From the Hagley Library.
Seems Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee declared a state of emergency in advance of today's eclipse - and it runs through Wednesday, because who knows what demons the eclipse will unleash, no doubt with claps of thunder and the fiery odor of brimstone? Read more.
The Boston City Council this week formally accepted a $500,000 grant from the state Department of Education to develop a lesson plan for teaching students how to use open data sources - with a focus on the city's own Analyze Boston collection of public data sets on everything from crime reports and restaurant inspections to listings of city streetlights and data on where people are using parking meters. Read more.
See if you can spot when the quake hit. From BC's Weston Observatory.
The US Geological Survey reported a magnitude 4.8 earthquake in Lebanon, NJ at 10:23 a.m. and not long after, people across the Boston area began reporting a bit of shaking. Read more.
So no snow (so what else is new?), but the National Weather Service has a high-wind warning in place between 8 p.m. and 2 p.m., Thursday, with possible gusts of up to 60 m.p.h. here in the Greater French Toast Region: Read more.
City councilors today agreed with a move by Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown) to look at doing way more to keep pedstrians alive - the day after a man in a wheelchair died under the wheels of a concrete truck on Frontage Road and the week after a 4-year-old girl died under the wheels of a pickup behind the Children's Museum. Read more.
Art Outdoors surveys the painted utility boxes in Boston and adjacent communities.
Earlier:
JP's stickleback box.
Allston group wants to beautify neighborhood rat traps.
Via PomPoison.
Politico reports (scroll way down for "Yahd Signs and Bumpah Stickahs") that current City Councilor Erin Murphy on Saturday announced endorsements by nine labor unions for her bid to get elected clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County - in a press release that showed the logos of 49 labor unions and groups, at least one of which says, no, it's not endorsing her this time around. Read more.
I have a pair of crouching monkey candles wearing red fezzes. One of the monkeys fell off a 6 foot drop and had its neck broken. Read more.
Mayor Wu said today she will seek state legislation that would let the city tax owners of commercial and industrial property at a higher rate for four years, should official assessments being conducted this year show a precipitous drop in the assessed value of downtown office space in particular due to work shifts caused by the pandemic. Read more.
The Boston City Council today approved a measure to set up a planning department as the first major step towards abolishing the BPDA and giving the mayor and the council - and residents more of a direct say in how Boston grows. Read more.
Giselle Byrd, executive director of Theater Offensive, addresses councilors.
City councilors voted unanimously today to support the trans community in Boston and across the country on Sunday's Transgender Day of Visibility. Read more.
Lawyers for Civil Rights and the law firm of Fick & Marx today announced a $4.7 million settlement of the civil-rights lawsuit they had filed on behalf of Hope Coleman, who called 911 to request an ambulance to transport her son to a hospital to get treatment for his mental illness, but who was instead fatally show by Boston Police officers outside his home on Oct. 30, 2016. Read more.
CommonWealth Beacon reports Boston has had just two murders so far this year, compared to at ten for the same period last year - and that the number of gunshot victims is also down, by 64%.
The City Council voted 11-2 today to seek permission from the state legislature to change the date on which councilors and the mayor are inaugurated following an election from "the first Monday" in January to "the first weekday after the second day in January." Read more.
The City Council will consider a proposal to grant handicap parking placards to pregnant people in their third trimester or who have given birth within the past six months.
Read more.
CommonWealth Beacon reports on the situation at "Boston's NPR news station."
The Boston City Council today unanimously approved a measure in which the city would shift federal Covid relief money originally targeted to increasing the composting of garbage to leasing a 5,500-square-food cold-storage facility to give food pantries and soup kitchens a central place to store refrigerated foods - including food "rescued" from restaurants and markets. Read more.
Louijeune pulls an Oprah, tells all the councilors to look under their desks for some honey.
The Boston City Council today unanimously approved a measure that will make it easier for residents to raise bees.
Kelly Garrity reports that Councilor Erin Murphy (at large) is going to run this fall for the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County's clerk job that Maura Doyle recently announced she is retiring from. Read more.
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