Project Bread, the state’s leading antihunger organization, released numbers from its upcoming annual status report on hunger in the Commonwealth. The disquieting trends described in this report, caused by high unemployment, point to 554,000 people in the Commonwealth struggling with hunger. Food insecurity has found its way into middle class suburbs and has driven low-income people further into crisis. The report argues for a public health approach and asks that the state continue to bring systemic solutions to scale — especially healthy school and summer food programs for kids.

Chanie Infante Louisma reports (Facebook login required):

A Brookline Metco parent called this morning to report recent crimes
against METCO students. Another Brookline Metco parent, who happens to be a Boston police officer, reported that Metco students have been targeted by Boston Public School students.

Boston students are jumping Metco students after they get off their bus and stealing electronics (i.e. Cell phones, digital cameras, etc).

Sam Yoon is asking his supporters to barrage city councilors with phone calls to convince them to vote on a measure to limit Boston mayors to two terms in office. The proposal currently sits in Maureen Feeney's committee on government operations - to which a proposal to keep the city-council president from becoming mayor if the sitting mayor resigns has also been consigned.

Details.

"Turnaround" schools that will face "serious consequences" if they don't shape up:

• William Blackstone Elementary School in the South End
• Paul Dever Elementary School in Dorchester
• Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary School in Roxbury
• Elihu Greenwood Elementary School in Hyde Park
• Curtis Guild Elementary School in East Boston
• John P. Holland Elementary School in Dorchester
• John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Jamaica Plain
• William Monroe Trotter Elementary School in Dorchester
• Orchard Gardens K-8 School in Roxbury
• Maurice J. Tobin K-8 School in Roxbury
• Henry Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury
• Harbor Middle School in Dorchester
• The English High School in Jamaica Plain
• Odyssey High School in South Boston

The Boston City Council today deferred action on a proposal by Councilor John Tobin that would block a rumored attempt to make fellow Councilor Rob Consalvo the next mayor.

Do you care about basic services in your DCR parks in Boston? Go to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs' FY 2011’s budget hearing with Secretary Ian Bowles on Monday, November 23, 2009, from 3:30 to 5:00 pm at 100 Cambridge Street, 2nd floor, Conference Room B. Submit written comments prior to the hearing, or up until November 30, 2009. Bring a picture I.D. for security.

The Boston City Council agreed today to look at ways of making it harder for the nosy to see how you're voting.

Councilor John Tobin (West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain), said the current system, in which people vote at little triangular platforms that look like they belong in a bank, makes it too easy for people standing at the same cluster to see how somebody's voted. And then there's the walk to the scanner box, which offers further opportunity to figure out a person's ballot, he said.

Tobin said some cities use a system in which voters sit at a table and a privacy curtain surrounds them.

Tobin's resolution.

Think your kids won’t eat healthy foods? Think again. A preliminary report of the Chefs in Schools Initiative by the Harvard School of Public Health, funded by Project Bread, proves that kids not only like healthy school meals, but actually eat more of the healthy foods than they would if they were eating a traditional school meal.

Following his loss, he's grown a beard. A goatee to be exact.

Flaherty's beard: At City Council meeting today.