they build working and personal relationships with each other. “We have a little group and we’re in regular communication. We boost each other up. We stick with each other and celebrate each other a lot,” Ellison said. The group views that collaboration as increasingly necessary due to a rising amount of litigation specifically aimed at issues of great interest to Black communities, several attorneys general said. “There’s an assault going on, an intentional assault against opportunities for the Black community at large and on diversity and inclusion,” Raoul said. Raoul cited lawsuits against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in areas ranging from higher education, contracting and employment opportunities as evidence of a “coordinated, well-funded assault on opportunity,” he said. “We cannot be found asleep at the wheel.” The group also uses their growing size and shared perspective as Black Americans to influence other attorneys general across the country. “We know that we collectively force a conversation in the (attorney general) community at large simply by us being there,” Raoul said. “That’s not to say we don’t debate with each other, and that’s healthy as well. But we force a conversation that needs to be had.” James dismissed her barrier-breaking accolades as “nothing more than historical footnote.” “All that history means nothing to me nor to anyone else. People only look for results,” James said. “Every day I wake up and make sure that I still have this fire in my belly for justice. Sweet, sweet justice.” Being the first, James said, “doesn’t do anything to feed my soul.” For most Black attorneys general, the work is ongoing. “If we’ve made a change, it’s been incremental. I think it would be a little presumptuous of us to think we’ve changed the system,” Ellison said. “We might be changing the system. Hopefully, we are.”

e400005cf000190d3c8b50db2b9ca1aa

politics

The Climate Summit Scene: 70,000 People and a Nightly Light Show

There are two climate summits taking place in Dubai. One is the gathering of bleary-eyed, sharp-tongued diplomats parsing over every word and comma in the international declaration that is expected in the coming days. The bigger event is happening outside the negotiating rooms. It’s part trade fair, part protest stage, part debate forum. It’s where people come from all over the world, from all kinds of sectors to show off their gadgets, make deals, spar over big ideas and of course, lobby the diplomats. This year, this big event is expected to be nearly twice as big as the last one, which itself set a record. According to the United Nations, which is overseeing the summit, known as COP28, a record 100,000 people registered; nearly 70,000 have shown up. Roaming through the venue are doctors and pesticide makers, venture capitalists and battery entrepreneurs, mining executives, real estate developers, permafrost scientists, policy wonks dreaming up new sources of climate finance, and at least 1,200 lobbyists for the oil and gas industry. “The global economy is here, in a kind of microcosm,” said Rachel Kyte, a veteran climate diplomat and chairwoman of a group trying to make carbon markets more transparent.

3537a2c8bc61eb8995161f2f055f03c1

politics

Newton teachers go on strike beginning Friday

This month, the internal dissension has erupted into an attempt to oust Ms. Karamo, which, if successful, would be the first removal of a leader of the Michigan Republican Party in decades. Nearly 40 members of the Michigan Republican Party’s state committee called for a meeting in late December to explore forcing out Ms. Karamo. Just before Christmas, Malinda Pego, Ms. Karamo’s running mate for state party chair and the co-chair of the committee, signed onto that effort, in an ominous sign for the embattled chairwoman. And on Thursday, eight of the 13 Republican congressional district party chairs asked Ms. Karamo to resign in a joint letter, pleading with her to “put an end to the chaos” by stepping down. But that meeting has now been delayed, with no definite date on the calendar. Ms. Karamo has vowed to fight back, railing against the effort as illegitimate. The pitched battle for control of the state party in a pre-eminent presidential battleground is the most extreme example of conflicts brewing in state Republican parties across the country. Once dominated largely by moneyed establishment donors and their allies, many state parties have been taken over by grass-roots Republican activists energized by former President Donald J. Trump and his broadsides against the legitimacy of elections. These activists, now holding positions of state and local power, have elevated others who share their views, prioritizing election denialism over experience and credentials. The result has been fund-raising problems and division. The Republican Party of Arizona spent much of this year in debt.

822ed375024371729d336a70ffdddbd3

politics

The Evening: A Success and a Setback for Ukraine

The opening night of a revival of Richard Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York was interrupted Thursday night by climate protesters shouting “No Opera” from the balconies on both sides of the opera house. Protesters with the group Extinction Rebellion NYC unfurled banners that read “No Opera On A Dead Planet,” according to Peter Gelb, the general manager at the Met. Met officials were then forced to bring down the curtain at around 9:30 p.m., halfway through the second act. About eight minutes passed before security officials ushered out the protesters perched on the balconies, Mr. Gelb said. The crowd jeered the demonstrators and burst into applause when the curtains again opened, but the elation was short-lived.

d636ca710f368bee6c30bd0b53e81b9a

politics

In Bid to Slow Migrant Surge, Adams Restricts Bus Arrivals Into New York

Companies that violate the executive order face class B misdemeanor charges, which could result in three months in jail and a $500 fine for individuals and a $2,000 fine for corporations. Buses violating the order may also be seized by the Police Department. At the news conference, the three mayors again demanded that the federal government grapple with its dysfunctional immigration system. Mr. Johnston said Denver had received more than 35,000 migrants and was housing 4,000, creating a crisis that is consuming almost 10 percent of the city’s budget. He called for the federal government to accelerate work authorizations, provide more financial assistance and develop a coordinated entry plan so that asylum seekers would be spread more evenly throughout the country. “We cannot continue to do the federal government’s job,” Mr. Adams said. The executive order was aimed squarely at Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who recently acknowledged having sent 25,000 migrants to New York City. New York City has processed more than 160,000 migrants since then, many of them from Venezuela. Some 70,000 remain in the city’s care, according to the mayor’s office. The order cites particular concerns about the city’s ability to care for migrants who arrive at night or over the weekend and may need immediate shelter and services. “People are getting off the bus in shorts and flip-flops,” Joshua Goldfein, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said. “The city is not getting any kind of real-time information on when and where these buses are going to arrive.”

17d25c85cb1227f5c11e4ca32bc2d1b5

politics

Irans New Missile Fleet: Part Deterrent, Part Sales Pitch

When Iran launched a barrage of airstrikes this week into Iraq, Syria and Pakistan, it was not just showing off the reach and sophistication of some of its newest missiles but also staking a claim: This is a new era in which Iran can flex its muscles at will and, as an added benefit, bolster its credentials as an important arms supplier. In at least one of the attacks — a strike that Tehran claimed targeted the Islamic State terrorist group in Idlib, Syria — Iran appeared to make use of one of its longest-range and most advanced missiles, the Kheibar Shekan. Both the range and the apparent accuracy seized the attention of national security officials in Europe and Israel, as well as outside experts who track Iran’s technological advances. The combination of its newest missiles and its fleet of drones, which Russia has been purchasing by the thousands for use in Ukraine, has helped Iran become the producer of some of the most sophisticated weaponry in the Middle East. And Tehran’s willingness to intervene — as a supplier to its proxy forces in the region and to Moscow — may well complicate American calculations as the Pentagon considers the question looming over the widening Middle East conflict: Could it lead to a direct conflict with Iran?

a098a5d2d3f56d2c68aeec3ea36daed4

politics

In New York Times op-ed, Claudine Gay says critics attacked her in war against trusted institutions

Local News In New York Times op-ed, Claudine Gay says critics attacked her in ‘war’ against trusted institutions "The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader." Claudine Gay. Haiyun Jiang / Bloomberg Claudine Gay, who resigned as Harvard University president this week, spoke out against her critics and claimed that the events that led to her departure were “merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society.” “The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader,” she wrote in an op-ed published in the New York Times on Wednesday, the day after she stepped down. “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,” she added. “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.” Advertisement: Gay’s resignation, six months after she became the university’s first Black and second female president, was a result of weeks of conservative attacks, and pressure from politicians and donors. She came under pressure to resign following her remarks during a congressional hearing on antisemitism on university campuses and allegations of plagiarism in her scholarly works, even as hundreds of Harvard professors and alumni backed her and the university’s board said she did not engage in academic misconduct. Some saw a racial element to the response to her congressional testimony, pointing to remarks from people such as hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and conservative pundits that the Stanford and Harvard-educated Gay was chosen as president due to diversity, equity and inclusion criteria. In the op-ed, Gay said she received abusive messages and death threats, adding “I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count.” Gay also acknowledged shortcomings in her response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack in Israel. The assault, which Israel estimates killed 1,200 people – and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, in which over 22,000 Palestinians have been killed – have led to a rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia in universities, according to watchdogs, and a federal probe into institutions’ responses. Advertisement: “Yes, I made mistakes,” Gay wrote. “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.” She added that she “fell into a well-laid trap” during the congressional hearing into antisemitism on university campuses on Dec. 5, where she and two other Ivy League presidents were questioned by a Republican-led House committee on their universities’ policies on dealing with antisemitism and how campus protests fit into the commitment to free speech. Gay, University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill and MIT’s Sally Kornbluth, all declined to state plainly that a call for genocide against Jews would violate their universities’ codes of conduct. Their remarks prompted widespread backlash, with Magill resigning from Penn days later. Kornbluth remains in her role with MIT leadership’s backing. “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,” Gay wrote of her congressional remarks. She went on to defend her academic record amid the plagiarism allegations, saying that she “promptly requested corrections” to her previously published work after it emerged that she used almost identical language to that of other academic papers without correct attribution in a number of instances. Advertisement: An independent review found “a few instances of inadequate citation” but concluded there was “no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct,” the university’s top governing board said in December, as it voiced its unanimous support for Gay. “I have never misrepresented my research findings, nor have I ever claimed credit for the research of others,” Gay said in the op-ed. “Moreover, the citation errors should not obscure a fundamental truth: I proudly stand by my work and its impact on the field.” “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,” she wrote. – – – Laura Meckler, Susan Svrluga, Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, Annabelle Timsit and Adela Suliman contributed to this report.

31c03a75c0fbefba72e49f4927213338

politics

Burundis President Says Gay People Should Be Stoned

Burundi’s president said that gay people in his country should be stoned, amid a widening crackdown against L.G.B.T.Q. people in the East African nation that is adding to the anti-gay sentiments sweeping across the region and the wider African continent. While President Evariste Ndayishimiye’s remarks do not have the force of law, they are an escalation of provocative statements directed at L.G.B.T.Q. people elsewhere by African government officials. Mr. Ndayishimiye said that gay people should not be accepted in Burundi, a conservative nation where consensual same-sex intimacy among adults can already be penalized with up to two years in prison. “I think that if we find these kinds of people in Burundi, it is better to take them to a stadium and stone them,” Mr. Ndayishimiye said on Friday during an event in the country’s eastern Cankuzo Province, where he answered questions from journalists and members of the public. “That’s what they deserve.”

c89178b6315f2465a21c533bc6a5bf25

politics

Morrissey Boulevard Will Finally Be FixedWe think

It’s been promised, at least…. It’s a tale as old as time. If it’s raining, or a high tide, or a coastal storm, you avoid Morrissey Boulevard. Why, you ask. Because, most likely, it’s flooded. This “situation” is part of our reality living in the neighborhood just as much as Kosciuszko Circle – another “situation” that impacts getting around the city. The Boston Globe is reporting that help could be on the way. After decades of promising to fix it, a meeting took place on Tuesday to do exactly that. On Tuesday, the first meeting of a new Morrissey Boulevard Commission kicked off the process of drafting a plan to renovate the decades-old roadway. Included in this plan is raising Morrisey Blvd’s elevation to avoid future floods and modifying its layout to improve traffic flow for cars, public transit, bikes, and pedestrians. The deadline for the plan is June 1st, 2024. The commission is made up of James Arthur Jemison, chief of planning at the Boston Planning and Development Agency; DCR Commissioner Brian Arrigo; David Mullen, who represents the University of Massachusetts Building Authority; State Representatives Daniel Hunt and David Biele, Democrats of Dorchester and South Boston; Senator Collins; Boston City Councilor Frank Baker; and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. So can it be done? Fingers crossed. A few years ago, a traffic study was launched. The study area includes 3.5 miles of Morrissey between Preble Street in South Boston to Neponset Circle in Dorchester, including Kosciuszko Circle — aka the circle of hell. The commission will meet twice before present its plan to the legislature. You can get all the details about this project here.

1263b91c8eedd7c7c48fd9cbd57c4e85

politics

Yale Condemns Hanging of Palestinian Flag on New Haven Menorah

Yale University leaders, elected officials and clergy in New Haven, Conn., condemned what they called the desecration of a public Hanukkah menorah after a protester briefly hung a Palestinian flag from it over the weekend. “The placement of a Palestinian flag on the menorah conveys a deeply antisemitic message to Jewish residents of New Haven, including members of the Yale community,” Peter Salovey, the Yale president, said in a statement. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who is Jewish, called the incident an act of hate and described his father’s escape from Germany in 1935. “It may look like a prank,” he said appearing at a news conference in New Haven on Monday. “It may look like a joke. But it couldn’t be more serious because it is the mockery and desecration of a profoundly important religious symbol.”

3dea5b7e84888b5c201ec34238d7c108

politics

Extreme heat protections could be coming for California indoor workers

Off Route 6 on Cape Cod, a few miles in from the bay near Yarmouth, Mass., there hides a giant ancient English weeping beech. The tree is so big that it has its own parking lot. But you don’t see it right away. Tucked among a clutch of shrubs and smaller trees, it’s not clear where, or what, the tree is. You follow signs to a thick green curtain, push through, and suddenly you’re on the other side, inside. A huge gray-brown trunk, chiseled with lovers’ initials, rises 60 or 70 feet in a smooth, elephantine twist. Branches begin close to the ground, snake outward and upward and then reach back to earth, take root, and grow up again. The whole thing is enclosed by long trailing vines of leaves hanging all the way to the ground, creating a veil broken only by shards of sunlight. From the outside, you can’t see in. From within, you can’t see out. For someone living on the edge of two worlds, as my mother did in the last grueling years of her life, it must feel like home. My mother loved all trees, but this weeping beech was her favorite. It’s hard to describe the experience of being in its presence, but she tried. In the journal she kept while she was sick, she wrote that the tree appeared to her “as a herd of elephants huddled together, pressing their massive bodies together, with their trunks entwined.” Of one of her last visits to it, she wrote, “I had a clear image that I had come out of the earth, and that I had been born through this tree.”

e092ec1b85d3fc423d31c3d26dfaa44a

politics

Taxes on hotels, meals, vehicles could rise under Healey plan to steer more aid to cities, towns

(*This story was updated at 12:40 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, to include additional reporting.) Days before unveiling her fiscal 2025 budget plan and with state tax collections weakening, Gov. Maura Healey unveiled her plans to boost state aid to cities and towns by giving municipalities the ability to raise certain taxes.

7e1e4a9c3838053f5bb5a3b6d1f522d2

politics

Defense Bill Agreement Angers Hard Right, Posing a Threat to Johnson

But the Democrat-led Senate passed a far more restrained version, and in closed-door talks between the two chambers, House negotiators abandoned almost all of their most extreme policy dictates, including one that would have banned drag shows on military bases. The compromise package, which was released late Wednesday, prompted cries of betrayal by right-wing Republicans, who were further incensed to discover that it included an extension of a warrantless surveillance program many of them believe has been abused to spy on Americans. Now Mr. Johnson is bracing for a rebellion over the bill on the right that is all but unavoidable. House action is expected as soon as next week, after approval of the legislation in the Senate, which took its first steps on Thursday toward considering it. Mr. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who was elected speaker in October, is keenly aware that his predecessor was ousted by Republican hard-liners angry that he had cut deals with Democrats, and who believed he had not catered enough to the demands of his conservative base. In theory, he could face the same fate under House rules that allow a single lawmaker to call a snap vote to remove the speaker, though Republicans appear to have no appetite for a repeat of the damaging episode. Mr. Johnson, a staunch conservative, initially enjoyed a measure of leeway from right-wing lawmakers who always distrusted and disliked former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Last month, many of them argued that the new speaker deserved time to get his bearings, and mostly refrained from criticizing him for working with Democrats to pass a stopgap spending measure to avert a government shutdown that lacked any of the spending cuts or policy changes they wanted. But their response to the defense bill compromise suggests they are losing patience with Mr. Johnson.

53db56a3e17745003f05e5f916f68b24

politics

Lawrence City Councilor-Elect Fidelina Santiago accused of voter fraud

A Lawrence city councilor-elect is among two women indicted by a grand jury on voter fraud charges connected to the November 2023 local election, the Essex County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday evening. Lawrence District A Councilor-Elect Fidelina Santiago was indicted on four counts each of illegal voting or attempt to vote, conspiracy to vote or attempt to vote illegally, unlawful interference with voters, and obstruction of voting, the district attorney’s office said in a news release. A woman named Jennifer Lopez was also indicted on the same counts. Santiago did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the charges Thursday morning. The district attorney’s office did not say what the women did to warrant the charges, but said the investigation into the women was sparked by a referral from the Secretary of State’s Office about “concerning allegations of fraudulent voting associated with the November 2023 local election.” “Interfering with an election not only undermines the legitimacy of government but erodes the public’s confidence in the process. My office will vigorously prosecute individuals that threaten the integrity of elections,” Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker said in the release. In November, NBC10 Boston reported that the district attorney’s office was investigating voter fraud related to Ring camera footage that appeared to show a woman removing ballots from a man’s mailbox in Lawrence. It is unclear whether the footage is related to the charges against Santiago and Lopez. According to the city of Lawrence’s official election results, Santiago beat her opponent, Vladimir Acevado, by about 16 points on Nov. 7. Her Facebook profile says she is from the Dominican Republic, that she studied medicine there, and that she also attended Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill. “Your voice matters, and your vote can make a difference. By casting your ballot, you are actively shaping the future of our community. Let’s come together, exercise our civic duty, and ensure that our voices are heard,” she wrote in one post this fall. WCVB-TV reported that Santiago is set to be sworn in as a city councilor in less than two weeks, but that the charges shouldn’t affect her inauguration. The station spoke to Lawrence City Council President Marc Laplante, who said he will wait for more information on what happened before passing judgement. “Those allegations and the indictments are serious. There’s no question about that. But, again, let’s not leap to what we all think could or could not be happening,” Laplante said.

e1455214e701f12acba7fe274198f8fa

politics

Opinion | Want to Tax the Rich for Real? Pay Attention to This Supreme Court Case.

At the founding of the Republic, the Constitution gave Congress a broad power to “lay and collect taxes” of all kinds. The Constitution required only that taxes be “uniform” and that “direct taxes” — taxes like a head tax that it makes sense to apportion to the states by population — be apportioned by population, accounting for enslaved people according to the infamous three-fifths clause. There was no forbidden category of taxes, no rule that said “no taxes on income” or “no taxes on wealth.” What to tax and how much were questions for Congress. Direct taxes were those that could be apportioned by population without defeating their purpose — not an income tax or a wealth tax, because numbers of people “do not afford a just estimate or rule of wealth,” as the Supreme Court ruled in a 1796 case. The Supreme Court reaffirmed this original understanding, repeatedly and forcefully, for 100 years. In 1895 a single case upended this history and tradition. In Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company, a 5-to-4 majority struck down the income tax. The ostensible rationale was that an income tax was a direct tax — a tax that would have to be apportioned by population, which it could not be, since some states have more per capita income than others. Therefore, the income tax fell into a newly invented, Supreme Court-devised loophole, a tax that Congress cannot constitutionally enact at all. The backlash against the court was sustained and furious. Public outrage was fueled by the outrage of the court’s own dissenters. The Pollock majority had complained that the income tax unfairly singled out the rich, but the dissenters pointed out that it was the majority that was creating a special privileged class of rich people who were now constitutionally protected from tax. The court’s reckless new doctrine, declared Justice John Marshall Harlan, not only betrayed the original understanding of the tax power and a century of precedent; it also granted the wealthiest Americans “power and influence” that would leave ordinary citizens “subjected to the dominion of aggregated wealth.”

208582099b081f51ede75e11c6d43bfe

politics

3 UMass Amherst student protesters barred from studying abroad

But weeks before he was set to leave, O’Neill learned UMass had revoked his eligibility to study abroad, along with that of two other students, leaving them on the hook for thousands of dollars in fees and travel expenses while scrambling to find housing and still-open courses in Amherst. At the crux of it was the students’ fateful decision to join an Oct. 25 campus protest in support of Palestinians , where they were arrested along with dozens of other students and placed on disciplinary probation. Aidan O’Neill was supposed to be in Spain right now. The University of Massachusetts Amherst junior was set to leave on Jan. 3 for his study abroad program in Barcelona, which he’d been planning since last spring. Advertisement “To lose my abroad eligibility at the last second, that was just heartbreaking,” said O’Neill, now staying in his hometown, Scituate, until the spring semester starts on Feb. 1. “I was practicing my right as a student to speak up against the university funding a genocide. It just seemed, honestly, crazy and absurd to me that the university was going that far to punish me.” Get Nightmare in Mission Hill A limited-series newsletter about the untold story of the Charles and Carol Stuart case. Enter Email Sign Up During a tumultuous time on college campuses across the country following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, the incident is another example of a clash between university administrators and student protesters opposing Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. While UMass claims it was simply following policies outlined in agreements students signed, the three students whose study abroad eligibility was revoked say they are facing unusually harsh punishment because of their political views, with at least one threatening to sue. The saga has sparked concerns around First Amendment rights on campus and seen a flood of support from UMass students, faculty, and alumni calling on the university to drop disciplinary sanctions. O’Neill “was participating in a peaceful expression of his political convictions,” said Rachel Mordecai, an English department faculty member and O’Neill’s faculty adviser. “This denial of the opportunity to study abroad constitutes a disproportionate penalty for what Aidan participated in.” Advertisement Mordecai wrote a letter, obtained by the Globe, signed by 23 other English department faculty members, to UMass Amherst’s International Programs Office in support of O’Neill, whom they called “an exceptionally successful and talented student.” Jason Moralee, UMass Amherst associate dean of research and diversity, equity, and inclusion, also wrote to fellow administrators in support of O’Neill and the other two students, urging the International Programs Office to “clear these students for study abroad swiftly.” Moralee previously served as director of the UMass Oxford Summer Seminar in England for two years. In his experience, he wrote, students are “routinely” cleared to study abroad even if they have code of conduct violations or are on academic probation for drunk and disorderly arrests or academic dishonesty. “Surely, peaceful protest done by exemplary students whose records are otherwise clear ... is an offense that should not in itself prevent students from studying abroad,” he continued. UMass told the Globe its disciplinary measures have nothing to do with the content of the October protest, rather, administrators are just following policy for students who are placed on disciplinary probation for any reason. “To participate in a UMass Amherst study abroad program, students must be in good standing academically with the university and in compliance with the university’s Code of Student Conduct,” university spokesperson Ed Blaguszewski said in an email statement to the Globe. “Consistent with the university’s past practice and the Student Agreement of Participation signed by each student, IPO revoked eligibility for these students to study abroad for the upcoming winter/spring terms.” Advertisement Protesters used their phones to record as a member of the University of Massachusetts Police Department told them they will be arrested if they don’t leave within 10 minutes on Oct. 25. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff It all began Oct. 25 when about 500 students staged a sit-in at the Whitmore Administration Building, demanding UMass cut ties with defense contractor Raytheon Technologies, which produces missile components for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. After refusing to leave when the building closed at 6 p.m., 56 students, including O’Neill, and one staff member were arrested for trespassing, and later placed on disciplinary probation until the end of the spring semester. The IPO then revoked O’Neill’s study abroad eligibility, citing an agreement he had signed stipulating that students cannot participate if they have pending legal or disciplinary actions or are on academic probation. But O’Neill and the two other students, whose lawyers declined to identify them by name, say their disciplinary treatment isn’t consistent with past practice. In 2016, 19 UMass Amherst students were arrested for trespassing at a sit-in at the same building, demanding UMass divest from fossil fuel companies. However, the university did not pursue further disciplinary action, according to Mica Reel, who was a UMass sophomore that year and led the divestment campaign. In fact, Reel said, UMass leadership expressed support for the 2016 protesters and the university divested its endowment from fossil fuels one month later. Advertisement Rachel Weber, an attorney who represented the 57 protesters arrested in October in district court, said the university’s handling of the pro-Palestinian students constituted “differential treatment” compared to 2016 protest. “It certainly raises a specter that they are being punished for the content of their speech,” Weber said. Blaguszewski said the university couldn’t confirm whether students in 2016 faced further academic sanctions because student disciplinary records are not maintained after seven years. He added that in addition to the three arrested students, six other students had study abroad privileges revoked for the winter and spring semesters due to various conduct violations. He said this is routine, with several students facing revocations due to disciplinary sanctions each year. O’Neill said he and the other two students were left in “limbo” when they were told they couldn’t study abroad in an email from the program director around 4 p.m. on Dec. 15 — the last day of the semester. O’Neill said he did not have the opportunity to appeal the decision. The students had already made travel and accommodation plans through Education Abroad, the company that arranges overseas study for UMass, with some expenses nonrefundable. They hadn’t registered for spring classes at UMass Amherst. At least one did not have housing lined up. One student faces up to $20,000 in fees for the overseas program, according to the student’s attorney, Shahily “Shay” Negrón. “They have been extremely distraught,” Negrón said. “This entire ordeal has had a toll on my client emotionally [and] financially.” Advertisement Negrón said the student was unable to persuade UMass officials to reverse their decision at a hearing in early January, and is now considering suing. UMass is “harming my client because she exercised her right to free speech,” Negrón said. But experts say a First Amendment violation case could be tough to make, especially because the students had signed the study abroad agreement. The student would need to prove that disciplinary measures were based on the substance of their protest, or that the process was otherwise unfair, said Boston University law professor Robert Tsai. “These are not easy arguments to win,” Tsai said. “Just because someone’s been treated more leniently doesn’t mean that the university is doing so because they agree with the speech.” Moralee wants the university to investigate the disciplinary proceedings. “The process looks irregular, and the university owes it to everyone to conduct an independent investigation,” Moralee told the Globe. “Is the process fair? Can we be confident that bias and discrimination hasn’t played a role in suppressing free speech on campus?” O’Neill, meanwhile, is considering pursuing study abroad next year, after his probation ends. And for now, he is left to rue his lost time overseas. “If things had happened differently, I’d be in Barcelona right now, living with the host family and having the study abroad experience,” O’Neill said. “I feel really crushed by my university. I feel like they’ve just betrayed my trust for the last time.” Madeline Khaw can be reached at maddie.khaw@globe.com. Follow her @maddiekhaw.

3fc8e1bc060bd6199e159a16f6ff2c15

politics

A School Sheltered Migrants in a Storm. The Hate Calls Poured In.

An angry backlash erupted at a Brooklyn high school on Wednesday, after New York City officials housed about 500 migrant families in an auditorium there overnight because of heavy rains and fierce winds at their shelter site. About 2,000 people were evacuated on Tuesday evening from their tent shelter at a remote former airplane runway in Brooklyn to James Madison High School. Families with children piled onto the floor and into auditorium seats to sleep. By 2 a.m., several families said they were asked to prepare to return to the tents. The evacuation led officials to call a remote day of classes for the more than 3,400 students enrolled at the high school, sparking immediate backlash from politicians and parents that echoed on a national stage. Local elected leaders, right-leaning media personalities and even Elon Musk, the tech billionaire, weighed in to criticize the government response. The outrage was the latest political eruption over the tens of thousands of migrants crossing the southern border in recent months. Republicans have attacked Democrats over how they are managing a crisis that has overwhelmed government agencies.

706a5966f3735ea4eb48e3e444b67e2b

politics

Battenfeld: Maura Healey pick to chair MCCA faced own accusations about lack of diversity

Dyluis Rojas and his wife and children fled first from Venezuela and later from Colombia and Chile, crossing deserts, jungles and rivers with one goal: to make it to the United States and stay there. The family arrived in June 2022. Less than a year and a half later, they were elated when they received news that their asylum application had been approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, one of the federal agencies that processes immigration matters. Mr. Rojas and his wife could soon begin to work. They would eventually be able to apply for green cards. Then, a few days later, another letter arrived, with the same date and signed by the same official. It said that Mr. Rojas’s asylum claim had been deemed “not credible” and that he had not been granted asylum. The family faced the possibility of deportation. “We were at zero all over again,” Mr. Rojas said. It is unclear why two opposing notices were issued and which one will stand. Immigration lawyers said that Mr. Rojas’s situation seemed highly unusual, but that miscommunication by and within government agencies was not uncommon. Now, the family is waiting again, uncertain about their fate.

6f8e9c14b6643472da34966d1d1f9ea4

politics

U.S.-Led Strikes Spark Outrage in Middle East

Many in the Middle East, including some U.S. allies, condemned the American-led airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday and warned that they risked causing a broader conflict in the region. The strikes came after a series of Houthi attacks against ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis have said they are targeting Israeli ships and vessels headed to Israel in an effort to support Palestinians in Gaza, who have been under relentless Israeli bombardment for nearly 100 days, although some Houthi targets have had no clear connection to Israel. Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since Oct. 7 has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, according to the Gazan Health Ministry. The Israeli war came in response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza, that left some 1,200 people dead, according to Israeli officials. A Houthi spokesman, Mohammed Abdul Salam, said on social media that the group would remain by Gaza’s side. He said there was no justification for the strikes on Yemen because its actions do not threaten international shipping, and vowed that the group would continue to target Israeli ships and those heading to Israel. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Mr. Abdul Salam signaled that Houthi forces would retaliate for the U.S. strikes, saying, “Now, the response no doubt is going to be wider.” Hamas and Hezbollah, which like the Houthis are backed by Iran, also condemned the strikes. Hamas called them an “act of terrorism,” a violation of Yemens sovereignty and “a threat to the security of the region.” Nasser Kanani, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, denounced the strikes as “a violation of international laws” and said they “will have no result other than fueling insecurity and instability in the region.” Even close U.S. ally Oman, which often mediates between the Houthis and international parties, expressed concern, a reflection of the fear that the American-led action would not deter the Houthis but would only inflame regional conflict. “It is impossible not to denounce that an allied country resorted to this military action, while meanwhile, Israel is continuing to exceed all bounds in its bombardment, brutal war and siege on Gaza without any consequence,” Oman’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. In Bahrain, another U.S. ally, people took to the streets on Friday to protest their country’s involvement in the military coalition, according to Bahraini activists who shared pictures of the demonstrations. Amid popular anger over its participation in the coalition, the Bahraini government has not independently acknowledged its role, but was named in the joint statement announcing the strikes. Vivian Nereim and Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.

0d697f78308e729856d8505c8aae6a73

politics

Judge Declines to Hold Prosecutors in Contempt in Trump Election Case

It was one of the odder tit-for-tat battles to have emerged so far in the federal case accusing former President Donald J. Trump of plotting to subvert the 2020 election. Even though the proceeding was put on hold by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan while Mr. Trump seeks to have the charges tossed out with broad claims of immunity, prosecutors, trying to nudge it forward, have continued filing motions and turning over evidence. The former president’s lawyers have angrily accused them of violating the judge’s order and were eventually annoyed enough to ask that the prosecutors be held in contempt. After simmering for a month, the dispute was resolved on Thursday when Judge Chutkan, who is handling the case in Federal District Court in Washington, issued an order saying she would not punish anyone with a finding of contempt. Still, in what felt like an attempt to soothe the tensions between the defense and prosecution, the judge told both sides that they should not file any more “substantive” motions without first asking for permission.

3247b984d61af4451c325a87273ae702

politics

Opinion | What Worries Me About the Gaza War After My Trip to Arab States

I’ve been concerned from the start that Israel launched its invasion of Gaza to eradicate Hamas with no plan for what to do with the territory and its people in the wake of any victory. Having just spent a week in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates taking the pulse of this important corner of the Arab world, I am now even more worried. Let me summarize my concerns this way: Because Hamas built a vast tunnel network under Gaza, Israeli forces, in their quest to eliminate that vicious terrorist organization, are having to destroy huge numbers of structures. It’s the only way they can kill a lot of Hamas fighters and demilitarize Gaza without losing a lot of their own soldiers in the short window that Israel feels it has in the face of pressure from the U.S. and other allies to wind down the invasion. Israel was justified in hitting back at Hamas for breaking the cease-fire that existed on Oct. 7 and indiscriminately murdering, raping or maiming more than 1,200 people and kidnapping some 240 others in its path that day. Hamas plotted and executed a campaign of unspeakable barbarism that seemed designed to make Israel crazy and lash out without thinking about the morning after the morning after. And that is just what Israel did. But nine weeks later, we can now see the morning after the morning after. In pursuing its aims of dismantling Hamas’s military machine and wiping out its top leaders, Israel has killed and wounded thousands of innocent Gazan civilians. Hamas knew this would happen and did not care a whit. Israel must. It will inherit responsibility for a gigantic humanitarian disaster that will require a global coalition years to fix and manage. As The Times reported on Tuesday, “Satellite imagery shows that the fighting has resulted in heavy damage to almost every corner of Gaza City” — at least 6,000 buildings hammered, with about a third of them in ruins.

3631892a1d79477fbc78ee3c1871e7ca

politics

Can He Condemn the Killings Without Causing More Pain?

And then there were the Israeli hostages still being held captive at the center of the conflict. George understood at least a little about what that was like, too. He was the first American ever kidnapped in Gaza, in 1989, when three Palestinian refugees abducted him and demanded that Israel release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for his life. The extremists held George at gunpoint in a safe house for 29 hours before eventually releasing him unharmed, and then instead of retreating into fear or hatred, George returned to America and devoted his career to helping refugees start new lives and heal from conflict. “One violation of human rights does not justify another,” he wrote, in another attempt at a statement on behalf of his nonprofit, Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, in New Haven, Conn. “It doesn’t matter whether we call it a cease-fire or a humanitarian pause. Let’s not quibble over terminology. The killing must stop.” Even at the risk of inviting controversy, he felt compelled to speak up on behalf of the people and places he loved. He sent a draft of the statement to his board of directors, but some of them thought it might be interpreted as too political and potentially divisive. A few blocks away, students at Yale University were disrupting the campus by holding concurrent demonstrations in support of either Jews or Palestinians. The head of the local Service Employees International Union had been forced to resign after publicly voicing support for “our comrades” in Gaza. Dozens of companies and nonprofits across the state were being torn apart by internal divisions over a conflict on the other side of the world, and George wanted to protect his nonprofit, IRIS. He had led the organization as it grew from eight employees in the late 1990s to more than 150. Together they helped to house, clothe, feed, educate, protect and support more than 800 refugees who arrived each year in Connecticut. That work required an annual budget of $14 million, a third of which came from private donors with their own opinions and connections to the conflict in the Middle East.

fa5ed448e9dc89044314ccacd486edbd

politics

5 Takeaways From the Appeals Court Hearing on Trumps Immunity Claim

A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington heard arguments on Tuesday in a momentous case over former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal charges for the efforts he took to overturn the 2020 election. A ruling by the court — and when it issues that decision — could be a major factor in determining when, or even whether, Mr. Trump will go to trial in the federal election case. Here are some takeaways: All three judges signaled skepticism with Trump’s position. The judges on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appeared unlikely to dismiss the charges against Mr. Trump on grounds of presidential immunity, as he has asked them to do. The two Democratic appointees on the court, Judge J. Michelle Childs and Judge Florence Y. Pan, peppered John Sauer, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, with difficult questions. Judge Karen L. Henderson, the panel’s sole Republican appointee, seemed to reject a central part of Mr. Trump’s argument: that his efforts to overturn his loss to President Biden cannot be subject to prosecution because presidents have a constitutional duty to ensure that election laws are upheld.

f03d2ed043067ee7cb84001455970145

politics

Theyre Paid Billions to Root Out Child Labor in the U.S. Why Do They Fail?

One morning in 2019, an auditor arrived at a meatpacking plant in rural Minnesota. He was there on behalf of the national drugstore chain Walgreens to ensure that the factory, which made the company’s house brand of beef jerky, was safe and free of labor abuses. He ran through a checklist of hundreds of possible problems, like locked emergency exits, sexual harassment and child labor. By the afternoon, he had concluded that the factory had no major violations. It could keep making jerky, and Walgreens customers could shop with a clear conscience. When night fell, another 150 workers showed up at the plant. Among them were migrant children who had come to the United States by themselves looking for work. Children as young as 15 were operating heavy machinery capable of amputating fingers and crushing bones. Migrant children would work at the Monogram Meat Snacks plant in Chandler, Minn., for almost four more years, until the Department of Labor visited this spring and found such severe child labor violations that it temporarily banned the shipment of any more jerky.

ec610ce8591889f7ecda292aaa5ab20c

politics

Israel and Hamas Said They Are Close to a Hostage Deal

In a news conference this evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called for his government to back a deal with Hamas that would pause combat for several days and free some of the captives held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “All security organizations support it fully,” Netanyahu said. Officials for Israel, Hamas, the U.S. and Qatar, which brokered the negotiations, all said today that a deal appeared within reach. Here’s the latest. The terms of the agreement, which has yet to be announced and could still change or fall through, have centered on Hamas releasing roughly 50 children and women, in exchange for about 150 Palestinian women and teenagers jailed by Israel, according to people familiar with the negotiations. The deal would also include a brief cease-fire of at least four days. If a deal is approved tonight, the hostages might not be released until Thursday at the earliest in order to allow 24 hours for Israeli judges to review potential legal challenges. The releases, officials said, would most likely be spread over at least four days.

6a4d37e39e67e7ba3012345c838f0104

politics

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

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

6a4d37e39e67e7ba3012345c838f0104

politics

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

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

4155eafedee3d9e4df45b7812917a020

politics

Editorial: Basic incomes basic question who will pay?

Boston leaders are hashing over a universal basic income for needy Hub residents, and thankfully Mayor Michelle Wu is looking before she leaps. Cities around the country have rolled out guaranteed income pilot programs, in New York, Texas, Michigan and California for example. Cambridge is also a participant, providing direct cash payments to families with children under the age of 21, and who earn at or below 250% of the federal poverty level. Like most municipalities experimenting with the program, funding in part comes from the American Rescue Plan Act. That COVID-era windfall allowed a plethora of cities to ease a life of poverty for many residents. But the $1.9 trillion ARPA fund is finite, and the spigot will eventually turn off. This leaves Boston with the inevitable question: how will we pay for such a program? A proposal for implementing a “temporary guaranteed income program” put forward for discussion by outgoing Councilor Kendra Lara couldn’t come at a worse time, as the city and state struggle with housing and caring for an unceasing influx of migrants. According to Lara’s hearing order, 18.9% of Bostonians are living “in poverty,” including 27.7% of children. Nearly 60 years after LBJ’s War on Poverty, and we have statistics like this – hardly a ringing endorsement for government programs. Segun Idowu, the city’s chief of economic opportunity and inclusion, said Monday that there have been “a lot of discussions,” but no plans in place for a pilot program. As the Herald reported, data from other municipal pilot programs across the country, including how successful a short-term income boost is in lifting people out of poverty and whether it hurts or helps the local economy, will inform whether Boston moves forward with a similar effort, Elijah Miller, the city’s director of policy, said. “If guaranteed income is a way that we determine with our colleagues here is the way to go, it is something that we can look at as well as other tools that may be available, because we know that there is no silver bullet to addressing this problem,” Idowu said. True, the bullet is for poverty is always green. Which brings us back to the question – where would the money for such a venture come from, if we were to adopt it? Chicago’s $31.5 million Resilient Communities Pilot is cutting checks for 5,000 residents for a year. And when the money is gone, the county will tap funds from cannabis sales and other revenue streams, according to an official from the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Might Boston consider such taxes? Will local philanthropic organizations step up? Or will property owners get another tax bite? Would newly arrived migrants, many of whom are impoverished, also qualify, regardless of immigration status? Universal basic income is popular with progressives, who are thick on the ground in Massachusetts. Fiscal responsibility, not so much. Lifting people out of poverty is a worthy cause, but unless a stable source of funding is found which won’t have a negative impact on the city’s economy, the help is unsustainable.

537ad7d699e3412bb73a97e0767dd7cc

politics

Nikki Haley Is Chasing Independents. They Have a Mind of Their Own.

Nikki Haley’s presidential aspirations may hang on a victory in the New Hampshire primary election on Tuesday, powered by her sway with people who do not belong to a political party. It’s not a bad bet in a state where about 40 percent of voters call themselves independents. The problem with her plan: Those voters come in all shapes and stripes, and many of them aren’t open to her. Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, has won over plenty of voters in the middle in New Hampshire. They include moderate, conservative-leaning independents chased from the Republican Party by former President Donald J. Trump. And about 4,000 Democrats have re-registered as Republicans or independents to vote in the G.O.P. primary, in some cases to thwart Mr. Trump’s steady march to the nomination.

8966cdd696e2c23328ba5f3c1891efca

politics

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

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

d2240438589c25f1caec869b66cc9a20

politics

Even Most Biden Voters Dont See a Thriving Economy

Take Oscar Nuñez, 27, a server at a restaurant in Las Vegas. Foot traffic has been much slower than usual for this time of year, eating into his tips. He’d like to start his own business, but with the rising cost of living, he and his wife — who works at home answering questions from independent contractors for her employer — haven’t managed to save much money. It’s also a tough jump to make when the economy feels shaky. Mr. Nuñez expected better from Mr. Biden when he voted blue in 2020, he said, but he wasn’t sure what specifically the president should have done better. And he is pretty sure another Trump term would be a disaster. “I’d prefer another option, but it seems like it will once again be my only option again,” Mr. Nuñez said of Mr. Biden. For him, immigrants’ rights and foreign policy concerns are more important. “That’s why I was picking him over Trump in the first place — because this guy’s going to do something that’s real dangerous at some point.” Mr. Nuñez isn’t alone in feeling dissatisfied with the economy but still bound to Mr. Biden by other priorities. Of those surveyed in the six battleground states who plan to vote for Mr. Biden in 2024, 47 percent say social issues are more important to them, while 42 percent say the economy is more important — but that’s a closer split than in the 2022 midterms, in which social issues decisively outweighed economic concerns among Democratic voters in several swing states. (Among likely Trump voters, 71 percent say they are most focused on the economy, while 15 percent favor social issues.)

8848ce7ef3f383c57c992600a52a5071

politics

Gov. Healey talks about what her new economic development plan means for the state

Shooting missiles toward Israel and attacking ships sailing through the Red Sea, Yemen’s Houthi militia has been gaining popularity across the Middle East and building regional clout that could help expand its power at home, analysts say. The United States announced late Monday that a coalition of countries would seek to protect ships against the Iran-backed militia, hours after the energy giant BP said it had stopped sending tankers through the Red Sea, a vital shipping lane which has become an increasingly dangerous route because of Houthi drone and missile attacks. Across the Middle East, where the war in Gaza has left citizens seething with anger at Israel and the United States — and in some cases, at their own American-backed governments — people have hailed the Houthis as one of the few regional forces willing to challenge Israel with more than harsh words. “What they did has given us dignity, because they did this in a time when everyone was watching idly,” said Khalid Nujaim, who works at a medical supply company in Sana, the Yemeni capital, which is controlled by the Houthis. How have the Houthis grown? A once-scrappy tribal group, the Houthis have taken over much of northern Yemen since they stormed Sana in 2014, gradually increasing their military capabilities and effectively winning a war against a Saudi-led coalition that spent years trying to rout them. Now that the most intense fighting in Yemen’s civil war has largely died down, the armed group has increasingly functioned as a de facto government. They have described their recent attacks as a campaign in solidarity with the 2.2 million Palestinians living under Israel’s siege and bombardment of Gaza, which was launched in response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. That campaign has transformed the Houthis from a local and regional force into one with a global impact, said Yoel Guzansky, a senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. “At the end of the day, what they really want is a bigger stake in Yemen, and perhaps they want to do that through becoming a global problem,” said Mr. Guzansky, a former Israeli official. With the Houthis on the verge of a peace deal with Saudi Arabia that would potentially recognize their control over northern Yemen, the war in Gaza is “a massive opportunity for them to get legitimacy in region,” said Farea al-Muslimi, a Yemeni research fellow at the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, the London-based research group. “Right now everyone who is in the region is confusing the Yemenis with the Houthis, and for the Houthis, that’s the best thing that can happen.” Do the Houthis have regional support? Iran has cultivated the Houthis for years, mirroring its efforts over the last three decades to build up other militias, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and extend its reach across the Middle East. Seeking new ways to menace Saudi Arabia, its longtime rival, Iran integrated the Houthis into its network of militias, delivering military aid that helped transform the group during Yemen’s civil war, according to American and Middle Eastern officials and analysts. The Houthis’ arsenal now includes long-range drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. In statements announcing their attacks, the Houthis call themselves the “Yemen armed forces” — brushing aside the presence of an internationally recognized government and other armed groups based in the country’s south. Last week, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a senior member of the Houthi movement, posted a warning on social media outlining the risks of traveling in the Red Sea, telling ships not to travel to “occupied ports in Palestine” and to be prepared to respond to orders from “the Yemeni navy.” These days, wherever he goes in the region, Ahmed Nagi, a senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group, finds that people are thrilled to learn that he is from Yemen, and quickly begin “talking about the Houthis and how brave they are,” he said. “This is a very deep reflection of public opinions across the Arab countries at this moment,” Mr. Nagi said. He expressed concern that people might increasingly believe that they cannot trust their state actors, and that nonstate actors like the Houthis are their only hope to challenge what they see as Western hegemony. How do the Houthis relate to Palestinians? Support for the Palestinian cause and hostility toward Israel have long been pillars of the Houthi narrative; “Death to America, death to Israel” is in the group’s slogan. Part of the way they frame themselves is in opposition to American-backed Arab leaders, whom they view as “just mercenaries for the West,” Mr. Nagi explained. Arab governments that once went to war with Israel and led an oil embargo to punish its Western backers have mostly reacted to the war in Gaza with public condemnations, aid campaigns and diplomatic efforts to push for a cease-fire, reinforcing a sense of impotence among some of their citizens who would prefer to see them cut ties with Israel or take other, more forceful actions. At a news briefing last week, Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman, described the Houthis as Iranian proxies “with the self-awareness of cartoon villains,” calling their attacks “a clear threat not only to Israel, but also to international peace and security.” Using military force against Israel also helps the Houthis evade challenges on the domestic front, Mr. Nagi said. As Yemen’s civil war moves to a new phase, they are facing pressure from people asking for basic public services or for their long-delayed salaries as civil servants to be paid, he said. While it is not the only reason behind their attacks, “this is a way out from that dilemma,” Mr. Nagi said. Now the message is essentially: “Don’t speak about anything, because we are in a war,” he said. Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting from New Delhi, Talya Minsberg from Tel Aviv and Ephrat Livni from Washington, D.C.

b63062b910f871b64bb971ada95f4895

politics

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.

4303273505895773a086589e6d03f35d

politics

Harvards Governing Board Nears Resolution on Presidents Future

Harvard’s governing board on Monday was nearing a resolution that would allow its president, Claudine Gay, to remain in her job, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. But those discussions were ongoing as of late Monday night. An announcement was expected on Tuesday. Harvard’s board has said nothing about Dr. Gay’s future or the festering controversy which began nearly a week ago over the way she equivocated when answering questions about antisemitism on campus in a congressional hearing. Dr. Gay’s testimony plunged the Harvard community deeper into one of its biggest crises in years. The dilemma over the future of Dr. Gay — the university’s first Black president — is fraught, forcing the school to reckon with difficult questions of race, religion and tolerance. On and off campus, the debate over whether Dr. Gay was fit to continue leading the university raged. Groups of donors, alumni and students ratcheted up a pressure campaign to oust Dr. Gay as her supporters banded together to try to save her job. About 700 members of Harvard’s faculty, in addition to hundreds more alumni, came to her defense in several open letters.

bf49db083c354d071c3b5f2ae67cb6d5

politics

Editorial: Some blunt advice, Mr.President, on todays visit to Boston

The new interim principal at Amherst Regional Middle School hasn’t even started her job and she’s already under fire. Some students and parents believe that Letha Gayle-Brissett — the Amherst Regional Middle School cultural coordinator and soon-to-be principal — has already caused harm to transgender students.

85adcb32438d04f57b69e45248b6c337

politics

An Immigration Shift

Since Donald Trump first ran for president in 2016, the Democratic Party has changed its own approach to immigration. Not long ago, leading Democrats supported immigration enforcement measures like tough border security and deportations. Today, much of the party is uncomfortable doing so. These changes help explain why the issue has become so vexing for President Biden and congressional Democrats. Illegal immigration has surged during Biden’s presidency, partly because of the party’s new approach: Many migrants have come to believe, reasonably, that they will be able to remain in the U.S. so long as they can reach the border. Many voters are unhappy about the situation, and polls suggest that it is a problem for Biden. “Believe it or not, there is something that might hurt President Biden’s re-election chances more than inflation,” Greg Ip of The Wall Street Journal recently wrote. With Congress having returned from its holiday recess, a bipartisan group of senators is negotiating over a bill that would tighten border security (as well as provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan). To help you understand the debate, today’s newsletter will trace the Democratic Party’s changing position. In a follow-up newsletter, I’ll look at public opinion on immigration.

3954b87975f335d048fedd6c95a16b20

politics

How Columbias President Has Avoided Fallout Over Israel-Gaza Protests

Sign up for The Meltdown, a weekly newsletter highlighting the latest apocalyptic dramas, debunking climate myths, and sharing sustainability hacks, all while arming you with information to hold polluters and the government accountable. Enter your email to subscribe. Behind American Indian Hall on the Montana State University campus, ancient life is growing. Six-foot-tall corn plants tower over large green squash and black-and-yellow sunflowers. Around the perimeter, stalks of sweetgrass grow. The seeds for some of these plants grew for millennia in Native Americans’ gardens along the upper Missouri River. It’s one of several Native American ancestral gardens growing in the Bozeman area, totaling about an acre. Though small, the garden is part of a larger, multifaceted effort around the country to promote “food sovereignty” for reservations and tribal members off reservation, and to reclaim aspects of Native American food and culture that flourished in North America for thousands of years before the arrival of European settlers. Restoring bison to reservations, developing community food gardens with ancestral seeds, understanding and collecting wild fruits and vegetables, and learning how to cook tasty meals with traditional ingredients are all part of the movement. “We are learning to care for plant knowledge, growing Indigenous gardens, cultivating ancestral seeds — really old seeds from our relatives the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara: corn, beans, squash and sunflowers,” said Jill Falcon Ramaker, an assistant professor of community nutrition and sustainable food systems at Montana State. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Anishinaabe. “A lot of what we are doing here at the university is cultural knowledge regeneration,” she said. But it also has a very practical application: to provide healthier, cheaper, and more reliable food supplies for reservations, which are often a long way from supermarkets and where processed foods have helped produce an epidemic of diabetes and heart disease. Many reservations are food deserts where prices are high and processed food is often easier to come by than fresh food. The Montana Food Distribution Study, a 2020 paper funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, found that the median cost in the state of a collection of items typically purchased at a grocery store is 23 percent higher on a reservation than off. “With food sovereignty we are looking at the ability to put that healthy food and ancestral foods which we used to survive for thousands of years, putting those foods back on the table,” Ramaker said. What that means exactly can vary by region, depending on the traditional food sources, from wild rice in the Midwest to salmon on the Pacific coast. Central to the effort — especially in Montana — are bison, also referred to as buffalo. In 2014, 13 Native nations from eight reservations in the U.S. and Canada came together to sign the Buffalo Treaty, an agreement to return bison to 6.3 million acres that sought “to welcome BUFFALO to once again live among us as CREATOR intended by doing everything within our means so WE and BUFFALO will once again live together to nurture each other culturally and spiritually.” Nearly a decade later, dozens of tribes have buffalo herds, including all seven reservations in Montana. The buffalo-centered food system was a success for thousands of years, according to Ramaker, who directs both the regional program, known as the Buffalo Nations Food Systems Initiative — a collaboration with the Native American Studies Department and College of Education, Health and Human Development at Montana State — and the Montana-specific effort, known as the Montana Indigenous Food Sovereignty Initiative. It wasn’t a hand-to-mouth existence, she wrote in an article for Montana State, but a “knowledge of a vast landscape, including an intimate understanding of animals, plants, season and climate, passed down for millennia and retained as a matter of life and death.” With bison meat at the center of the efforts, the BNFSI is working to bring other foods from the northern Plains Native American diet in line with modern palates. The BNFSI has received a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to carry out that work, in partnership with Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College in New Town, North Dakota. Life on reservations is partly to blame for many Native people eating processed foods, Ramaker said. Food aid from the federal government, known as the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, has long been shipped to reservations in the form of boxes full of packaged foods. “We were forced onto the reservations, where there was replacement food sent by the government — white flour, white sugar, canned meat, salt and baking powder,” she said. Experts say processed foods contribute to chronic inflammation, which in turn leads to heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, which occurs at three times the rate in Native Americans as it does in white people. Studies show that people’s mental and physical health declines when they consume a processed food diet. “In the last decade there’s a growing amount of research on the impact of good nutrition on suicide ideation, attempts, and completion,” said KayAnn Miller, co-executive director of the Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in Bozeman, who is also involved with the BNFSI. All Native American reservations in Montana now have community gardens and there are at least eight gardens on the Flathead Reservation north of Missoula, home to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. The tribe is teaching members to raise vegetables, some of them made into soup that is delivered to tribal elders. This year members grew 5 tons of produce to be given away. Ancestral seeds are part of the effort. Each year the BNFSI sends out 200 packets of seeds for ancestral crops to Indigenous people in Montana. Creating foods that appeal to contemporary tastes is critical to the project. The BNFSI is working with Sean Sherman, the “Sioux Chef,” to turn corn, meat and other Native foods into appealing dishes. Sherman founded the award-winning Owamni restaurant in Minneapolis and in 2020 opened the Indigenous Food Lab through his nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems. The lab, in downtown Minneapolis, is also a restaurant and an education and training center that creates dishes using only Indigenous foods from across the country — no dairy, cane sugar, wheat flour, beef, chicken or other ingredients from what he calls the colonizers. “We’re not cooking like it’s 1491,” Sherman said last year on the NPR program “Fresh Air,” referring to the period before European colonization. “We’re not a museum piece or something like that. We’re trying to evolve the food into the future, using as much of the knowledge from our ancestors that we can understand and just applying it to the modern world.” Among his signature dishes are bison pot roast with hominy and roast turkey with a berry-mint sauce and black walnuts. In consultation with Sherman, Montana State University is building the country’s second Indigenous food lab, which will be housed in a new $29 million building with a state-of-the-art kitchen, Ramaker said. It will open next year and expand the ongoing work creating recipes, holding cooking workshops, feeding MSU’s more than 800 Native students and preparing cooking videos. Angelina Toineeta, who is Crow, is studying the BNFSI at Montana State as part of her major in agriculture. “Growing these gardens really stuck out to me,” she said. “Native American agriculture is something we’ve lost over the years, and I want to help bring that back.” 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 NPR. It can be republished for free.

55a9d33702ac2f1ef65e668ea4eed213

politics

Protest group blocks streets in Boston near historic landmarks

SPRINGFIELD — Angered by an article published in an alternative African American paper, Black leaders joined together to call for an apology from the writer, describing his commentary as divisive and “an attack on the entire Black community.” “The ‘Worst’ Article I Ever Wrote” written by Frederick Hurst, the owner of the African American community paper Point of View, slammed at least 11 Black leaders — ranging from city councilors Melvin Edwards and Lavar Click-Bruce to state Rep. Bud L. Williams and Vietnam veteran and organizer Bernard McClusky — for their failure to support his son Justin Hurst when he ran for mayor this year. Most of those who were taken to task attended and spoke at a press conference on Thursday in City Hall. They did not mince words calling the piece “tasteless,” “disturbing,” “infantile” and “vitriolic.” Justin Hurst, who is a 10-year city councilor, finished second among five candidates in the preliminary race for mayor, but Mayor Domenic J. Sarno beat him in the general election in a vote of 12,077 to 8,945. In the article, Frederick Hurst called those who declined to endorse or otherwise support his son sycophants to white leaders, “Uncle Toms” and Black Judases. The article describes a “deep division between the Black masses” and calls out leaders who were “conspicuously absent” when Justin Hurst was campaigning against Sarno, who is white and the city’s longest-serving mayor. “We are calling for the publisher of this paper in his next month’s issue, or even prior to that, to issue a public apology, a retraction of this article,” said Archbishop Timothy Paul Baymon. “If he does not, we are prepared to boycott.” Specifically, Baymon said the group is ready to ask businesses to stop advertising in Point of View and churches to stop distributing the monthly paper. The Pastors’ Council of Greater Springfield is also trying to schedule a meeting with Frederick Hurst. When asked if he would apologize for the four-page commentary, Frederick Hurst said: “Just read my article. It is pretty clear.” He argued if he had to defend each article he wrote, he would do nothing else. “I’ve said everything I wanted to say in the article,” he said. “I’ve written hundreds of articles and I will write more.” While the more than two dozen people who attended Thursday’s event took umbrage with Frederick Hurst’s article, most did not speak ill of Justin Hurst, even though some said they did not support his candidacy for mayor. “I think Justin ran a good race, I really did. I thought he was qualified but he didn’t win it. When you don’t win you start attacking and I don’t think that’s right,” said Robert C. Jackson, a member of the Springfield Board of Police Commissioners, who is best known as Cee. In the article, Frederick Hurst included a list of people — Jackson, state Rep. Bud L. Williams, Jay Griffin and George Bruce, the father of City Councilor Lavar Click-Bruce — saying they “have long ago been compromised by money and the mere illusion of personal and political power and their obsessive love of white people.” He also complained that the city is a majority-minority city that continues to be dominated by a conglomerate of Irish and Italians who he suggests is a mafia. Justin Hurst said he feels his father’s article speaks for itself. “I encourage those interested in its contents to get a copy of the Point of View newspaper and read it for themselves. And once they finish, they should read it again to make sure they have a thorough understanding of it.” The Rev. Talbert Swan, long-term president of the Springfield regional chapter of the NAACP who is bishop of the Vermont Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the Church of God in Christ, which covers five eastern states, was harshly criticized in the article, with Frederick Hurst writing Swan was certainly not for the NAACP. “This article, this attack, this slander by Rick Hurst is an extension of the Hurst campaign,” Swan said, referring to the elder Hurst by his nickname. “It is an act of a senior man who is behaving like a petulant child because his son lost an election.” Since being named the head of the NAACP some years ago, Swan said it has been his practice to not endorse candidates because the organization is nonpartisan. “I don’t know what makes Rick or anyone else think that we are obligated to support a candidate simply because they are Black,” Swan said. He pointed out that there are plenty of people he would never support even though they are Black, such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, who represents South Carolina as a Republican. Swan called Hurst a “fine young man” who was worthy of support, but said his failure was in allowing campaign workers speaking on his behalf to “run amuck.” “This campaign tried relentlessly to bully me into an endorsement, but I think those of you who know me know I can’t be bullied,” he said. “As retribution for me not bowing down to the pressure I’ve been attacked relentlessly for 14 months.” Swan said the article went beyond criticizing him and City Councilor Malo Brown, who is a frequent target of the paper. It attacked the entire Black community as well as the Italian, Irish and Hispanic communities, he said. Swan said he was especially horrified with the portions of the article that likened Black people to slaves that “will never stop serving their master” and cannot think for themselves. Several also said the commentary that called Melvin Edwards, a 14-year councilor who is currently the board’s vice chairman, perennially white-loving was especially egregious since his wife of 28 years is white. “It saddens me so much because people work so hard to find excuses to treat each other bad,” Edwards said. Edwards said his family is a multitude of races. His first wife was Black and his second wife is Canadian and brought three children to their family, who he raised since their father died. Edwards said his six children and 15 grandchildren are a multitude of races, including some who are half-Hispanic, and he loves them all equally. “The constitution allows people to speak freely in this country, but it does not give you the right to speak without consequence,” Edwards said. He said it also allows everyone to vote for the candidate of their choice regardless of race. “Whether or not we would have all publicly endorsed Justin Hurst for mayor, he still would have lost,” Edwards said.

b2a6ef7494c156a861bd6de79b785aff

politics

Hamas Says Commander of Its Northern Gaza Brigade Is Dead

Teachers in Newton, Massachusetts, have voted to go on strike. The Newton Teachers Association has been locked in a contract battle with the school committee that's been dragged out since October 2022. The district says it's offering competitive compensation for teachers while the union argues the proposed pay raises aren't even keeping up with inflation. Thursday afternoon, the union's president, Mike Zilles, announced that educators had voted overwhelmingly to strike Friday. The Newton Teachers Association has voted overwhelmingly to go on strike. Get Boston local news, weather forecasts, lifestyle and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Boston’s newsletters. "What I want to announce right now is that 98% of our membership tonight voted yes to begin a strike tomorrow morning," Zilles said. In total, 1,641 teachers voted for the strike. Schools will be closed Friday, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller announced. "The underfunding of schools has created conditions that make it impossible for our teachers to do their jobs," Parents Educator Collaborative founder Alison Lobron said earlier. Last-minute contract negotiations were underway Thursday ahead of a vote on whether teachers for Newton Public Schools should strike, one that the administration has moved to prevent. Follow NBC10 Boston on... Instagram: instagram.com/nbc10boston TikTok: tiktok.com/@nbc10boston Facebook: facebook.com/NBC10Boston X: twitter.com/NBC10Boston "It breaks my heart for our teachers and our families that a strike is being contemplated. The adults belong at the negotiating table, children belong in our classrooms," Fuller said earlier. An update from the teachers' union was expected at a news conference and rally scheduled for 5 p.m. at Newton City Hall. In the meantime, the district went to court Thursday morning to try to stop the strike. Fuller said that if the district needs more funding, Newton will have to pass a Proposition 2½ override, a kind of tax increase. "If we want to increase the funding for the Newton Public Schools, we'll have to convince our voters to do so," she said. But the union and a member of the City Council's finance committee, Bill Humphrey, allege Fuller is choosing to withhold existing taxpayer money from the schools. Get updates on what's happening in Boston to your inbox. Sign up for our News Headlines newsletter. "For a wealthy community like Newton, it is not the responsibility of the educators to take an effective pay cut against inflation in order to subsidize the level of services that this community wants to provide," Humphrey said. If the teachers vote to go on strike Thursday afternoon, as expected, Fuller has said there will be no school in Newton Friday. Parents have been among the people rallying in support of teachers this week.

ca18a0d635e75e0f4e01b8296b15dfbe

politics

Opinion | Michael Bloomberg: How Biden and Congress Should Fix the Immigration Crisis in Our Cities

The city has done an admirable job of finding, in short order, shelter for the more than 100,000 asylum seekers who have arrived since last spring. Currently, the city is housing about 60,000 in some 200 sites, which has forced it to take over more than 140 hotels. According to the Mayor’s Office, the cost to taxpayers, at $383 a night, is running into billions of dollars a year. The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, has been pleading for months, to little avail, for federal support to deal with a flood of asylum seekers. New York is hardly alone. Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Denver and other cities are also experiencing an influx of asylum seekers who have no housing and no means of legally earning money. Meanwhile, the federal government is failing to provide the resources necessary to hear asylum cases in anything approaching an expeditious fashion. It can take six or seven years for an applicant’s case to be resolved. Think about it: We have a system that essentially allows an unlimited number of people to cross our borders, forbids them from working, offers them free housing, and grants them seven years of residency before ruling on whether they can legally stay. It would be hard to devise a more backward and self-defeating system. We are a nation of immigrants because we are a land of opportunity. To deny immigrants the opportunity to work — and force them to rely on public handouts — is as anti-American as anything I can think of. It is harmful not only to the refugees, but to our country — especially at a time when so many businesses are facing labor shortages. Critics who have latched onto Mayor Adams’s recent comments that the crisis will “destroy” the city seem more concerned with his words — spoken in understandable frustration with Washington — than with the problem itself. Solving the crisis will not be easy, especially with a divided Congress. But ignoring it will only make it worse, while also elevating the political fortunes of xenophobes and eroding public support for immigration reform.

627e4bf7e6adbc4e738f2cc3dfbc3c6a

politics

Supreme Court to Decide Whether Trump Is Eligible for Colorado Ballot

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether former President Donald J. Trump is eligible for Colorado’s Republican primary ballot, thrusting the justices into a pivotal role that could alter the course of this year’s presidential election. The sweep of the court’s ruling is likely to be broad. It will probably resolve not only whether Mr. Trump may appear on the Colorado primary ballot after the state’s top court declared that he had engaged in insurrection in his efforts to subvert the 2020 election, but it will most likely also determine his eligibility to run in the general election and to hold office at all. Not since Bush v. Gore, the 2000 decision that handed the presidency to George W. Bush, has the Supreme Court taken such a central role in an election for the nation’s highest office. The case will be argued on Feb. 8, and the court will probably decide it quickly. The Colorado Republican Party had urged the justices to rule by March 5, when many states, including Colorado, hold primaries.

b2eb7821b3ae97f63f2b58db197c7440

politics

How to watch the new season of Southern Hospitality, stream for free

The Tesla technicians who walked off their jobs in Sweden say they still support the mission of the American company and its headline-grabbing chief executive. But they also want Tesla to accept the Swedish way of doing business. They call it the Swedish Model, a way of life that has defined the country’s economy for decades. At its heart is cooperation between employers and employees to ensure that both sides benefit from a company’s profit. Instead, four technicians who walked off their jobs on Oct. 27 said, they have been subjected to what they described as a “typical U.S. model”: six-day workweeks, unavoidable overtime and an unclear evaluation system for promotion. “Just work, work, work,” said Janis Kuzma, one of the technicians on strike. The union representing the Tesla workers, IF Metall, won’t say how many of the company’s 130 technicians have walked out — it may be only a few dozen. The company’s 10 service centers remain open.

b53e8a077a19e34efb20575867b5989a

politics

Aleksei Navalny Found in Remote Arctic Prison, Easing Fears Over His Safety

Ukraine had a win and suffered a defeat Ukraine said today it had destroyed the Russian warship Novocherkassk in Crimea, one of the most significant attacks against Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet in months. But in a setback, Ukraine acknowledged that it had largely retreated from the eastern city of Marinka after a monthslong battle. Russia said that the ship had been damaged overnight by “aircraft-guided missiles,” but did not specify whether it had been permanently disabled. The developments underscore the diverging fortunes of the two combatants in a war that has largely settled into a deadlock: Ukraine racking up naval successes in the Black Sea and Crimea, and Russia pressing its attack on battlefields in the east. During a news conference today, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military commander, compared the failed fight to defend Marinka to the battle for Bakhmut, which fell to Russia last May. Every inch of Ukrainian land is vital, he said, but “the lives of our fighters are more important to us.”

2cf4ef3490d180fd03a108549642527d

politics

Private Gun Ownership in Israel Spikes After Hamas Attacks

BOSTON (WHDH) - The U.S. Attorney’s office is now seeking charges against 28 people in connection with a brothel bust in the Boston area. In November, three people accused of operating “sophisticated high-end brothels” in parts of Massachusetts and eastern Virginia were taken into custody following a federal investigation, authorities said. Officials believe the network had clients who included “elected officials, high tech and pharmaceutical executives, doctors, military officers, government contractors that possess security clearances, professors, attorneys, scientists and accountants, among others.” “Pick a profession – they’re probably represented in this case,” Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy said during a news conference in November. Arrested in November were: Han Lee, 41, of Cambridge, Mass., Junmyung Lee, 30, of Dedham, Mass., and James Lee, 68, of Torrance, Calif. Investigators allege the defendants rented high-end apartments in the Boston area to be used as brothels. They also say there will be accountability for the buyers who fuel the commercial sex industry. (Copyright (c) 2023 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

0d86500e2f3b279ec2be1289decd6c46

politics

Congress inability to pass year-long budget instead of stopgap bills endangers critical programs

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. Lawmakers passed a continuing resolution last night, averting a partial government shutdown as President Joe Biden signed it into law on Friday afternoon. The temporary resolution sustains funding for agencies like the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) until March, when Democrats and Republicans will again weigh funding cuts that put millions of vulnerable families at risk. “Unfortunately, because of decades of underfunding by Congress, the nation’s affordable housing safety net is vastly insufficient to meet the level of need.” Kim Johnson, Manager of Public Policy at National Low Income Housing Coalition, said. Johnson said people making less than the Area Medium Income or living below the poverty line are hardest hit by the uncertainty about continued funding for HUD programs and potential budget cuts. As costs of living continue to rise, families who rely on public assistance for housing are forced to spend more and more of their income — as much as 50 percent, Johnson said — on housing over time. Johnson called this the housing cost burden and it often means families have less money for necessities like food and medicine. Many are “one unexpected bill, missed paycheck or emergency away from facing eviction and in extreme cases homelessness” Johnson said. “Increased homelessness is the tragic, but predictable, consequence of cutting funding for the programs that help keep people safely, stably housed,” she said. If Congress fails to intervene before May 1, automatic spending cuts could push more than half a million families off of their housing benefits, putting many at risk of homelessness, HUD officials have said. The steep cuts would also force the already understaffed agency to furlough staff members and cut other HUD programs. Johnson said it would almost surely delay important internal processes like grant application reviews and approvals, as well as decrease the agency’s capacity to conduct Fair Housing investigations, inspections of HUD-assisted housing, all of which reduce the number of families HUD is able to serve. HUD’s housing choice voucher program alone accounts for most of HUD’s spending, subsidizing rent for more than 2 million households. Proposed compromises between party members suggest cutting housing assistance significantly, however. An early deal between Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer eliminated about 80,000 Housing Choice Vouchers. Even the proposed increases fall short, according to Kim Johnson. Previous estimates show HUD would need a $13 billion dollar increase to fully fund all of its programs due to the drastic rise in the cost of rent, inflation and lower receipts from the Federal Housing Administration, which typically help offset HUD spending. The House’ draft bills provided a $6.4 billion increase to HUD and the Senate provided an increase of $8.26 billion, resulting in a loss of 80,000 and 112,000 vouchers respectively. “Congress can — and must — prioritize full renewal of all existing HCV contracts, in order to ensure households do not lose the assistance they rely on to keep a roof over their heads,” Johnson said. Congress’s short-term spending plan will keep the government funded until early March.

2813994240944d21768dc963765f2a5d

politics

Claudine Gay's resignation is a victory for conservative media

The conservative coverage of Gay was a departure from the usual partisan playbook: While there were plenty of the usual appeals to ideology over Gay’s handling of antisemitism on campus, the most distinguishing content was based on vintage news reporting. Gay resigned this week after a series of plagiarism allegations that emerged from the right. Criticism of Harvard University from conservative quarters would normally find its audience in right-wing echo chambers. But the torrent aimed at president Claudine Gay broke through in a big way, ultimately scoring a rare direct hit against one of the premier institutions in liberal academia. Advertisement “A great scoop can come from anywhere,” said Brian Stelter, a media reporter who previously hosted CNN’s “Reliable Sources” and was a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center. “Right wing media historically has talked about others reporting, but done very little reporting on its own.” Gay was just months into her presidency when she faced an acute crisis over her testimony before Congress in December on campus antisemitism triggered by the Israel-Hamas war. Despite calls for her resignation from outside campus, she received the backing of Harvard’s governing board, which issued a statement of support the following week. However, her position became more tenuous when the Washington Free Beacon published additional stories that questioned Gay’s academic writings. The ongoing revelations helped fuel growing discontent among Harvard’s students and faculty — some of whom worried the university was holding its president to a lower academic standard than a typical undergraduate. The outcome points up the complex calculus that an increasingly fragmented media landscape has created for institutions and leaders, who must figure out how to respond to critiques that may raise valid points even when they’re made to advance an agenda. Advertisement Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School who was a former US solicitor general in the Reagan administration, stated the dilemma plainly in an interview on Dec. 20 with The New York Times. “If it came from some other quarter, I might be granting it some credence,” Fried said of the plagiarism accusations against Gay. “But not from these people.” Christopher Brunet, who writes a newsletter on Substack and reported some of the key allegations against Gay, said his indignation over what he saw as hypocrisy at Harvard was intensely personal. “I was angrily blogging about academia, because I got rejected from every PhD program I applied to,” he said in an interview. “That was pretty nakedly my motivation.” Brunet, a former reporter at the Tucker Carlson-founded website the Daily Caller, cowrote a key article on the Gay allegations that was published on Dec. 10. His fellow author was Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who has hailed Gay’s resignation as “the beginning of the end for DEI in America’s institutions,” referring to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Their article on Rufo’s Substack newsletter alleged Gay plagiarized sections of her PhD dissertation by improperly paraphrasing sections from other works and not using quotation marks around what appeared to be borrowed material. Brunet said he’s been writing about academic misconduct for years. He had previously written pieces critical of Gay, but those articles never gained any traction. So he turned to Rufo. “I needed the platform, I needed firepower,” Brunet said. “I brought the plagiarism to him and I was like, ‘Look, I have this story, would you be interested in working on it together?’ And he said yeah.” Advertisement A pedestrian passes a gate to Harvard Yard in Cambridge on Dec. 12, 2023. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff The day after Rufo and Brunet published their article, the Washington Free Beacon — which boasts that it covers “the enemies of freedom the way the mainstream media won’t” — published a story that alleged Gay plagiarized fellow academics in four papers she authored. But many mainstream news outlets did not publish the allegations of plagiarism until after the Harvard Corporation — the university’s highest governing body — acknowledged them in its statement supporting Gay on Dec. 12. The board said it had conducted an independent analysis and “found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct.” However, it noted Gay had requested several corrections on attribution to two articles. Interestingly, the impetus for that review had been a media request from the New York Post, which had not yet published any articles about the plagiarism allegations. The matter, though, was not settled. The Free Beacon published two more articles that detailed additional plagiarism allegations in Gay’s writings. That the plagiarism allegations against Gay originated from conservative outlets, rather than from mainstream media, wasn’t a huge shock to Susan Walker, an associate professor of journalism at Boston University. She said she’s not sure that “any major news outlet would be reviewing the citations and footnotes of a Harvard president’s dissertation or published academic journal articles.” Free Beacon reporter Aaron Sibarium said he continued to follow the story in part because “it matters what a massive and heavily publicly subsidized research university is doing.” Advertisement “I think it is relevant what standards it holds its own employees — its own president — to, especially if those standards diverge from the standards to which it holds its own students.” It wasn’t the first time Sibarium broke a big, national story. In addition to his scoop on Gay, he’s broken news on guidance from the Food and Drug Administration that allowed states to apportion COVID drugs based on race. In a November article, Politico reported Sibarium is “providing Old School, shoe-leather reporting from a conservative point of view,” with the caveat that, politically, he’s not conservative. Sibarium said that he believes Gay’s resignation and the plagiarism allegations against her will only increase scrutiny on higher education. “I’m sure there will be more academic scandals that surface, at least partly in response to this,” Sibarium said. “And I am interested in covering those.” Mike Damiano of the Globe staff contributed to this story.

71f79be5466f26258cc3f6eace80fe9b

politics

Burundis President Says Gay People Should Be Stoned

MassHealth, Massachusetts’ Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program, will offer doula services for pregnant, birthing and postpartum people next spring. Doulas offer emotional, mental and physical support to people during and after pregnancy. Studies have shown that pregnant people who have access to doula services are less likely to suffer from birthing complications than those without doulas. Doulas can also help reduce racial disparities and inequalities that families with low incomes and families of color suffer from, according to the governor’s office. “Making doula care accessible to MassHealth members is an important part of our efforts to improve maternal health and advance health equity in Massachusetts,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Kate Walsh said in a statement. “Findings from the Department of Public Health’s Review of Maternal Health Services earlier this year and from the Special Commission on Racial Inequities in Maternal Health in 2022 point to doula care as an important means of improving maternal and infant health outcomes, especially for people of color.” MassHealth’s doula coverage will include labor and delivery support and visits during pregnancy and the postpartum period, according to the governor’s office. If doulas apply to enroll as a MassHealth provider, they can earn payment for serving MassHealth members, the governor’s office said. “Affordable and equitable doula care can be an essential tool to reduce racial health disparities and combat the Black maternal morbidity crisis,” Rebecca Hart Holder, president of Reproductive Equity Now, a Boston nonprofit that advocates for equitable reproductive services, said in a statement. “But often, insurmountable costs pose a major barrier to accessing doula care for many birthing people who may benefit the most. That’s why we’re thrilled that Massachusetts is taking steps to remove cost barriers and expand access to doula care for MassHealth members by making it possible for doulas to now enroll as MassHealth providers. We now must continue to invest in doula workforce development to ensure doula care is available to all who want it.”

b7a91b85d2ce0dac69fab4051ac7ea0f

politics

At World Court, Israel to Confront Accusations of Genocide

Two weeks ago, Zvika Arran reluctantly drew a gun at an Israeli state-run shooting class for those seeking firearms licenses, part of a massive spike in applications since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7. Mr. Arran said he was repelled by the idea of owning the pistol that now sits in a safe in his house. But his sense of security, like that of so many Israelis, was shattered when Hamas fighters overran communities near the Gaza Strip, killing an estimated 1,200 people and abducting more than 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials. “God forbid, if something similar happens here, I want to know that I have a firearm,” said Mr. Arran, 48, who lives in Eliav, a small town that borders the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “The problem is the side effects” of proliferating guns, he added, which he called “a disaster for years to come.” “It shows that the state has simply given up on protecting us,” he added. “And it will be a disaster in encouraging violence on the roads, domestic violence and gunfire accidents.”

2a36083b37c1f7771e9794fa11bf691b

politics

Patriot Front lawsuit: Black musician sues group over alleged Boston attack

The complaint filed Tuesday by Charles M. Murrell III , 36, in US District Court in Boston seeks to expose Patriot Front, a white nationalist organization , to the same kind of financial penalties imposed on organizers of the 2017 gathering in Charlottesville, advisers for the litigation team said. A Black musician who alleges he was attacked last summer in Boston by masked Patriot Front members armed with shields sued the group Tuesday in federal court, setting up a legal battle that his advisers say was modeled after a successful lawsuit against organizers of the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. Advertisement Murrell, an educator and classically trained musician who plays several instruments, said his physical injuries have impacted his saxophone playing and he has “lost the ability to feel safe.” He is bringing the lawsuit, he said, to pursue accountability for the “violent white supremacist attack.” “I don’t feel like Black and brown young people should be walking around cities with hate organizations being able to attack them for no reason,” Murrell told the Globe. Charles Murrell III said his physical injuries have impacted his saxophone playing. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff Licha M. Nyiendo, chief legal officer at Human Rights First, a nonprofit organization that is advising the lawyers handling Murrell’s case, said there’s a model for using litigation to “bankrupt and decimate these neo-Nazi groups.” “That’s what we hope to accomplish by suing Patriot Front,” she said. Another adviser from Human Rights First is Amy Spitalnick, who served as executive director of Integrity First for America, the nonprofit group that organized the lawsuit in Virginia against the people and organizations behind the Charlottesville rally that killed Heather Heyer, 32, a counterprotester. Civil litigation, she said, can target the “finances and operations of these extremist groups.” “When it comes to what happened in Boston a year ago, it’s so crucial that we make clear there will be consequences for this sort of violent hate,” said Spitalnick, who is also chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Advertisement A message sent Tuesday morning to Patriot Front through its website wasn’t immediately returned. Murrell was walking through the Back Bay on July 2, 2022, when he encountered Patriot Front members marching through the city in a demonstration that caught police by surprise. Murrell has said the group attacked him. News photographs of the clash show a Patriot Front marcher pressing a shield against Murrell’s head, forcing it into a light post. No charges have been filed. Police have said the case remains open. The complaint asserts that Patriot Front’s alleged attack on Murrell was a “coordinated, brutal, and racially motivated” offensive that was emblematic of the group’s strategy of using violence to achieve “white supremacist goals.” As examples, the lawsuit includes screenshots and photographs of masked Patriot Front members in confrontations with Black people, including an incident in Philadelphia on July 3, 2021, and what Murrell’s lawyers described as a post on the social media site Telegram showing the group practicing drills with shields. In the Charlottesville case, a federal jury in 2021 ordered a dozen organizers and five groups to pay about $26 million in damages. Among those penalized were James Alex Fields Jr., an avowed admirer of Adolf Hitler who is serving a life sentence for killing Heyer; Christopher Cantwell, a white nationalist from New Hampshire; and Richard Spencer, who gained national notoriety for headlining neo-Nazi rallies. Advertisement While most of the jury award was slashed in January under a Virginia law capping punitive damages at $350,000, the defendants remain on the hook for about $7.5 million in legal fees and penalties, court records show. Spencer has called the case “financially crippling.” “This guy was the leader of the neo-Nazi movement in America six years ago and he has been effectively marginalized because of this case,” Spitalnick said. The 46-page complaint accuses Patriot Front of conspiracy to violate Murrell’s civil rights, civil assault and battery, and other misconduct. The suit names the organization and its leader, Thomas R. Rousseau, of Grapevine, Texas, as defendants. Also listed as defendants are masked marchers who paraded through Boston but remain unidentified. The lawsuit refers to them as “John Does 1-99,” and says Murrell will seek their identities during the litigation and amend his complaint “should one or more responsible individuals be identified.” Rousseau was photographed with Fields at the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, which they attended as members of Vanguard America, the complaint said. The Anti-Defamation League describes Vanguard America as a neo-Nazi group. Shortly after the event, Rousseau broke off from the group and established Patriot Front, the lawsuit said. The Boston law firm Foley Hoag LLP is representing Murrell pro bono. Advertisement The complaint alleges Patriot Front began planning its march on Boston as early as December 2021 and offers new details from Murrell’s account of his encounter with the group. On the day of the Patriot Front march, Murrell was walking from Back Bay Station to Copley Square, where he planned to perform music by Bach on his saxophone outside the Boston Public Library, and didn’t know about the demonstration in advance, the lawsuit said. When he saw masked marchers walking toward him with shields and flags, Murrell reached for his phone to record, the complaint says. But before Murrell could record, he heard one of the masked men say what he believes was the word “tar” and understood it to be a reference to his race. “The masked and shield-wielding mob then yelled together, ‘DO NOT BREAK OUR RANKS,’ and quickly surrounded Mr. Murrell,” the lawsuit said. Rousseau then allegedly yelled, “RIGHT SCREEN,” which the complaint described as an order to Patriot Front members to use their shields in a “violent manner.” Murrell’s lawsuit alleges Patriot Front members pressed him against a light post and knocked him to the ground, where they hit and kicked him until law enforcement intervened. An ambulance took Murrell to Tufts Medical Center, where he received stitches and treatment for lacerations to the head, hand, and face, the complaint said. After the march, Patriot Front members loaded their equipment into a U-Haul box truck that was driven out of the city. State Police stopped the vehicle in Stoneham and issued a criminal citation to the driver, Colton M. Brown, 24, for allegedly attaching an unregistered Arizona license plate to the truck. Advertisement Brown so far is the only person linked to the July 2, 2022, demonstration to face criminal prosecution. The case was dismissed in April after he paid $150 court costs, records show. Murrell said he doesn’t believe white supremacist groups are being held accountable for their actions. “White supremacist organizations like this that are planning and organizing around violence should be taken seriously and need to be held accountable,” he said. Patriot Front and its members have faced civil litigation and criminal prosecution tied to their alleged activities in other parts of the country. Last month, five Patriot Front members were convicted in Idaho of criminal conspiracy to riot after police accused them of planning to disrupt a Pride event last year in Coeur d’Alene. More trials in the case are set for this month. In Richmond, Va., Patriot Front, Rousseau, and other members of the organization were named as defendants in a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing them of vandalizing in 2021 a mural there honoring tennis player Arthur Ashe, the first Black man to win the US Open and Wimbledon. The case is pending. Last month, the court entered defaults against Patriot Front and Rousseau because they hadn’t responded to the lawsuit, court records show. Murrell’s lawsuit said that since his encounter with Patriot Front, he has suffered nightmares and flashbacks about the confrontation. Even the music composition book he had with him when he crossed paths with Patriot Front carries a “gruesome reminder,” the complaint said. “Residue of his own blood spattered on the cover.” Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her @lauracrimaldi.

7de8399eccabbad63c2641a3c57ae109

politics

Allegations Against Prosecutors Bolster Trumps Criticism of Georgia Case

It seemed an unusual choice when Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., turned to a suburban defense lawyer to oversee what seemed the biggest task of her career: building an election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump. Nathan Wade, whom Ms. Willis tapped for the job, had little experience as a prosecutor. But he was a trusted friend and mentor, she said in 2022, willing to take the job when more seasoned prosecutors were not. Now the relationship between Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade has taken center stage in the Georgia case against Mr. Trump, who is awaiting trial along with 14 co-defendants on charges of conspiring to overturn the former president’s 2020 election defeat in the state. On Monday, a lawyer for one of the co-defendants, Michael A. Roman, charged in a court filing that Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade were romantic partners who were “profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.” Without offering any proof, the filing accused the two of taking vacations together with money Mr. Wade had made while working for Ms. Willis’s office as a special prosecutor. In all, the office has paid Mr. Wade $653,881, according to county records.

7748448a43d3fbf35455ef9f0b9f52fb

politics

Hamas releases 13 Israeli hostages from Gaza, Israeli prime ministers office says

WESTFIELD – It was not “showtime” – at times it was downright ugly – but in the end, the Westfield High School boys basketball team came away with a pretty impressive win on opening day. Westfield rallied from a seven-point, fourth quarter deficit to defeat Belchertown 58-55 in overtime in front of a packed house Friday night at home.

156c2faaac2620f284d825f036472004

politics

New Trump Cases Shadowed by Rocky Relationship With Supreme Court

Indeed, the Trump administration had the worst Supreme Court record of any since at least the Roosevelt administration, according to data developed by Lee Epstein and Rebecca L. Brown, law professors at the University of Southern California, for an article in Presidential Studies Quarterly. “Whether Trump’s poor performance speaks to the court’s view of him and his administration or to the justices’ increasing willingness to check executive authority, we can’t say,” the two professors wrote in an email. “Either way, though, the data suggest a bumpy road for Trump in cases implicating presidential power.” Now another series of Trump cases are at the court or on its threshold: one on whether he enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution, another on the viability of a central charge in the federal election-interference case and the third, from Colorado, on whether he was barred from another term under the 14th Amendment. The cases pose distinct legal questions, but earlier decisions suggest they could divide the court’s conservative wing along a surprising fault line: Mr. Trump’s appointees have been less likely to vote for him in some politically charged cases than Justice Clarence Thomas, who was appointed by the first President Bush, and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who was appointed by the second one. In his speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, Mr. Trump spoke ruefully about his three appointees: Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, suggesting that they had betrayed him to establish their independence.

06aef6929d72c623e58c74a4f4fd8bb6

politics

Warren: Federal government needs to step up on housing crisis

Despite Massachusetts’ efforts to fight the housing crisis, including the massive $4.12 billion bond bill that Gov. Maura Healey proposed in October, homes remain unaffordable to a large portion of the state’s population. That’s because a local or even state government isn’t powerful enough to fix the crisis on its own, according to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “It is time for the federal government to step up, not to tell local governments what to do, but to be a good partner for communities that are prepared to act,” Warren, D-Mass., said during a speech to the New England Council in Boston Monday. Warren said that frequently when she speaks to constituents anywhere in Massachusetts, they say affordable housing is their number one concern. For employers, the biggest challenge is finding workers because of the high cost of housing. Nationwide, 7 million more homes are needed to house U.S. residents, she said. In Massachusetts, up to 200,000 new homes will need to be built over the next six years to address the housing shortage and bring prices down. However, last year, only 17,692 housing units were approved in the state. “That is not even one-tenth of the units that we need, just to get us to a point where we’re even not where we have excess capacity,” Warren said. “Even at this rate, we can’t even hold steady on this crisis. This crisis will continue to grow.” Warren gave several reasons why intervention from the federal government was necessary. The first, she said, it’s the only way to raise enough revenue to make the needed changes. A bill she filed that would put a 15% minimum corporate tax on companies that report over $1 billion in earnings could be used to stimulate the creation of more housing, Warren said. In addition, improving the housing landscape could relieve pressures on other issues the federal government pays for, such as Medicaid, she said. Finally, Warren said increasing the housing supply was a simple question of the country’s values. She pointed out that while the housing crisis affects a large portion of the population, it disproportionately hurts low-income residents and people of color. “For less than 5% of the annual defense budget, for example, we can create a fund that year after year after year could be used to increase and upgrade the supply of housing nationwide,” she said. “If we’re serious about equity, both generational equity and racial equity, then creating more housing opportunities is a great place to start.” Proposed legislation that Warren has been pushing which would contribute $40 billion annually to the construction of affordable housing would kickstart that change, she said. That money could fund incentives for communities that modernize building codes and improve zoning, grants to help homeowners build accessory dwelling units, commonly known as “granny flats,” and contribute to construction projects to allow them to create more units. “The price per unit for apartments and condos comes down if you’re willing to make even a modest upfront investment,” Warren said. “Housing is local, but there is an important role for the federal government to be a good partner to boost housing supply. It’s time for us to start building out that role.” Warren pointed out that in addition to the shortage of homes, another issue exacerbating the housing crisis is the trend of corporate landlords picking up homes for sale, often ones that are being sold after a foreclosure, and using them as an investment or astronomically raising rents for existing tenants. She said that by 2030, corporations are expected to own up to 40% of single-family rental homes in the country. “They use their immense reserves of wealth and their deal-finding algorithms to swoop into markets and snap up homes that otherwise could have gone to first-time homebuyers,” Warren said. “For someone selling a home, a corporate all-cash offer is often too sweet to pass up.” While Warren acknowledged that passing legislation like this would be difficult, earlier this year, President Joe Biden’s administration released a blueprint for a Tenant Bill of Rights, which would implement protections such as fair leases, anti-discrimination measures, the right to organize and eviction protections. In addition, Biden has proposed new measures to prevent rent gouging and asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Trade Commission to collect information on unfair practices. “This is a big, big problem,” Warren said. “Solving this crisis requires creative solutions and persistence from us at all levels of government.”

4c19d32662b1e730e26b2f413767cded

politics

Opinion | Why MAGA Wants to Betray Ukraine

Whatever anti-Ukraine voices like Elon Musk may pretend, it’s not about the money. Right-wing hard-liners, both in Congress and outside, claim to be upset about the amount we’re spending supporting Ukraine. But if they really cared about the financial burden of aid, they’d make the minimal effort required to get the numbers right. No, aid to Ukraine isn’t undermining the future of Social Security or making it impossible to secure our border or consuming 40 percent of America’s G.D.P. How much are we actually spending supporting Ukraine? In the 18 months after the Russian invasion, U.S. aid totaled $77 billion. That may sound like a lot. It is a lot compared with the tiny sums we usually allocate to foreign aid. But total federal outlays are currently running at more than $6 trillion a year, or more than $9 trillion every 18 months, so Ukraine aid accounts for less than 1 percent of federal spending (and less than 0.3 percent of G.D.P.). The military portion of that spending is equal to less than 5 percent of America’s defense budget. Incidentally, the United States is by no means bearing the burden of aiding Ukraine alone. In the past, Donald Trump and others have complained that European nations aren’t spending enough on their own defense. But when it comes to Ukraine, European countries and institutions collectively have made substantially larger aid commitments than we have. Notably, most of Europe, including France, Germany and Britain, has promised aid that is higher as a percentage of G.D.P. than the U.S. commitment. But back to the costs of aiding Ukraine: Given how small a budget item that aid is, claims that aid to Ukraine somehow makes it impossible to do other necessary things, such as securing the border, are nonsense. MAGA types aren’t known for getting their numbers right or, for that matter, caring whether they get their numbers right, but I doubt that even they really believe that the monetary costs of helping Ukraine are insupportable. And the benefits of aiding a beleaguered democracy are huge. Remember, before the war, Russia was widely viewed as a major military power, which a majority of Americans saw as a critical threat (and whose nonwoke military some Republicans exalted). That power has now been humbled.

26d3178123e76e58ce7276c03c468a96

politics

DeSantis Adviser Continues Campaigns Sharp Attack on Haley

A top adviser to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Friday accused Nikki Haley of “greed” as a candidate, saying that she’s trying to damage him to help former President Donald J. Trump in the Iowa caucuses. The comments from David Polyansky, Mr. DeSantis’s deputy campaign manager, came at an event hosted by Bloomberg News on Friday in downtown Des Moines, as the blizzard buffeting the city forced the campaign to cancel some events later in the day — though Mr. Polyansky said that Mr. DeSantis’s ground game was best equipped for the brutal weather barreling. He was joined by the campaign’s spokesman, Andrew Romeo, and its pollster, Ryan Tyson, but he did most of the talking. He said that Ms. Haley is running in Iowa to draw votes toward Mr. Trump and siphon them away from Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Polyansky also repeated Mr. DeSantis’s claim that Ms. Haley, the former South Carolina governor, is running to be Mr. Trump’s vice-presidential pick, and criticized her for not ruling out joining a Trump ticket.

95a795df7c1b1fe7bcaaaf408cceabf8

politics

What supporters and detractors said of Claudine Gays resignation

Gov. Maura Healey’s new chair of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, who just engineered the ouster of executive director David Gibbons, faced accusations of being a “stumbling block” to diversity while she was a top official in Boston Mayor Martin Walsh’s administration. Emme Handy, former Chief Financial Officer under Walsh, came under fire after a long-awaited 703-page city report found that few city contracts went to businesses owned by people of color. The findings were so bad that the head of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts called on Handy and another top Walsh official to be fired and called them “stumbling blocks” to diversity. “Bold leadership is required to immediately correct this systemic problem,” the council said in a statement reported by the Bay State Banner. Despite that, Handy, who has since left city government, was picked by Healey to chair the MCCA in a board shakeup that eventually led to Gibbons – who made $316,000 in 2022 – agreeing to a “mutual” parting of the ways on Tuesday even though he has a year left on his contract. The Herald first reported that the shake-up was pending and that Healey would likely replace Gibbons with someone of her choosing. “During this transition to new leadership, the Board will continue its critical work to foster diversity, equity and inclusion at the MCCA,” Handy said in a statement. “The Board has an expansive and positive vision for the Authority and is committed to launching a transparent and inclusive search to identify the next Executive Director who will share that vision and bring it to life.” The big question now is will Healey and the board lead a real nationwide search for someone with convention experience or pick a politically-connected candidate like City Councilor Michael Flaherty, who is on the MCCA board and is angling to get the plum executive director job. The MCCA is one of the crown jewels of the Massachusetts hackerama and has long been known as a patronage haven. But the board will now be under pressure to pick someone of color to replace Gibbons, who actually wasn’t politically connected and was a hospitality executive when he took over the top job eight years ago. But he earned the ire of Flaherty and state Sen. Nick Collins with some of his development decisions and has had a target on his back for the last year. Gibbons and Handy tangled earlier this year over the executive director’s plan to develop a chunk of land owned by the MCCA in South Boston. That plan was nixed by the newly appointed board just last week, in an at times tense meeting during which Handy said the process for choosing a project developer was not transparent and would need to begin again. Gibbons’s fate was also sealed by a report commissioned by the MCCA earlier this year that found that Black and Hispanic employees were stuck in the lower echelon of the MCCA organization and “tend to feel isolated or marginalized.” The report commissioned by the MCCA to address allegations of racism also found that under Gibbons the authority was “much more focused on financial bottom line” than on racial inclusion. But the report found that some explosive allegations, like the MCCA discriminating against Black vendors, were unfounded.

cc21795f66206e337ba6efe9ef8d2cbe

politics

Californias Ban on Guns in Most Public Places Is Blocked Again

Housing — and creating more of it — is at the center of a new draft economic development plan Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey introduced this week. "I've said for a long time now, the greatest challenge facing our state really is housing and a lack of housing that people can afford," said Healey on WBUR's Radio Boston Thursday. She broke the plan down to three areas: fundamentals, talent and sectors. In terms of fundaments, Healey named addressing challenges in housing by increasing the production of units to lower costs, and improving the reliability of the MBTA. She touted MBTA General Manager Phil Eng's plan to eliminate slow zones on the transit system by the end of next year. Residents aged 26 to 35 have been leaving the state, citing the cost of living as a major factor, according to an August report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. Healey says keeping these young workers in the state, and attracting other new residents, is crucial to maintaining and growing the state's economy. "We're going to launch programs to attract college graduates, non-college graduates, immigrants, trades professions, that human talent that has always been a special sauce here in Massachusetts. Let's nurture it. Let's grow that," said Healey. Finally, Healey noted the plan considers what sectors the state wants to lead in in the future. The governor named fields like life sciences, climate technology and applied artificial intelligence, as well as rural economies, tourism and culture. Healey also talked about the more than $3.1-billion supplemental budget that she just signed that provides funding for the state's emergency shelter system, and the state of the MBTA. Click the red play button atop this post to listen to the rest of the interview.

0f708211b8a89f5ab0c97122e43b7666

politics

Congress Abandons Ukraine Aid Until Next Year as Border Talks Continue

Congress gave up Tuesday on a last-ditch bid to speed through emergency military aid to Ukraine before the end of the year, as negotiators failed to cement a deal that Republicans have demanded tying the money to a crackdown on migration across the U.S. border with Mexico. “It is our hope that their efforts will allow the Senate to take swift action on the national security supplemental early in the new year,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, said in a rare joint statement. They pledged to address Ukraine aid and border measures alongside military funding to Israel and the Indo-Pacific, promising that “the Senate will not let these national security challenges go unanswered.” The delay punts the fate of Ukraine aid — and the complicated task of drafting new immigration laws — into early next year, when lawmakers will also face the daunting task of striking a broader spending agreement to avert a partial government shutdown by mid-January.

24f88035770ef33cff6226b808025046

politics

Refusing to Accept Loss of Power, Polish Right Occupies State TV

Amid a turbulent change of power, Poland’s main state television news channel went abruptly off the air on Wednesday, as the former governing party sent legislators and other supporters to the public broadcasting headquarters to try to prevent new management from taking over. Members of the ousted former government staged a sit-in inside a building in southern Warsaw that houses the studios and offices of state television, including TVP Info, a news channel and website that served as a propaganda bullhorn for the right-wing Law and Justice Party during its eight years in power. The protesters, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Law and Justice’s combative chairman, tried to prevent the new, centrist administration of Prime Minister Donald Tusk from asserting control, accusing it of staging a “coup d’état” by firing loyalists of Law and Justice, which lost a general election in October. With Mr. Kaczynski and his supporters vowing to “defend democracy” and block a change of management ordered by Mr. Tusk’s culture minister, technicians who support the new government yanked TVP Info off the air and disabled its website, which had been featuring appeals for resistance against an “illegal attack on public television” by Mr. Tusk.

ea0d64de98db3496119bfd7cc2287a00

politics

US carries out airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen

CNN — The US military has launched strikes against multiple Houthi targets in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, a US official told CNN. The strikes were from fighter jets and Tomahawk missiles. They mark a significant response after the Biden administration and its allies warned that the Iran-backed militant group would bear the consequences of repeated drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The strikes are a sign of the growing international alarm over the threat to one of the world’s most critical waterways. For weeks, the US had sought to avoid direct strikes on Yemen because of the risk of escalation in a region already simmering with tension, but the ongoing Houthi attacks on international shipping compelled the coalition to act. Senior administration officials briefed congressional leadership earlier Thursday on the US plans, according to a congressional source. The strikes come as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin remains hospitalized following complications from a surgery for prostate cancer. Though the US has carried out strikes against Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, this marks the first known strike against the Houthis in Yemen. They come at a time of huge tension in the Middle East as the US looks to ensure the war in Gaza does not spill out into the wider region. The Biden administration had been wary of striking the Houthis, worrying it could upset a delicate cease-fire between the militant group and Saudi Arabia that was achieved after years of war. But the White House had made clear the repeated Houthi attacks on international shipping lanes in the southern Red Sea were intolerable. The attacks have forced some of the world’s largest shipping companies to avoid the waterway, instead adding thousands of miles to international shipping routes by sailing around the continent of Africa. Hours before the strike on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Iran “has a role to play” in getting the Houthis to stop their “reckless, dangerous, and illegal activity.” If they did not, he said, “there will be consequences.” In a speech Thursday, Houthi leader Abdul Malek Al-Houthi said that any US attack on Yemen ” will not go unanswered,” cryptically warning that the response will be “much more” than attacking US ships in the sea. On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned while traveling in the region that “if it doesn’t stop, there will have to be consequences. And unfortunately, it hasn’t stopped.” Blinken also said he doesn’t believe the war in Gaza is escalating into a regional conflict, even as he warned of “a lot of danger points.” While in the region, Blinken visited Bahrain, home to the US Naval Forces Central Command and the Navy’s Fifth Fleet. An important aspect of Blinken’s trip to the Middle East was to tell regional leaders that if US takes military action against the Houthis, it should be seen as defensive, not escalatory, according to a senior State Department official. The Houthis — an Iran-backed Shia political and military organization that has been fighting a civil war in Yemen against a coalition backed by Saudi Arabia — have been launching drones and missiles at commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea for weeks, many of which have been intercepted and shot down by US Navy ships in the area. The rebel group has said that it is acting in support of Hamas’ fight against Israel in Gaza, following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7. On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council passed a US- and Japan-led resolution condemning “in the strongest terms the at least two dozen Houthi attacks on merchant and commercial vessels since November 19, 2023” and demanding “that the Houthis immediately cease all such attacks.” Eleven countries voted in favor of the resolution. Four abstained, including China and Russia. A Western diplomat told CNN that the US accommodated some of China’s requests on the language of the resolution. US strikes in Yemen are not unprecedented; according to the Council on Foreign Relations, the US has conducted nearly 400 airstrikes in Yemen since 2002. But White House and Pentagon officials have said since Hamas’ invasion that they do not want to see the conflict in Gaza expand into the region. John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, said last week that the US is “not looking for a conflict with the Houthis.” Among the US’ concerns about taking direct action inside Yemen is the risk of upsetting a carefully brokered truce in the war in Yemen between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, which a US official previously told CNN the Biden administration considers one of its most significant foreign policy achievements. The US and its allies issued a warning to the Houthis on January 3, saying in a joint statement that the Houthis “will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways.” This story is breaking and will be updated.

ef4a24a4c017affb4151baedd9af8783

politics

DeSantis, Once a Darling of Conservative News Media, Now Rails Against It

As the Iowa caucuses draw near, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has increasingly focused on a peculiar target as he looks to win the Republican nomination: the conservative news media ecosystem that supports former President Donald J. Trump. Desperate to make his case that he is a better candidate than Mr. Trump — while trailing by wide margins in recent polls — Mr. DeSantis seems to have turned on many of the news outlets that once promoted his candidacy, for being unfair in their coverage. “He’s got basically a Praetorian Guard of the conservative media — Fox News, the websites, all this stuff,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters outside his campaign headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa. “They just don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers. And they don’t want to have the ratings go down.” He added: “That’s just the reality. That’s just the truth, and I’m not complaining about it. I’d rather that not be the case. But that’s just, I think, an objective reality.”

fc2050953b5b36b245175ba598ff6df9

politics

Gaza Truce Talks Bog Down Over Disputes on Aid Inspections

The top political leader of Hamas was holding talks with Egyptian officials on Wednesday about a possible truce in its war with Israel in the Gaza Strip, as the United Nations Security Council separately worked frantically to craft a resolution to suspend the fighting that would not draw a veto from Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States. The talks in Egypt were taking place as concerns in Israel grow over the fate of the dozens of hostages still being held in Gaza, and as pressure grew on the Israelis to stop their military campaign and allow more desperately needed aid into the devastated enclave. Diplomats at the U.N. Security Council were engaged in their own intense negotiations in New York on Wednesday over a resolution that would call for extended pauses in the war, allow more aid into Gaza by land, air and sea, and urge the immediate release of all the hostages being held by Hamas. A vote had initially been scheduled for Monday, but was delayed repeatedly, including on Wednesday, and is now not expected until Thursday morning at the earliest.

f5f6bbe7c8acc4e0441af723ff02ad3d

politics

Ask Amy: Can I give my daughter a toy kitchen set without it being a whole thing?

Dear Amy: My husband and I have a daughter, “Emma.” She is 3. We are thoughtful and responsible parents (at least we think so …). We have a question about gift-giving. Our daughter goes to a nursery school program a couple of mornings a week, and it’s going very well. While at school, she loves to play with a miniature kitchen set. It’s got a little sink and a pretend stove with pots and pans. We told my sister that we are thinking about getting a version of this for our daughter for Christmas (my sister also has children), but she is strongly disapproving because, as she says, this sort of toy “reinforces gender stereotypes.” Now we feel weird about it and decided to seek your take. – Wondering Parents Dear Wondering: Many parents are concerned about reinforcing gender stereotypes … right up until that moment when their toddler son really loves to play with his cousin’s toy bulldozer, or their daughter falls in love with a Tiny Tammy doll. Are you willing to deny your child the joy and learning experience of playing with an object she really loves in order to please your sister, or to pat yourselves on the back about adhering consistently to your powerful ideals? I hope not. In my opinion, you have absorbed the very real issue of gender stereotyping in a sideways fashion. The idea is not to deny your child toys that are stereotypically associated with their gender, but to expansively offer them toys and experiences that are typically associated with any gender. You might think of play (like gender) as occurring across a spectrum that the child has the power and autonomy to determine as they go – not the parents (or, for that matter, the marketing departments of toy companies). And so – if your son wants a Tiny Tammy doll, he should receive it and be encouraged/allowed to play with it, and if your daughter chooses to wash her toy bulldozer in her pretend kitchen sink, then more power to her. The boundary I would draw (this Christmas and on into the future) is around toys that encourage violence or mimic weaponry. (And yes, we all know that your daughter can pretend her wiffleball bat is a gun, but at the end of the day, she knows it’s a wiffleball bat.) Dear Amy: My mother died five years ago. I financially supported my stepfather for three of those five years, and spent quality time with him. He met another woman and deliberately hid the fact that he was dating her from me and my sister. He decided to sell the house I grew up in. He wouldn’t tell me where he was moving to. Now my sister is angry with me, because I choose not to participate in her family gatherings, which he attends with his new partner. This man refused to tell me the truth, after I asked him repeatedly. The members of my mother’s family have disowned me for it. Am I in the wrong? – JD Dear JD: Let’s say that I could somehow magically determine that you are “right.” Would it then fix things for you to present an Ask Amy Certificate of Rightness™ to your family members? I doubt it. So let me sidestep trying to determine whether your behavior is wrong. This is more a social and family dilemma than an ethical one. I don’t know why your stepfather is avoiding you. Perhaps he is worried that you believe he owes you money (because of your previous financial support). He might be ashamed of some of his own actions, and too embarrassed to face you. He might be cowardly overall, or legitimately afraid of you. Your family members seem to have circled the wagons around this man, and your reaction has placed you outside the circle. If you were open to it – versus only defending your own position – you might take a look around and at least ask yourself what you might be doing to inspire your entire family to disengage from you. Dear Amy: Responding to “TikToked-Off,” like them I used to feel uncomfortable having my photo and video taken. I had a friend who would film no matter what I said. This friend died suddenly and now looking at the videos frozen in time helps me grapple with my loss and closure. From my perspective, unless you’re in the witness protection program or filmed indecently you may someday truly treasure those captured moments. – Remembered Dear Remembered: I genuinely appreciate your perspective. Thank you. (You can email Amy Dickinson at askamy@amydickinson.com or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or Facebook.) ©2023 Amy Dickinson. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

895a1530e3726e236fc12ae300c9f389

politics

These New Laws Just Took Effect in California

New year, new rules. Hundreds of new laws took effect in California on Jan. 1, including many passed by legislators in the fall. And, as I wrote earlier this week, California’s statewide minimum wage was bumped up by 50 cents, to $16 an hour. Here are some of the more noteworthy new state laws: Protections for cannabis users As of Monday, California employers can no longer hold off-the-clock cannabis use against most workers. Assembly Bill 2188 prohibits businesses from firing or otherwise penalizing employees for their marijuana use “off the job and away from the workplace.” It is also now illegal for most employers in the state to discriminate against employees who test positive in drug screenings for “nonpsychoactive” traces of marijuana, which the measure says “do not indicate impairment, only that an individual has consumed cannabis in the last few weeks.” The law’s protections do not apply to some categories of workers, including those who work in construction or for the federal government; they can still legally be disciplined for marijuana use off the job.

0c1ca782fdac73c67d77b687ab7dd490

politics

Special Forces: Worlds Toughest Test season finale: How to watch for free

The recruits are captured and taken into their final stage of selection in the season finale of “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” airing on Monday, November 27 on FOX. The new season will air a new episode on Monday, November 20 at 9 p.m. EST on FOX. Viewers looking to stream the show can do so by using FuboTV and DirecTV. Both streaming services offer free trials for new users. According to a description of the show by FOX, “selection for the Special Forces is a test unlike any other. Celebrities from all genres take on -- and try to survive -- demanding training exercises led by directing staff agents, an elite team of ex-Special Forces operatives. In this unique series, the only way for these recruits to leave is to give up on their own accord, through failure or potential injury, or by force from the agents. Viewers see the recruits face the harshest of environments that simulate the highly classified selection process, pushing themselves in the ultimate test of their physical, mental and emotional resilience and revealing the celebrities’ deepest and truest character.” In the season finale, the recruits are captured and taken into their final stage of selection: 12 hours of military-grade interrogation; resistance and the will to survive are key, and only the strongest recruits pass the course. The final contestants still in the game are Erin Jackson, Nick Viall, Tyler Cameron, Tom Sandoval and JoJo Siwa. Here is a look at the new season so far from FOX on YouTube Channel: Season two will feature the following 14 celebrities: JoJo Siwa Savannah Chrisley Tom Sandoval Nick Viall Robert Horry Tara Reid Kelly Rizzo Jack Osbourne Erin Jackson Dez Bryant Brian Austin Green Bode Miller Tyler Cameron Blac Chyna How can I watch “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test ″ on FOX without cable? The new season will air a new episode on Monday, November 20 at 9 p.m. EST on FOX. Viewers looking to stream the show can do so by using FuboTV and DirecTV. Both streaming services offer free trials for new users. What is DirecTV Stream? The streaming platform offers a plethora of content including streaming the best of live and On Demand, starting with more than 75 live TV channels. What is FuboTV? FuboTV is an over-the-top internet live TV streaming service that offers more than 100 channels, such as sports, news, entertainment and local channels.

d2a64f51c142682a95e4eea3676ffe22

politics

Robert Kraft: Patriots owners only get involved in personnel on one condition

FOXBOROUGH — With Bill Belichick gone and no clear heir to his personnel throne in New England, it remains murky who will have final say on the roster as the offseason gets rolling. At Jerod Mayo’s introductory press conference, Robert Kraft said it’d be collaborative approach for now, but sought to debunk the idea that ownership will be more involved. He said his family will continue to delegate to the football operations staff as they have since purchasing the team in 1994. BET ANYTHING GET $250 BONUS ESPN BET CLAIM OFFER MASS 21+ and present in MA, NJ, PA, VA, MD, WV, TN, LA, KS, KY, CO, AZ, IL, IA, IN, OH, MI. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. “It will be the same input that we’ve had for the last three decades: We try to hire the best people we can find and let them do their job and hold them accountable,” Kraft said. “If you get involved and tell them what to do or try to influence them, you can’t hold them responsible and have them accountable. It’ll be within the people’s discretion who are the decision makers to do it, and if we’ve hired the wrong people, then we’ll have to make a change. But we’re going to try to enjoy it as fans.” Kraft said there’s only one situation where ownership will get involved in football ops, and that’s when it comes off-the-field issues. “The only area that we have really weighed in is when it comes to bringing in people that we might think are not the right character to be here and they have done things in their past,” Kraft said. “That’s the only time we’ve really weighed in.”

5da64a49cbb224dec4775aefa4d1106e

politics

This Silly Museum About Crabs Has Serious Things to Say

Ned Suesat-Williams, one of the museum’s founders, said in an interview that making a museum funny was a “risky business” — visitors might not get the jokes, after all — but that “everyone learns better when they’re laughing.” Humor provides “a breathing space, where you can talk about difficult topics like climate change without making visitors think the world’s about to end,” he said. Staff at some of Britain’s more renowned scientific institutions are paying attention to the Crab Museum’s approach. Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum in London, said in an email that the museum’s silly approach leads to learning “by stealth.” It “teaches more in a small space and short time than many others with far larger budgets,” he added. Laura Pye, the director of National Museums Liverpool — a body that includes major art and history institutions — said the museum was one of the funniest she’d seen “in a long time” and a good example of how to make “fairly heavy scientific material accessible.” In 2019, Ned Suesat-Williams, 30, and his brother Bertie, 33 — who both have a background working for children’s magazines — plus their friend Chase Coley, 32, decided to create a museum that could discuss political issues that they were concerned about, while still engaging young people. They eventually settled on crabs as the museum’s focus because of Margate’s seaside location. Plus, Bertie Suesat-Williams said, crabs were “funny and weird” The founders — who had no previous professional museum, or crab, experience — devoured books and documentaries on decapods, then developed the museum’s exhibits based on what they found most interesting.

2a29f6a3404a818784d133b4e7c394eb

politics

Fan favorite chef makes UMass Dining feel like a part of home through omelets

Editor’s Note: How can a dining program that serves tens of thousands of students and staff each day churn out award-winning cuisine that has been recognized by Princeton Review for having the best campus food for seven years in a row? MassLive visited the UMass Amherst campus, interviewed chefs, tasted the food and toured the kitchens to find out how the UMass Dining program became a dining dynasty. Of the hundreds of faces who make up UMass Amherst’s award winning dining program, for many, one of the most familiar and beloved is Joanne Keller — who helps run the breakfast omelet station at the campus’ Hampshire Dining Commons. Keller, dubbed the “Omelet Lady,” had been a staple of the dining hall’s omelet making crew for over a decade, when in July 2020 at the age of 65 and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she announced her retirement. She took a year-and-a-half long hiatus before — spurred on by messages asking and encouraging her to come back — she returned to the position in a part time role in late 2021. Two years later, and nearing 15 years in UMass Dining, Keller is back a handful of days per week whipping up eggs and preparing omelets to students’ hearts and desires. “It’s great because I get to work really a couple days a week and interact with the students and cook a few omelets and help out my co-workers,” Keller said. When she is on — typically Tuesday and Thursday mornings — her and her team’s omelets are still in pretty high demand, according to Keller. Balancing about 10 burners at the breakfast station, Keller is usually overseeing five of them at a time as lines of hungry students form, grow and steady during the rush typically from around 8:30 to 10 a.m. She estimates that in an normal day she makes somewhere around 200 omelets, adding that the “Hamp” omelet station goes through about 15 to 18 cases of eggs per day. With 144 eggs per case, the numbers quickly tally up to the thousands. For Keller, the secret to her success is not only her down pat omelet-making formula, but also the bonds she forms over time with students she meets as she prepares their meals. “After a while you get to know their names and what omelet [they like],” Keller said. “Now, I’m getting to see the same kids all the time, so I form a bond with them and they like that personal touch.” Keller said for some students, having that familiar face in the dining hall who knows their go-to order makes them feel like the UMass campus is more “a part of home,” even if they haven’t been back to their actual homes all semester — particularly for international students coming from abroad. The kind feelings between Keller and the students she serves are often mutual, with students even inviting her to their events and giving her shoutouts when they see her. She said a group of women’s rowers at UMass recently invited her to join them and their coaches on a boat out on the Connecticut River early one morning, only for several of the girls line up for one of her famous omelets the next day. “I really like the interaction with the kids and I see them out and about at the hockey games and the sporting events,” Keller said. “I feel like I’m appreciated, but I appreciate them for all their kindnesses.” UMass Dining on MassLive TikTok: Across her career in UMass Dining, Keller has had the opportunity to interact and form friendships with many students who’ve passed through the dining halls but in particular the student athletes who often come to fuel up in the mornings before trainings and workouts. She can count the likes of current NHL player Cale Makar — a former star UMass hockey player and now a defenseman on the Colorado Avalanche — as well as NFL player Andy Isabella — a former UMass Minutemen wide receiver and a now a member of the Buffalo Bills — among her connections. Joanne Keller, a beloved omelet cook at UMass Amherst, poses with former student and current NHL star Cale Makar. Keller announced her retirement in July 2020 but returned to UMass in Nov. 2021. (Courtesy Joanne Keller) She said she has also had the chance to cook breakfast for the school’s new chancellor, Javier Reyes. So what goes into Keller’s famous omelets? In a recent visit to UMass by MassLive, Keller demonstrated her process. Keller said to start, one needs a good non-stick pan, and usually she’ll begin by sautéing any meat or vegetables going into the omelet to warm them up and crisp them with flavor before pouring in the raw eggs. The liquid egg batter will slowly solidify around the outer edges first and with a “fish turner” spatula in hand, Keller will raise up the sides of the forming omelet to cook away the any runny eggs. Once sufficiently cooked on one face, Keller then flips the omelet up into the air in a controlled motion and lands it on the other side to ensure the other face gets cooked thoroughly. She flips it one more time and then adds a handful of shredded cheese to melt in the middle before folding and serving. The whole process takes about five to seven minutes per omelet, and Keller noted that students who in a time pinch will sometimes ask for an egg scramble, which have become more popular for her and her team to prepare since they are generally less time intensive. Despite coming out of retirement for part time work, Keller said she still faced some uncertainty about her longterm future with UMass Dining due to problems walking and standing she experienced prior to a hip replacement surgery in January. Post-surgery, Keller said she feels like “a new person,” with a new spring to her step. “So, I don’t see me leaving anytime soon,” Keller said. “It’s been really fun and I’ll just do it as long as I can.” Related Content:

74f0f6c7bafaaf6f1e2dff09564be888

politics

Golden Globes 2024 Nominations: Barbie and Oppenheimer in Front

To many, the Golden Globe Awards are a perfect example of Hollywood’s two faces. In public, the entertainment capital plays along: It’s an honor just to be nominated, giggle tee-hee, this event is an absolute delight. In private, smiles drop and eyes roll: The prizes are not seen as meaningful markers of artistic excellence, but there is no way around them. From a business perspective, the Globes represent a crucial marketing opportunity for winter films and TV shows. The nominations for the 81st ceremony, which will be televised by CBS and streamed on Paramount+ on Jan. 7, were announced on Monday morning by Cedric the Entertainer and Wilmer Valderrama. New movies like “American Fiction,” “Poor Things” and “The Zone of Interest” will compete alongside summertime behemoths like “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie.” “Barbie” led the nominations with nine, followed by “Oppenheimer” with eight. In the television categories, “Succession” had the most with nine, followed by “The Bear” and “Only Murders in the Building” with five apiece.

74ce79b694768ab39402bc274c62803b

politics

Bus stop shelter removal prompts push to study homelessness in Holyoke

HOLYOKE — After Pioneer Valley Transit Authority and the city of Holyoke removed a bus stop shelter, City Councilor Israel Rivera said he wants the city to further study the reasons behind the removal. Rivera, who chairs the city’s public safety committee, said a bus shelter on the corner of Cabot and High streets was removed over the summer to mitigate “vagrancy on High Street.” The onus is on the public safety committee and the community to ensure that the bus stops are safe, Rivera said, and he wants to create a focus group to investigate what other mechanisms are in place to address homelessness on High Street and how many other bus stop shelters in the city will be removed. Rivera said the bus shelter removal was prompted by several situations where people slept with blankets on the shelter’s bench while a family with children waited for the bus in the elements. It was a situation that Rivera said he had witnessed. “There was one incident within the last two years where a fight broke out at another bus stop,” Rivera said. During a public safety meeting on Nov. 29, Rivera brought the matter forward in an order on the agenda to discuss with Holyoke Mayor Joshua A. Garcia and Holyoke Police Chief David Pratt. Rivera’s order was brought forth as a package and was overshadowed by Garcia’s presentation on his public safety plan known as Ezekiel’s Plan. Also known as Operation Safe Streets, Garcia announced the plan after an Oct. 4 shooting claimed the life of a newborn baby boy on Sargent and Maple streets. Ezekiel’s Plan would have included funding for a new community response division, five additional foot and bike patrol officers and increased funding for the city’s legal and health departments. Holyoke City Council, however, rejected the plan at its Dec. 5 meeting. Meanwhile, Rivera believes the safety concerns that led to the bus stop shelter’s removal are valid, especially because the bus stop sits near a school. He said he also worries about the unintended impact it has had on those who use the shelter for its intended purpose, he said. “It punishes the people who use it for its intended purpose, which is for winter protection from the elements,” Rivera told The Republican. Since the bus stop shelter’s removal, Rivera said he had seen unhoused people hanging out near that bus stop. “It doesn’t solve the problem; it just pushes it down the street,” he said. While there is a variety of different shelters in the area, Rivera doesn’t believe those are the people sleeping at the bus stops, he said. Rivera also said that many of the unhoused sleeping on the streets of Holyoke are not from the city but come to the area to access services or to seek out illegal drugs. “It’s not just a Holyoke issue, it’s a Western Massachusetts issue,” he said. “Holyoke like Springfield, are communities that take on the responsibility to be service providers, so a lot of unhoused people come to Holyoke and Springfield for services.” Rivera said he doesn’t think Holyoke needs more shelters or beds, but rather surrounding communities like South Hadley and Chicopee could help house some of the unsheltered. In the last 18 months, Pioneer Valley Transit Authority has added 15 shelters and removed three across the system for reasons that range from loss of ridership, vehicular damage or environmental conditions, said Brandy Pelletier, a spokesperson at PVTA. The shelter at High and Cabot streets was originally installed as part of ongoing efforts by the transit authority to improve amenities across its system, especially in economic justice neighborhoods, Pelletier wrote in an email. “Unfortunately, this shelter became problematic due to issues with vagrancy. Working in cooperation with Mayor Garcia’s office we attempted to address the issues, with increased police enforcement and outreach activity. Ultimately, after feedback from neighborhood residents, staff, and the community in general, the decision was made to remove the shelter at this time,” Pelletier wrote. “Our goal is always to improve and enhance amenities wherever conditions dictate,” Pelletier wrote. “We will continue to work with the community to assess and reevaluate conditions in this neighborhood.”

3184e6d41df43ecadb162737dd10bcb9

politics

Compelling artworks await State House visitors

I admire artist Robert T. Freeman’s painting “Black Tie,” which is now displayed in Governor Maura Healey’s office (“Artworks to make the House everyone’s home,” Metro, Dec. 9), and appreciate the governor’s commitment to the state’s diversity in the artwork at the State House. Freeman’s work depicts Black Americans gathered for a social occasion during the period of segregation. Not far off on the fourth floor, just outside the House gallery, is another painting of a group, “Notable Women of Boston” by Ellen Lanyon. Among the nine notables in the mural are poet Phillis Wheatley, the first Black person in America to have a book published, and community activist Melnea Cass, the Black campaigner for racial equality.

9d509520715f18b0621ab0a6aa22f5ed

politics

Opinion | I Can Help Rebuild Gaza. First I Need to Survive Today.

I was a young child, living in the Jabaliya area, in the north of Gaza, when I first saw an Israeli soldier up close. The Israel Defense Forces invaded the camp and our home. They stayed for three days. After that, I was afraid of Israelis. I always thought that they were coming to kill or kidnap me. And yet I know the world can be better. I’ve seen how people in other conflicts have worked toward coexistence, and I know that one day I will work to better Gaza, to rebuild our community and to move forward. But this week I took the only opportunity that secured my immediate future: to flee. I’m a Palestinian raised in the Gaza Strip, so I have long known conflict. My family are refugees from 1948; my grandmother used to tell me really great stories about our village, Al Muharraqa. It was on the eastern border of Gaza, about nine miles from Gaza City. Still, every other time there has been a war in Gaza, it hasn’t really come to this level of intensity. This is the first time in my life I really didn’t know where to go or if I would survive at all. But because I have seen a different version of this world, I still held out hope.