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It's hard to live or work around the Statehouse or Beacon Hill without being reminded of John F. Kennedy. I did not know him, but as a young reporter I accidentally came across him backstage at the Commonwealth Armory in Boston, where he delivered a speech at a Democrat Party fundraiser before heading off to Europe. C0

On Friday, Hillary Clinton addresses the graduating class of her alma mater, Wellesley College. It's a familiar stage for her - Clinton delivered the commencement address as a College Government president in 1969. [Snip] The young activist was the first student to address the graduating class and she used that speech to lean into politics of the day.

Wednesday during a commencement speech at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, former Secretary of State John Kerry criticized the presidency of the Donald Trump as “not normal” several times, and added, “In the end, there is nothing American about it either.” Partial transcript as follows: Distinct from the hurly burly of any presidential visit, my travel to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East these past few months has informed me that the global community is watching and unsettled about the leading nation in the free world.They see us gridlocked and politically trapped in a low-intensity internal conflict of...

Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman has accused two TSA agents of making "rude" and "sexist" comments about her appearance, CBS Boston reports. The Needham-native documented her "uncomfortable" encounter at the airport in a series of tweets. According to Raisman, a female TSA agent asked if she was a gymnast, and said she recognized her by her biceps. A male TSA agent then said, "I don't see any muscles," and continued to stare at her. Raisman called the comments "rude" and "uncomfortable." In her final tweet, the Olympian said, "I work very hard to be healthy & fit. The fact that a...

Last year, MIT proudly announced that it was building a solar energy plant in North Carolina that it claimed would benefit both the bay and "tar heel" states. More than half a year later, those benefits are looking ever more theoretical with each passing month. "James McLawhorn, director of the Electrical Division of the Public Staff of the N.C. Utilities Commission, monitors utility company compliance with REPS," Don Carrington reported in the Carolina Journal this month. "McLawhorn confirmed to CJ that electricity from the Summit Farms Solar project doesn’t help North Carolina meet its renewable energy goals." "Nor do counties...

A candidate for the 2018 U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts tweeted out a video on Sunday challenging Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to prove her claims of having American Indian heritage. V.A. Shiva, who is seeking the Republican nomination in 2018 and has claimed he invented email, filmed himself holding a "23andMe" DNA testing kit, which he claims requires only his saliva and a "few short days" to prove if he was a real Indian. Shiva was born in Bombay, India, while Warren's claim is about having American Indian, or Native American, heritage. "I want to challenge Elizabeth Warren...

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Dumb-Mass) took multiple swipes at the Trump administration during a commencement address Friday, days after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. Warren pivoted to Trump during a speech at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, offering suggestions for specific causes graduates could get more involved in. "I'm trying to keep this apolitical but I can't help myself ... the principle that no one, no one in this country is above the law and we need a Justice Department, not an obstruction of justice department," Warren said. Democrats have honed in on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy...

AMESBURY — A recent quality inspection of the $300 million John Greenleaf Whittier Bridge replacement project turned up evidence of substandard work – for the second time – that could push back the project’s estimated late summer/early fall completion date. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation began work to demolish the 62-year-old Interstate 95 bridge over the Merrimack River and replace it with separate northbound and southbound bridges in 2013. While the northbound bridge was completed in 2015, quality inspectors for MassDOT recently found that concrete poured for a pier cap on the southbound bridge by an unnamed contractor did not...

A giant banner in Haverhill, Massachusetts, comparing Senator Elizabeth Warren to Pocahontas is stirring up plenty of controversy. Neighbors are speaking out, saying they want it gone, but the owner says it’s here to stay. (with video) We spoke with Ricky Early, the man behind this giant banner picturing Sen. Elizabeth Warren wearing a headdress and a phrase reading Pocahontas Must Go, a name some critics have taken to calling her. ... Trump: "It may be Pocahontas, remember that" Warren's claim of Native American heritage was questioned in 2012 during her run for Senate. Woman: "If you're not an Indian,...

Black graduate students at Harvard University will soon be a part of a first-of-its-kind ceremony. On May 23, the prestigious university will hold an individual ceremony for black graduate students, according to a report by The Root. The ceremony, which took a year to plan, celebrates “fellowship,” not “segregation,” Michael Huggins, a graduate student who will receive a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School this month, told The Root. “This is an opportunity to celebrate Harvard’s black excellence and black brilliance,” Huggins told the online publication. “It’s an event where we can see each other and...

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... Hawking, the renowned theoretical physicist turned apocalypse warning system, is back with a revised deadline. In "Expedition New Earth" — a documentary that debuts this summer as part of the BBC’s "Tomorrow’s World" science season — Hawking claims that Mother Earth would greatly appreciate it if we could gather our belongings and get out — not in 1,000 years, but in the next century or so. You heard the man — a single human lifetime. Is this nerd serious? Thanks, Steve.

Despite their apolitical image, school boards, by their own admission, are anything but. "In the education arena, local governance and community ownership won big on the ballots," Katherine Shek wrote in a recap of last year's election results in the April 2017 issue American School Board Journal. "Georgia voters said no to the state taking over low-performing public schools." "Voters in Massachusetts rejected the expansion of charter schools." Shek is the manager of the National School Boards Action Center. The American School Board Journal is published by the National School Boards Association. "In Massachusetts, more than 200 local school boards...

FULL TITLE........................At least three dead and 12 injured after a car 'deliberately targeted a crowd of people' at an auto auction before crashing through a building in Massachusetts..................At least three people have died and 12 injured after a vehicle crashed through a Massachusetts auto auction building Wednesday morning, according to local reports. Auction employee Woody Tuttle told WCVB that he heard tires 'screeching' when the 'Jeep Cherokee went flying by me'. Tuttle said he then saw the vehicle strike several people. Tuttle said the driver 'avoided the cars and went on to hit the people who were standing between the...

President Donald Trump apparently knows more about Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s background than almost all of her left-wing supporters.Last Thursday, at the NRA convention in Atlanta, Trump again went after the senior senator from Massachusetts, calling her “Pocahontas.”As usual, the alt-left twitter-verse went crazy, accusing Trump of “racism” for poking fun at her now-abandoned claims of Native-American ancestry. But the fact is, Warren did for a period of time in her adult life claim to be of Cherokee ancestry, during which time she was hired to tenured faculty positions at two Ivy League law schools, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania....

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Rather, this editorial is about something upon which all Americans should agree: America is no place for hate. However, the unfortunate reality is that ever since the election of Donald Trump as President, hate crimes that are directed against persons based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, and religious affiliation have increased substantially. For example, according to a report published last Monday by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 541 anti-Semitic incidents have occurred so far this year — an 86 percent increase compared to the same period in 2016. For anyone to deny that the increase in anti-Semitic and other hate-crime incidents is...

BOSTON (AP) — Immigrants and activists are marking International Workers’ Day with marches and rallies in Boston and its suburbs. The “Here to Stay” rallies in Boston, Chelsea and Everett on Monday are also meant to be a call for Massachusetts lawmakers to approve the Safe Communities Act. That proposal would make Massachusetts a so-called “sanctuary state” where state agencies limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

Syracuse, N.Y. --There's not a lot tunnel building going on in the United States. Four highway tunnels have been completed over the last 10 years in the U.S. Four more tunnel projects are under construction or in design. And one long discussed project that would have tunneled underneath a national forest in California was dropped. Could be a tunnel in Syracuse's future for Interstate 81? After a tunnel was initially rejected, a tunnel or depressed highway is back on the table as an option to replace Interstate 81's 1.4 mile section of raised highway in Syracuse. The DOT at first...