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West of 495

By adamg - 2/20/24 - 9:10 am
Storrowed truck in Walpole

Photo via Transit PD.

Transit Police report what little traffic there was on West Street in Walpole around noon on Friday was disrupted when the driver of a garbage truck seemed to think his truck was 10'9" when it was really, oh, 10'11". No injuries, truck extricated, driver cited and, after an inspection, the bridge was, once again, declared the latest winner of a storrowing match.

By adamg - 1/12/24 - 4:46 pm

A western-Massachusetts man today sued state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg in federal court because, he says, the state is violating his constitutional rights by not paying him any interest on the less than $100 he says he discovered he had sitting in the state Unclaimed Property fund. Read more.

By adamg - 10/6/23 - 4:55 pm

A South Carolina lender focusing on the marijuana industry today asked a judge to let him take control of Middlesex Integrative Medicine, which has a dispensary in Norwood and a growing facility in Leominster, because he says it's no longer paying him back on millions in loans and its Leominster plant is no longer producing enough product to keep the company afloat. Read more.

By adamg - 9/25/23 - 11:03 am

Milford Police report arresting a man they say was running an unlicensed dental clinic in the back of a local convenience store. Read more.

By adamg - 6/7/23 - 12:46 pm

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that a Berkshire town and a Land Court judge erred in rejecting a religious group's attempt to build an RV camping area because people who would park there either have to attend religious activities there or work for the group - making it exempt from zoning restrictions under state law. Read more.

By adamg - 4/27/23 - 11:15 am

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that Holyoke Solders' Home Superintendent Bennett Walsh and Soldiers' Home Medical Director David Clinton will have to stand trial for elder neglect for crowding infected patients together with vulnerable, non-infected patients in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, leading to an unusually high number of deaths. Read more.

By adamg - 4/14/23 - 9:37 pm
Athol man trying to drag cop into the mob.

Athol man trying to drag cop into the mob. Surveillance photo via FBI.

A federal judge in Washington, DC today sentenced Vincent J. Gillespie, 61, of Athol, to 68 months in prison for ramming cops with their own riot shields on Jan. 6, pulling one of the cops towards the surging mob as another protester beat him with a crutch and screaming at the police in his way that they were traitors. Read more.

By adamg - 4/14/23 - 5:04 pm
Brush fire around 4:45

Brush fire as seen from the turnpike around 4:45. Photo by Carol Beggy.

WCVB reports firefighters are battling a brush fire near the Worcester Line tracks where Southborough, Westborough and Hopkinton meet, which led to delays of an hour or more on the line.

Yesterday, a smaller brush fire near the Northeast Corridor tracks at Cummins Highway in Roslindale halted service for both Amtrak and the Providence and Franklin lines.

By adamg - 3/14/23 - 6:15 pm
Steve Cooper with snacks

WHDH's Steve Cooper replenished the energy he used up while snowshoeing across the frozen, wind-swept tundra in the Fitchburg suburb of Ashby this evening.

Harvey Leonard, meanwhile, checked in from Florida: Read more.

By adamg - 2/24/23 - 3:18 pm

Julius Sokol, part of a group that has spent the past few years buying Boston-area dives, and which hopes to re-open the old Jacob Wirth, is seeking approval to convert a western-Mass. strip club he co-owns into what could be the nation's first topless marijuana dispensary, the Hampshire Gazette reports.

By adamg - 1/18/23 - 4:23 pm

ATF agents today arrested three men in connection with an alleged illegal gun sale by a Revere man who owns a Littleton gun shop: The dealer, the man he allegedly sold three guns to, who was one of three victims of a November shooting near Ross Playground in Hyde Park, and the legal gun owner who arranged the purchase, according to federal court documents unsealed today. Read more.

By adamg - 1/17/23 - 3:46 pm

The Daily Free Press reports Boston University will sell all four Los Angeles apartment buildings it owned to its tenants, rather than selling one of them to the highest bidders, who might have kicked the tenants out. BU was willed the building by Frederick S. Pardee, a real estate investor and BU alumnus and donor.

By adamg - 1/17/23 - 11:41 am
Storrowed truck in Westborough

Photo by Westborough PD. See it larger.

Westborough Police report the driver of an 18-wheeler thought he could fit under a CSX train bridge at Rte. 30 at Willow Street this morning, only to discover he couldn't.

By adamg - 12/23/22 - 9:19 pm
Gillespie in Washington

Gillespie wearing a Berkshire Nautilus hoodie outside Capitol. Photo via FBI.

A jury in Washington, DC today convicted Vincent Gillespie of Athol of using a police shield to attack cops defending the Capitol and of trying to pull one cop into the mob, the US Attorney's office in Washington reports. Read more.

By adamg - 11/22/22 - 11:33 am

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that a man facing OUI charges can't also be charged with defacing a police lockup with a "noxious or filthy substance" for having urinated all over the floor and through the bars of his cell, because the law used to charge him was aimed at pre-Civil War anti-temperance protesters and they didn't hurl bottles of urine through windows at the homes of people fighting demon rum. Read more.

By adamg - 10/1/22 - 9:03 pm

Money

Guess there's a ballot question in California about online gambling and somebody's dragging us, or at least, actors' portrayals of us, into it (really, would a true Bostonian want to be videoed making a point in front of Cheers?). Read more.

By adamg - 9/15/22 - 4:12 pm

Massachusetts yesterday sued a driver from upstate New York for the $1.85 million in damage it says he caused when the boom of the excavator he was hauling on a flatbed slammed into a turnpike overpass and then, 30 miles down the road, slammed into another overpass, after which the excavator fell off the flatbed and took out a stretch of guardrail. Read more.

By adamg - 9/14/22 - 9:39 pm

A California man who threatened to blow up the offices of Merriam-Webster in Springfield because he didn't like its definitions of a number of gender-related words, including "girl," has pleaded guilty to that and to making similar threats against the president of the University of North Texas, the US Attorney's office in Boston reports. Read more.

By adamg - 7/31/22 - 4:32 pm

A federal judge on Friday not only dismissed a Worcester man's latest lawsuit against two police departments for arresting him for driving without a license, he warned that if he tries to sue them again, he could face sanctions and even fines. Read more.

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