The lawyer for the Satanic Temple in Salem provided a "status report" on the group's lawsuit against the City Council over its religious invocations to the judge in the case yesterday. It's pretty easy reading and explains the group's First Amendment claim about how the council starts its meetings and why he wants Michelle Wu to sit for questioning, so have at it at the link below, but some highlights: Read more.
The Herald reports a judge in West Roxbury Municipal Court dismissed the case against the first screamer arrested outside Michelle Wu's Roslindale home in April for violating the city's new ban on "targeted" demonstrations before 9 a.m. because the ordinance called for fines, not arrests.
A lawyer for the Satanic Temple of Salem says he's going to seek a bench warrant for Michelle Wu's arrest if she doesn't show up in Salem on Sept. 12 for a deposition in the group's lawsuit over how the City Council opens its meetings with an invocation by a religious leader, and never mind that a federal judge has already told the group it can't make Wu sit for hours answering questions about the invocations. Read more.
The Globe interviews one of the two women BPD allegedly investigated DA candidate Ricardo Arroyo for attacking when they were in high school, and that she stands by her story of "the coerced sex, the mental manipulation, threats she said he sent her." Read more.
With the clock ticking on the end of the Orange Line, the news that many people trying to get into or out of Chinatown will have to hoof it to the nearest alternative is not sitting well with Mayor Wu, City Councilor Ed Flynn and three state legislators, who today asked the T to extend its bus-shuttle service to at least the Chinatown or Tufts Medical Center stops, in particular for seniors, the disabled and students. Read more.
Mayor Wu said today she wants Boston to join a state pilot that would let the city ban the use of natural gas and other fossil fuels for heating and cooking in new construction or major renovation projects. Read more.
Hal Shurtleff, the former John Birch organizer who used to live in West Roxbury, is scheduled to arrive at City Hall Plaza with a "Christian" flag the city agreed to let him fly over City Hall Plaza for a couple of hours starting at 11 a.m. Read more.
Cox speaks at Gertrude Howes Playground in Roxbury as former SJC Justice Geraldine Hines, on the commissioner search committee, listens.
Mayor Wu today announced she has appointed Michael Cox, a lifelong Bostonian who rose through BPD ranks to assume a variety of command posts, as the city's new police commissioner. Read more.
Mayor Wu today announced a $20 million investment to expand the number of seats available in BPS pre-K classrooms and to bolster services available to child-care providers, including "developmental and behavioral health screenings, student support interventions, culturally relevant and challenging curriculum."
Wu, Rollins and acting Suffolk County DA Kevin Hayden exit BPD HQ for press conference.
Mayor Wu and US Attorney Rachael Rollins vowed today to prosecute white supremacists they say attacked a gay, Black man who had the misfortune of walking onto Dartmouth Street just as they were marching to the Back Bay Orange Line stop for a ride out of town on Saturday. Read more.
Note: Story updated with fourth arrest info.
Catherine Vitale, Shannon Llewellyn and Danielle Mazzeo, who showed up outside the mayor's house in Roslindale around 7:30 a.m. to bang on buckets and yell, were all charged with "targeted residential picketing" in violation of a city ordinance that bans standing outside somebody's house and screaming before 9 in the morning. Read more.
Row of cops keeps Nelson from getting in Louijeune's face at Hyde Park playground.
With most people there to get some free potted plants or Munchkins and to chat with Mayor Wu, the usual gang of Covid screamers also descended on Iacono Playground in Readville this morning - this time with a large contingent of uniformed cops between them and the mayor. Read more.
The Dorchester Reporter reports the man charged at the mayor after police said they would be taking away his bullhorn, so they took him down to the ground before arresting him. It's at least the second time Shawn Nelson has been arrested in a Covid protest.
Mayor Wu today released more detailed files related to the child-rape case involving a police officer who eventually became head of the patrolmen's union, said his initial case should never have been allowed to linger as long as it did and said she hopes to work with the Boston police union to ensure somebody like him will never again be allowed to remain on the force. Read more.
Mayor Wu today announced the city's "warm weather" plan to deal with Mass and Cass: Basically, more services decentralized across the city, with transportation to get people from the troubled intersection to new "day centers" in other neighborhoods. Read more.
Boston can only enact limits on annual rent increases with the approval of the state legislature and the governor, and candidate Maura Healey said today that's not going to happen on her watch.
West Roxbury seniors were out in force at Billings Field this morning to press Mayor Wu to help them get a neighborhood senior center built. Wu, there for one of her neighborhood coffee hours, gave them a shout out as she addressed the roughly 200 people who attended. Read more.
WCVB reports on the contract with City Fresh Foods, the largest non-construction contract the city's ever awarded to a Black-owned business, and part of Mayor Wu's pledge to increase the number of city contracts that go to minority-owned businesses.
Mayor Wu today announced she will use $60 million in federal Covid-19 relief money to build or buy affordable houses and condos, bolster down-payment assistance programs and expand a city program that reduces interest rates on mortgages. Read more.
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