NPR reports that Pres. Biden has appointed Dr. Ashish Jha as the new White House COVID-19 response coordinator.

Jha, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, is a Newton resident. He serves on a task force advising Newton Public Schools on Covid-19 issues, most recently, on when to let students take off their masks.

Newton School Superintendent David Fleishman today warned parents that he's looking at layoffs for the coming school year, partly because of declining enrollment but mainly because of increased costs for insurance, busing and special education, on top of a budget this year already stretched by Covid-19, both through extra use of city-funded health plans and the need to hire more substitutes, and a decline in revenue from renting out school facilities. Read more.

After hearing from its medical experts at a meeting last night, the Newton School Committee informally voted yesterday to make masks optional in most indoor spaces as of March 8, School Superintendent David Fleishman wrote parents today. Read more.

Katya Malakhova of Newton, who founded a Ukrainian relief program five years ago, is collecting first-aid supplies to go out in a Wednesday shipment to Ukraine. Specifically:

Large amounts of bandages, multi trauma dressings, gloves (size large and medium), IV starter kits, medical scissors, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, aspirin, antibiotic cream, eye wash, burn aid, antiseptics.

Service Properties Trust, a Newton-based real-estate investment trust that owns more than 300 hotels in the US, including the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge, today sued nine insurers for refusing to pay out for its Covid-19 losses since the start of the pandemic. Read more.

A Newton city working group has concluded its time to change the city seal, which now shows British missionary John Eliot lecturing the local Native Americans in the 1600s on why they should convert to Christianity. Read more.

The last bit of Mt. Ida College in Newton that still exists is a $2.5-million fund meant to pay off creditors following its purchase by UMass Amherst in 2018 that the fund's trustee can't close out because Mt. Ida's last president says he's owed a severance payment that UMass doesn't want to pay. Read more.

In e-mail to residents, Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller reported today: Read more.

Welcome to Dot managed to escape this six-car smashup on the turnpike westbound near 128 this morning.

Then, barely a mile down the road, he crawled past another, smaller crash: Read more.