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An advisory board overseeing the T has agreed on an order not to allow buses to transport police to protests or protesters to police, officials said Thursday. “Our concern is that there is a political fight going on in our country to eliminate racist practices, and we are not going to have the T used in any way, shape or form to inhibit people from expressing themselves,” board member Brian Lang told 7NEWS.

BOSTON - A Boston man is accused of firing upon at least 21 of the city's police officers during a night of violence and looting that started late on Sunday. John Boampong, 37, of Dorchester is being held without bail following a Wednesday hearing in Boston Municipal Court, during which Suffolk County prosecutors presented evidence to prove that he presented a danger to the public. He was arraigned on 21 counts of armed assault with intent to murder in connection with the shooting that happened on Providence Street in the early hours of Monday morning. Prosecutors accused Boampong of firing...

The anger over George Floyd's death has led to protests across the country and the situation is worsening by the day. While some are protesting peacefully, others have resorted to violence, looting and vandalism to rebel against the law enforcement after Floyd was killed in custody when a Minneapolis police officer pinned him down with his knee over his neck last week. A state of emergency has been declared in several states and the National Guard has stepped in to deal with the intensifying unrest. However, a new video clip has started circulating on social media suggesting that law enforcement...

Boston Police arrested 53 people downtown Sunday night following a peaceful protest that devolved into violence and looting in the wake of last week’s death of a black man by police in Minneapolis. Of the 53 people arrested, 27 people were from Boston, 24 from other Massachusetts communities, and two from out of state. Another person from out of state will be summonsed.

The already delayed run of The Boston Marathon will not happen this year over coronavirus concerns, Mayor Martin Walsh and Boston Athletic Association officials said on Thursday. The marathon, a huge and important annual event, had been postponed until Sept. 14 from its normal April run in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Walsh said officials have decided that running it in September “is just not feasible” to be done in a safe way.

Boston is paving the way for restaurants to use more outdoor seating as eateries look to welcome back customers amid a pandemic Mayor Martin Walsh said could linger for several months more. “We could be battling this pandemic for eight months to a year,” Walsh said. “As we begin to think about reopening and be phasing open, I think it’s important for people to stay healthy.”

Boston’s mayor is holding firm to keeping lockdown plans in place, days after a new study revealed that nearly 90% of residents haven’t been exposed to the coronavirus. With the state poised to release its reopening plans Monday, Mayor Marty Walsh is not ready to lift any regulations. Other parts of Massachusetts, however, are beginning to restart their economies...

Five Central American asylum seekers ordered to remain in Mexico by federal authorities will be able to reunite with their families in Massachusetts until their immigration cases are decided, a federal judge in Boston ruled Thursday. . . . American authorities have said the “Remain in Mexico” policy has helped significantly reduce illegal border crossings. Civil rights groups complain it violates constitutional rights.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is willing to reopen Fenway Park and TD Garden for Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins games this summer. That willingness, though, rests upon non-negotiable conditions: no fans in the stands, and the City of Boston must sign off on advanced health and safety protocols that protect not only the athletes but everyone else reporting to the workplace. “Yes, as long as the players and the teams and the support staff and all the people that are associated with it are safe and feel comfortable,” said Walsh during a Friday morning telephone interview. “Obviously, their health is...

“Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song, Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung, Whence flow these wishes for the common good, By feeling hearts alone best understood, I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat . . . . Such, such my case. And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway?” -To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth By Phillis Wheatley Phillis Wheatley, an eighteenth century poet born in West Africa, arrived on American soil in 1761 around the age of eight. Captured for...

Mother Nature wanted to make an impression this Mother's Day weekend, in what could be a once-in-a-generation May snowstorm.Mother Nature wanted to make an impression this Mother's Day weekend, in what could be a once-in-a-generation May snowstorm poised to drop snow across portions of the Northeast and New England. Snow will begin Friday afternoon across the interior Northeast and spread into New England by Friday evening and continue overnight, when snowfall rates could be heavy at times. This will be a heavy, wet snow, so power outages are likely (especially with leaves on the trees, which will make them heavier...

As bars and restaurants remain shuttered in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Boston Beer is turning millions of dollars of expired beer into ethanol to recoup some of its lost sales. Beer sales rose 11.6% in the week ended April 11, according to Nielsen data, as consumers drink more at home. But the spike doesn’t benefit craft brewers as much because they rely on sales in restaurants and bars. The shift in consumption trends is leading to expired kegs for many craft beer manufacturers. **SNIP** The company’s founder and chairman Jim Koch said on CNBC’s “The Exchange” Friday that it...

Boston, which reported its second case of COVID-19 on March 2, may actually have had some 2,300 infections by the start of that month, according to Northeastern University researchers. A team led by Alessandro Vespignani, a professor in its College of Science, estimated that COVID-19 was likely spreading in a number of American cities by Feb. 1 when much of the focus was still on China. Its modeling suggests that there could have been a combined total of some 28,000 infections by March 1 in Boston, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco and New York when the official combined total for these...

The Boston Globe newspaper's obituary section spanned a devastating 15 pages in its Sunday edition, as Massachusetts reels from the coronavirus crisis with more than 36,000 cases. Massachusetts has the third greatest coronavirus breakout in the country with more than 1,560 deaths reported so far. While not all the deaths that filled Sunday’s Boston Globe issue were virus-related, there has been a stunning spikes in deaths in the state as a result of the pandemic. 'Never in my life have I seen the obituary listings take up almost a whole page. I can’t imagine what NY and NJ papers look...

People of color make up many of the front-line workers designated as “essential” amid the pandemic — the grocery store clerks, bus drivers and hospital workers putting themselves at greater risk each day simply because they have to leave their homes to go to work. “Our residents are the front-line workers, and they actually have to keep going so society can keep moving,” said City Councilor Andrea Campbell, who represents Mattapan and part of Dorchester. “These are cops, firefighters, EMS, trash workers, public works employees, nurses, T workers. They’re exposing themselves every single day for the larger community while at...

A century of Boston’s cultural history in the course of a changing Kenmore Square has come to an end with the closing of one of the city’s most storied hotels due to Covid-19. In a post on its Facebook page, the Boston Hotel Buckminster on Beacon Street announced that it suspended all operations as of March 20 to protect the well-being of its guests and staff in response to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and state officials. Hotel Manager Trina Nolan said: “We will be cancelling all existing reservations moving forward. We do not have plans of reopening...

Every city resident is being directed to wear masks when out in public and a citywide curfew is being instituted between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. said Boston Mayor Martin Walsh Sunday, as he noted his continued frustration with outside gatherings while coronavirus cases rise in Boston.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says his temporary suspension of the city’s ban on single-use plastic shopping bags is about “flexibility.” He’s lying. It’s about “stupidity.” Boston’s anti-plastic-bag mandate was idiotic from the beginning, and now it’s being outed by the coronavirus crisis as the danger to public health it’s always been. Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday also announced a temporary ban on reusable bags. “From now on, reusable bags are prohibited and all regulations on plastic bag bans are lifted,” Baker said. ADVERTISING “During this challenging time, we understand the retail establishments our residents rely on — like grocery stores,...

Boston University announced last week that some scientists at their National Emerging Infectious Disease Lab (NEIDL) will temporarily suspend their work on Ebola to begin studying SARS-CoV-2, better known as the coronavirus. Virologist Robert Davey is leading the effort. Next week, Davey and his colleagues will begin work in a BSL-4 lab — the kind with scientists in spacesuits — screening compounds that might help patients with COVID-19. WBUR spoke to Davey about what his team will be doing, and what they hope to find. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. What are you going to do...

A former associate director of a US biotechnology company is facing up to seven years in prison in China after allegedly hiding her coronavirus symptoms and flying from Los Angeles to Beijing in hopes of receiving treatment. The Chinese national, 37, gobbled down anti-fever medicine at LAX to suppress her high temperatures before boarding the 13-hour flight back to her homeland with her husband and son, Chinese authorities said. The mother-of-one, named as Jie Li, worked for Biogen, a multinational firm at the center of an outbreak of the coronavirus in Massachusetts. Around 30 per cent of the confirmed cases...