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New state data show 51 percent of COVID hospitalizations in Massachusetts on Tuesday were patients who were seriously ill from the virus, while 49 percent of patients were admitted for other reasons but happened to test positive upon admission. The state launched its new method of reporting primary vs. incidental COVID-19 hospitalizations on Thursday, reporting that on Jan. 18, 1,624 people were in the hospital primarily because they were seriously sick with the virus while 1,563 patients had tested positive for COVID-19 while being hospitalized for other

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) said on Sunday that the Biden administration has not reached out to him to discuss voting rights legislation, as the White House works to pass two key Democrat-backed bills. NBC's "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd questioned Romney on attempts to unify the country, noting that there appears to be only a few Republicans willing to work with the Biden administration, with Romney among them.

The Boston Police Department has put the most vocal critic of the city’s vaccine mandate on leave amid an internal-affairs investigation a week ahead of the jab deadline. Sgt. Shana Cottone, the head of the recently formed group Boston First Responders United, is now on administrative leave from the department, the Boston Police Department confirmed. A spokesman said it’s due to an open internal affairs investigation, so no further information is available. Cottone said BPD officers came to her house and took her badge and gun Saturday morning. “They’re trying to come after me — to silence me,” Cottone told...

It’s not just about Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The national soul-searching over whether to take down monuments to the Confederacy’s demigods has extended to other historical figures accused of wrongdoing, including Christopher Columbus (brutality toward Native Americans), the man for whom Boston’s Faneuil Hall is named (slave trader) and former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo (bigotry). Historians interviewed by The Associated Press offered varying thoughts about where exactly the line should be drawn in judging someone’s statue-worthiness, but they agreed on one thing: Scrapping a monument is not a decision that should be made in haste during political fervor....

Zac Kriegman had the ideal résumé for the professional-managerial class: a bachelors in economics from Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard and years of experience with high-tech startups, a white-shoe law firm, and an econometrics research consultancy. He then spent six years at Thomson Reuters Corporation, the international media conglomerate, spearheading the company’s efforts on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced software engineering. By the beginning of 2020, Kriegman had assumed the title of Director of Data Science and was leading a team tasked with implementing deep learning throughout the organization. But within a few months, this would all collapse....

A wealthy Russian businessman indicted in Boston late last year on hacking and insider trading charges could have access to documents and information about the 2016 election hacking in the U.S. Vladislav Klyushin was extradited to the U.S. from Switzerland late last month and charged with overseeing a multinational scam that pried privileged documents that companies were filing with U.S. regulators before they were public, then trading on the information. Among his employees, and also named in the indictment, is Ivan Yermakov – who was among a dozen Russian military intelligence officers former special counsel Robert Mueller indicted in 2018...

Chief Justice John Roberts used his year-end report on New Year’s Eve to denounce the threats being made against the Court and its members by Democratic politicians and groups, including threats to pack the Court to force an immediate liberal majority. Roberts referred to such threats as efforts to exercise “inappropriate political influence” on the Court in contravention of our constitutional values and traditions. We have been discussing the ramped up threats from Democratic leaders that the Court will either vote with the liberal justices on key issues or face “consequences,” including court packing. Recently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.),...

President Joe Biden's administration turned down a plan in late October laid out by COVID-19 testing experts to manufacture and send over 700 million rapid COVID-19 at-home tests to Americans ahead of the holidays, according to Vanity Fair.IU On October 25, according to the report, public health experts from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, the COVID Collaborative, and the Rockefeller Foundation presented the 10-page plan on a ZOOM call with White House officials. The plan was calling for a "Testing Surge to Prevent Holiday COVID Surge." In order to accomplish that, the experts told the White House...

After Monday’s announcement of a January 15th mandate for all city employees, and the implementation of a vaccine passport, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is going to have to be prepared to face the people with every step she takes. Although she’s a mere puppet in the larger scheme of things, she will have to answer to the people for the decisions that are being made. The people who have been on our front lines - during the Boston Marathon Bombing, and all throughout this pandemic, and every other emergency in between, are now being treated like peasants. They will lose...

BOSTON — The man accused of killing three people during a notorious New England crime spree has died, surrounded by the prison walls he’s been staring at since 2001. Gary Lee Sampson was convicted in the murders of two Massachusetts men, Jonathan Rizzo and Phillip McCloskey, during carjackings in 2001 and for the killing of a New Hampshire man, Robert Whitney. The Bureau of Prisons shows Sampson, inmate number 23976-038, died on December 21 at the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. In a statement, the BOP said “For safety, security and privacy reasons, this office does not...

A former Boston College student who prosecutors say drove her boyfriend to take his own life with thousands of text messages pleaded guilty Thursday to involuntary manslaughter. Inyoung You, 23, received a 2 1/2 year suspended jail sentence and 10 years of probation and was barred by a judge in Suffolk Superior Court from profiting from her case in any way. The sentence means You can avoid time behind bars if she adheres to all the terms of her probation. Prosecutors said You sent Alexander Urtula, of Cedar Grove, New Jersey, thousands of messages in the last two months of...

"Former Smith College administrative employee Jodi Shaw, a white woman, is suing the elite school in federal court for retaliation and racial discrimination including forced participation in humiliating ideological indoctrination sessions. David Pitvorak, who describes himself in his Twitter biography as an “individual rights attorney taking on Critical Race Theory in the courts,” is representing Shaw in the lawsuit. “We allege that Smith forced Shaw to undergo ritual racial humiliation and tasked her with implementing policies that racially segregated and discriminated against students,” Pitvorak tweeted. The 101-page lawsuit was filed Dec. 16 in the U.S. District Court for the District...

RED ALERT: this is not a joke. Elon Musk sat down with Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, EIC Kyle Mann, and Creative Director Ethan Nicolle for an in-depth interview on wokeness, Elizabeth Warren, taxing the rich, the Metaverse, which superhero Elon would be, and how the left is killing comedy.

Harvard professor Dr. Charles Lieber was found guilty of all federal charges against him related to concealing his ties to a Chinese university and the Chinese government's Thousand Talents Program while receiving U.S. government funding. The verdict, a big win for the Justice Department’s China Initiative, came as a federal jury in Boston quickly determined Tuesday that Lieber was guilty on all six charges, including two counts of making false statements to federal investigators, two counts of filing false tax returns, and two counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Lieber, the former chairman of...

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) this week announced the state updated its face covering advisory, urging residents to “wear a mask in public indoor spaces” moving forward. “We updated the face covering advisory today to urge all residents to wear a mask in public indoor spaces,” Baker stated during State House briefing.

Boston Mayor Wu Relentlessly Heckled As New COVID-19 Restrictions Are Announced

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Boston Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, in a Dec. 17 interview with a newspaper from Argentina, spoke about how some church factions in the U.S. drive views opposing Pope Francis via polarizing media messages. The cardinal, head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, also spoke of how the sex abuse crisis has impacted evangelization. In the interview with La Nación on the occasion of Pope Francis’ 85th birthday, Cardinal O’Malley said polarization and opposition to Pope Francis includes some conservative prelates in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, but he did not name anyone. “Yes,...

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley had strong words for the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) this weekend for its criticisms of Pope Francis. Asked by Argentinean journalist Elisabetta Pique about conservative/liberal polarization among the U.S. bishops, Cardinal O’Malley said that "the episcopal conference is polarized, but it is difficult to put a percentage on the opposing sides. There are also some bishops who are tied to a more conservative policy and the Holy Father himself has commented on the situation of EWTN, where many times the commentators are very critical of the Holy Father, at least of his ideas."

The new mask mandate will be in place anywhere mass is celebrated, and for all events including weddings and funerals, the Archdiocese of Boston said Thursday. Face coverings are making a comeback for parishes within the Archdiocese of Boston for the holidays. “I will definitely feel safer coming to church knowing people are wearing masks,” said churchgoer Moran Brister of South Boston. “In fact I might not go otherwise.” The Archdiocese announced Thursday that masks will be required for a one-month period before and after Christmas and the New Year season. “Quite extraordinarily we’re seeing yet another spike and we...

The investigation continues. That’s the official word from the University of Massachusetts about their very thorough investigation of some racist emails, a probe that was announced with such fanfare and righteous indignation earlier this fall but now appears to be sputtering out, with no suspects. No suspects? How can that possibly be?..., I saw that ZooMass had decided to get ahead of the curve with “An Update into the Investigation of Racist Emails.” “To date no perpetrator has been identified,” the statement read. “It is not uncommon for the results of a cyber inquiry to be inconclusive and it is...