FIREFIGHTERS CONTINUE to be on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic every single day. As full-time, career, union firefighters, we are regularly exposed to the coronavirus while responding to emergency calls in our capacity as firefighters and firefighter EMT-paramedics. Just last week, 78 Massachusetts firefighters tested positive for the coronavirus. The Attleboro Fire Department, where […]
Public safety
Posted inPolitics
Tougher seatbelt law remains longshot
STATE HOUSE NEWS FOR AT LEAST THE SEVENTH consecutive legislative session, lawmakers and driving safety advocates on Tuesday morning asked legislators to give police the ability to pull over and ticket drivers if anyone in the car is not wearing a seat belt, citing the state’s 46th-in-the-nation ranking for seat belt usage and the promise […]
Posted inTransportation
Campbell: Blue Hill Ave. conversation needed
ADD BOSTON CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT Andrea Campbell to the list of officials talking about creating a dedicated bus lane along busy Blue Hill Avenue. In a wide-ranging interview on the CommonWealth Codcast with three members of TransitMatters – Josh Fairchild, Jim Aloisi, and Jarred Johnson – Campbell said transportation is one of the top issues […]
Posted inGuns
Does attention to shooting miss the mark?
YESTERDAY’S DAYTIME FATAL SHOOTING of a taxi driver near the Prudential Center in Boston was the top story among local media outlets throughout the day and it’s the lead front-page story in both Boston daily newspapers this morning. The argument for the flood-the-zone coverage, of course, is that the more out of the ordinary an […]
Posted inThe Download
Does attention to shooting miss the mark?
Yesterday’s daytime fatal shooting of a taxi driver near the Prudential Center in Boston was the top story among local media outlets throughout the day and it’s the lead front-page story in both Boston daily newspapers this morning. The argument for the flood-the-zone coverage, of course, is that the more out of the ordinary an […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Securing houses of worship is collective responsibility
A SIKH TEMPLE in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. A Methodist church in Charleston, South Carolina. A Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh. The attack at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which claimed at least 50 lives, now takes its place on a tragic roster of recent mass shootings at our houses of worship. These spaces are sacred […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download, Transportation
Can’t we all just get along?
Middle East peace seems as far off as ever. Partisan battle lines nationally have become even more stark since last November’s election, if that’s possible. But here in the Hub of the Universe a fault line has formed that suddenly seems to be even more difficult to bridge. We speak of the road war that […]
Posted inThe Download
Even in Princeton
Judging from the news coverage, murders are not supposed to happen in places like Princeton. It’s one thing for a woman and her friend, sitting inside their Worcester home, to be wounded in gunfire from a nearby intersection. But that sort of violence is not supposed to happen in nearby Princeton, which is described as […]
Posted inThe Download, Transportation
Amtrak, TSA, and security theater
While debates heat up over Green Line Extension cost overruns and the North-South Rail Link proposals, an even more vital issue is at stake in Boston: intercity rail security. In the wake of the thwarting of the French rail terrorist attack, new attention has been focused on Amtrak and its underwhelming security measures. At South […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, The Download
W. Springfield’s troublesome grenade launchers
As part of post-Ferguson policing reforms, President Obama cracked down on the transfer of military-grade equipment to police departments across the US with an executive order that prohibits sending items like aircraft with weapons systems and bayonets, or as a MetroWest Daily News editorial put it, “bayonets!,” to state and local law enforcement agencies. The […]