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By adamg - 12/23/14 - 6:12 pm

City health officials and police are trying to figure out what's causing a sharp increase in drug overdoses in Boston this year.

The Boston Public Health Commission said today the city had 32 suspected overdoses this past weekend - concentrated downtown and in East Boston and Dorchester. The same period last year saw just 8 overdoses.

In a statement, the commission said samples from street purchases by Boston Police "have not indicated more potency or drugs laced with particular potentially-fatal substances."

By adamg - 12/20/14 - 1:03 pm
Santa Claws in Boston

Outside James Hook on the waterfront.

By adamg - 12/19/14 - 9:31 am

Photo by TPD.

Transit Police report they are looking for these three guys on charges they beat and "verbally abused" a man at State Street on the Orange Line around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday.

The three are in their early to mid-20s.

The first subject was wearing a black and white horizontal sweater, blue jeans and blue sneakers. The second subject was wearing a dark colored jacket with a white hooded sweatshirt underneath, dark jeans and brown boots. The third subject was wearing, dark colored zip-up sweater, dark jeans and dark boots.

By adamg - 12/18/14 - 6:39 pm

The city has shut the old Northern Avenue Bridge "indefinitely" following a safety inspection that showed it was no longer even safe for pedestrians and bicyclists, according to a memo sent around today to local employers by the Seaport Transportation Management Association.

Walkers and bicyclists now need to take the Moakley Bridge - which was supposed to completely replace the Northern Avenue span - or Summer Street.

By adamg - 12/16/14 - 6:37 am

Boston Police report they are investigating two incidents involving rideshare drivers indecently assaulting female passengers early Sunday - and a third incident involving a woman picked up by somebody she thought was a rideshare driver but who turned out not to be one.

By HowieS - 12/16/14 - 5:42 am

The West Roxbury Committee To Stop the West Roxbury Lateral Pipeline Cites The Danger In Placing the Large Vulnerable Gas Pipeline Adjacent To Their Homes & An Active Quarry.

By adamg - 12/14/14 - 9:50 am

Paul Levy, who knows something about failing hospitals, having become CEO of Beth Israel just as the state wanted to shut it down, takes a look at the proposed merger of Boston Medical Center and Tufts Medical Center - and how to keep the merger from simply becoming " a case of strapping two leaky lifeboats together, leading to a faster demise than if they remained apart."

By adamg - 12/13/14 - 11:51 pm
Protest at Park Street

A Black Lives Matter protest that started on the Common wended its way around downtown Boston this afternoon.

State Police report making 23 arrests: 22 for disorderly conduct and 1 for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest - several at the I-93 ramps by Nashua Street. Boston Police report no arrests.

By adamg - 12/10/14 - 8:19 pm

State Police report:

On Tuesday, the State Police placed the trooper depicted in the video on restricted duty pending completion of a department investigation. The name of the trooper is not being released while the internal investigation is underway.

By adamg - 12/10/14 - 5:54 pm
Generator outside South Station

Jed Hresko captured a crew hooking up a generator to get the traffic lights around South Station working again after they went out right at rush hour.

By adamg - 12/10/14 - 4:21 pm
Hashtag Christmas tree

A Twitter-enabled Christmas tree in the lobby of Boston City Hall lets anybody around the world change its colors just by tweeting at it.

By adamg - 12/10/14 - 7:54 am

H2O - Frozen parody featuring the New England Aquarium

Lauren Mack tours the Aquarium. No penguins, though?

Via Boston Reddit.

By adamg - 12/9/14 - 11:26 am
Haymarket Square in 1909

The Boston City Archives has begun digitizing its collection of photos of Boston Elevated Railway photos, including a set showing construction of the North Station/Lechmere section, such as this photo of Haymarket Square on March 24, 1909.

Posted under this Creative Commons license.

By adamg - 12/7/14 - 1:18 pm

Peaceful protester pepper sprayed by police! Boston 12/05/14

The Herald reports State Police are investigating a video posted by a man who says he was sprayed by a trooper during Thursday's protest marches.

Kin Moy was among a group of protesters who managed to evade police and briefly get onto a ramp to I-93Thursday night:

By adamg - 12/5/14 - 3:58 pm

The Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports all ten - arrested at four different spots along last night's protest marches - were arraigned in Boston Municipal Court today. Eight had their cases converted to civil infractions.

By adamg - 12/4/14 - 11:06 pm

Good thing Boston has more than one paramedic unit: Boston EMS Incidents reports that when a report of a person suffering a heart attack in the Prudential Center food court came in around 10:30 p.m., the Paramedic 1 unit stationed on Purchase Street was dispatched to the scene - but couldn't even get out of its bay due to the large traffic jam caused by protesters in Dewey Square and police blocking traffic to keep motorists from plowing into the protesters.

Dispatchers then routed Paramedic 2, based on Warren Street in Roxbury, to the mall, where firefighters and EMTs were treating the unconscious but still breathing person until the paramedics could arrive.

By adamg - 12/4/14 - 8:31 pm
Protesters on the Common

Protesters on the Common. Photo by Charles Kirschner.

The Green Line tracks at Park Street were cleared by 11:20 p.m., and the T resumed Green Line service - but trolleys bypassed the station.

After repeatedly trying to shut down the turnpike, the O'Neill Tunnel and Storrow Drive, protesters against a New York grand jury's decision not to indict a police officer in Eric Garner's death swarmed the Park Street T stop around 10:30 p.m. and managed to shut down the Green Line - by standing on the tracks before having a die-in.

The T shut down the station and had Red Line trains bypass it. Downtown Green Line riders were told to take the Orange Line.

By adamg - 12/4/14 - 5:21 pm
Police on buses on Cambridge Street

Kate Donaghy photographed buses full of cops on Cambridge Street around 5:10 p.m. - nearly two hours before Tremont Street is shut down for the Nova Scotia tree lighting and protests over that New York grand-jury decision.

Getting off the bus a few minutes later.

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