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BostonGlobe.com •

Mass. congregations, fearful of Trump deportation threat, rush to find housing for immigrant families - The Boston Globe

NEWTON — A coalition of local religious and advocacy groups, fearful that President-elect Donald Trump will make good on his threat to carry out mass deportations, is mounting a fast-moving campaign to find housing for many newly arrived immigrant families who are shut out of the state’s beleaguered shelter system.

In addition to seeking volunteers to open up their homes and finding private apartments for families, the group is trying to raise thousands of dollars to support them and provide legal support for people who live, work, and go to school in Massachusetts and who seek to stay in the country legally.

“We are taking the new [Trump] administration at their word," said the Rev. Laura Everett.
BostonGlobe.com •

‘We’ve got to prepare for the worst’: State’s sanctuary cities vow to protect immigrants as Trump threatens mass deportations - The Boston Globe

A growing number of Massachusetts “sanctuary” cities and towns are considering ways to shore up protections for immigrants before President-elect Donald Trump can carry out his threat to deport millions of undocumented people when he returns to the White House.

Somerville’s City Council on Tuesday tightened a local resolution that limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities, and officials in Natick are considering a similar measure. Leaders in places such as Chelsea, Cambridge, Salem, and Worcester have reaffirmed their commitment to protecting residents.

“We’ve got to prepare for the worst,” Somerville City Councilor at Large Will Mbah said. “This resolution is just to protect our most vulnerable from harm.”
BostonGlobe.com •

Hyannis advocates want to honor civil rights leader with mural. Town official suggested painting Kennedys there instead. - The Boston Globe

When a police officer ordered Eugenia Fortes and a friend off a whites-only Barnstable beach nearly 80 years ago, Fortes stayed put.

“I would not move,” Fortes recalled in a 2004 interview posted online.

Fortes, a Cape Verdean immigrant who spent much of her life in Barnstable, went on to become a civil rights leader who was known as the “Rosa Parks of Cape Cod” and who helped establish the local branch of the NAACP. So recognizing her seemed like a no-brainer to a group of local advocates, who last summer sought permission to paint a mural honoring Fortes on the side of a privately owned downtown building on Main Street in Hyannis.

Instead, supporters have faced resistance from local officials.
BostonGlobe.com •

‘We cannot arrest our way out of homelessness’: Advocates blast Brockton, Lowell camping bans - The Boston Globe

Bans on homeless people erecting camps in their communities are growing in Massachusetts, as two of the state’s most populous cities adopted laws this week intended to protect residents and businesses from what officials have termed health and public safety nuisances.

The city councils in Brockton and Lowell each adopted prohibitions on unauthorized camping on public property Tuesday night, joining Boston, Fall River and Salem. Worcester earlier this year declined to relax its existing ban on camping in public parks to provide a temporary respite for homeless people.

With the latest votes, half of the state’s 10 largest cities now have some form of prohibition on such encampments.
BostonGlobe.com •

One year after Lewiston mass shootings, 10 people describe how their lives have been redefined - The Boston Globe

LEWISTON, Maine — For many here, the last year has been shaped by absence. The empty chair at the table, the vacant side of the bed. Faces, voices, laughs that live only in memory.

Seemingly everyone across the Lewiston-Auburn region knows someone who was killed, hurt, or witnessed the shooting at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar & Grille on Oct. 25, 2023.

That night, an Army reservist, believed to be in the throes of psychosis, killed 18, wounded 13 more, and left untold others forever changed.

“Someone said to me recently, it stuck with me: ‘We’ll never get over it, but we will get through it together,’ " said Arthur Barnard, whose adult son Artie Strout was among those killed in the bar.
BostonGlobe.com •

A year after Maine’s worst mass shooting, what happened to gun reform? - The Boston Globe

LEWISTON, Maine — US Representative Jared Golden, his face drawn tight, took to the lectern at Lewiston City Hall and stunned the room. It was less than a day after Maine’s deadliest mass shooting, and one of Congress’s most ardent gun rights supporters said he’d now back a federal assault weapons ban.

For advocates who had struggled for years to enact tighter gun laws, Golden’s statement resonated both because of the public plea and its messenger. Golden, a conservative Democrat who represents a rural district that twice voted for former president Donald Trump, was suddenly taking their side on a key gun control issue.

But nearly a year after Robert R. Card II killed 18 and wounded 13 at a Lewiston bowling alley and then a bar, there is no ban on such weapons in Maine or the nation — nor much chance of one — and other steps toward toughened gun control rules have been halting and limited.
BostonGlobe.com •

‘Widespread grief’: Shooting deepens Israel-Hamas war divide in Newton - The Boston Globe

For nearly a year, the Rev. Kenneth F. Baily has grown increasingly worried about his community. Newton has deep, broad connections to the Middle East, and war raging between Israel and Hamas has been pulling the city’s residents apart.

“Anger is usually a reflection of pain, and for me, and my colleagues and companions, there’s just so much pain around this,” said Baily.
BostonGlobe.com •

Cities are razing homeless camps across US. Advocates want New Bedford to build one. - The Boston Globe

So as cities across the country, empowered by a recent Supreme Court decision, move to tear down homeless encampments, the advocates have proposed that New Bedford do the opposite: build one of its own.

“We need to be proactive,” said Carl Alves, who leads a coalition of local nonprofits that support homeless residents. “I’m seeing significant increases in the number of people [who] don’t have places to call home or a place to stay.”
BostonGlobe.com •

A Plymouth tribe asked a town board to acknowledge their legacy. Officials asked for their lawyer instead. - The Boston Globe

Melissa Ferretti grew up in south Plymouth, immersed in her hometown’s legacy as the Pilgrims’ first settlement in America. As chairwoman of the Herring Pond Wampanoag, she was equally immersed in the history and traditions of her tribe.

So she was shocked as she watched members of a town committee late last month balk at her tribe’s request to recognize their legacy with a brief land acknowledgment that would be delivered before meetings.
BostonGlobe.com •

‘We’re still here’: In Shrewsbury, Nipmuc tribe seeks to reclaim, preserve artifacts - The Boston Globe

His massive arms moving in a steady motion, George Bearclaw labored in the twilight to reshape the white pine timber. There was a fire burning within the log, and Bearclaw used a staff to scrape away the char.

Slowly, a mishoon, a canoe large enough to carry four men, was emerging from the wood. Bearclaw was among the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band members working round-the-clock shifts earlier this month to create the mishoon — the first made on the shores of Flint Pond in more than three centuries.

“It’s inspiring,” Bearclaw said, his eyes brightened by light cast from the flames.
The Boston Globe •

Vineyard police reports detail erratic behavior of man accused in stabbing rampage - The Boston Globe

But his seemingly abrupt mental deterioration — and an alleged attack on his father in April — stoked concern among those around him in the months before the chaos on Saturday, in which he is accused of stabbing six people in two separate incidents, and is a suspect in a third, the death of his roommate in Deep River, Conn. Police in West Tisbury said they sought to have him detained on a mental-health hold after the attack, but the local hospital declined.
The Boston Globe •

Across Massachusetts, people are rising up against the arrival of migrants. To some, the backlash seems racist. - The Boston Globe

Across the state, a growing chorus of people are rising up against a wave of migrants arriving in their towns, complaining about the staggering costs of caring for them and warning about crime and too much change. To some, the backlash seems racist and ignores the economic contributions migrants can bring to a state grappling with a shrinking birth rate and an exodus of young people fleeing to cheaper locales.

In recordings of public meetings, people directed outrage and insults at migrants.
The Boston Globe •

‘The Karen Read case lit a match and started a wildfire.’ Canton split over high-profile prosecution. - The Boston Globe

It’s likely Canton has never seen anything quite like the case of Karen Read, who is charged with murdering her boyfriend, a town resident and Boston police officer, after a night of heavy drinking. People on both sides agree that the controversy has deeply divided the town of 24,600 south of Boston. And they also agree on this: The protests reflect broad skepticism, if not an outright repudiation, of the town’s government and Police Department.

CANTON — Protesters march in town and carry signs
The Boston Globe •

In Waltham, families of former patients, workers at Fernald demand role in deciding property’s future - The Boston Globe

Reggie Clark is 70, but memories of his childhood years at the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center during the 1960s are painfully clear.

“I don’t think we were respected,” said Clark, who left Fernald in 1969 and now lives in Leominster. “You didn’t have any choices because the nurses that were there . . . told you that you had to do it, or you were put in isolation if you didn’t.”

A decade after the City of Waltham bought the property from the state, the legacy of the Fernald school is at the center of a fraught debate.
The Boston Globe •

Bitter rift erupts in Dedham over rejected bid to expand meal service for migrant families - The Boston Globe

The Rev. Stephen Josoma can’t understand the uproar that has gripped the town — a bitter, raw debate over the preparation of meals for migrant families and other homeless people staying in state emergency shelters.

“It just saddened me, I try to get my head around it,” Josoma said in an interview. “I’m not even sure where it’s coming from.”
The Boston Globe •

Meet the man leading the longest Mass. teachers strike in decades - The Boston Globe

Doesn’t matter if it’s raining or snowing or freezing cold. Mike Zilles — clean-shaven, hair close-cropped, wearing a dark red coat — is oblivious to the weather as he stands outside at union press conferences telling reporters exactly what he thinks about the Newton School Committee’s latest offer to the city’s teachers.

“I have just gotten enraged with these people,” Zilles told reporters Saturday. “They are just unaware of how much harm they are doing.”
The Boston Globe •

‘It is maddening’: Grief, anxiety over rising violence among young people in Lynn - The Boston Globe

The lives of two teens were cut short on Dec. 27 by gunfire, the latest victims in an alarming increase in violence in recent months that has sown grief and raised anxiety just as Lynn is experiencing some measure of renewal. The killings have brought calls for a more urgent response to quell the mayhem that community leaders worry will ensnare more young people.
The Boston Globe •

Unlike peers, MIT’s president spared worst of blowback from antisemitism hearing - The Boston Globe

The president of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magill, quickly resigned under public pressure. The fate of Harvard University’s leader, Claudine Gay, hung in the balance for a week until the college’s governing board declared its support.

But at MIT, the board moved decisively to show its support for president Sally Kornbluth, praising her leadership and integrity at the height of a public outcry.
The Boston Globe •

Critics’ successes in election could cool interest in Newton’s plan for more housing - The Boston Globe

Beginning in 2021, officials held community events and solicited feedback from thousands of participants, which helped shape the proposal, according to Deborah Crossley, a longtime city councilor who leads the Zoning & Planning Committee.

Now, however, support for the city’s plan may be cooling. In the Nov. 7 local election, five newcomers won City Council seats after being backed by groups critical of the development plans.
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