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Brad Stevens and Jaylen Brown readily admitted after Friday night’s loss the Celtics’ defensive effort has been unacceptable. As Chris Forsberg writes, it’s about time they rediscover their defensive identity.

The spoilage of nearly 2,000 COVID-19 vaccines at the VA Medical Center in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood sparked a reaction from people in the city. Anna Nagurney, a professor of operations management at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is an expert in supply chains, including vaccine rollout...

Massachusetts firefighters broke out some heavy equipment Friday to save a dog that had fallen through the ice in a Shrewsbury pond: their hovercraft. The Shrewsbury Fire Department shared a photo of the rescue, in which a firefighter waded out into the water from the vehicle to help get the dog, named Rocky, to safety from the middle of Flint&#823...

Thousands of business owners in Massachusetts could get a reprieve from surprise tax bills attached to their emergency coronavirus relief. As the NBC10 Boston Investigators first reported, the state of Massachusetts will assess a 5% tax on money that many business owners received last year through the federal government’s Paycheck Protection ...

An omnipresent image showing Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, bundled up at this week’s inauguration of President Joe Biden is now helping raise money to get food to Vermont seniors. “What a fantastic surprise,” said Jane Catton, the CEO of Age Well, referring to news that a fundraising effort will turn a silly meme into an opportunity to do some......

Investigators are looking for a missing woman after pulling her vehicle from a river in Lowell, Massachusetts. Kim Kelly-Oberhauser was last seen in Lowell around 10:45 p.m. Monday. Police said she was driving a black 2016 Range Rover. Friday, a Range Rover was recovered from the Merrimack River near Regatta Field, and authorities confirmed it was ...

Massachusetts reported 4,935 new confirmed coronavirus cases and an additional 80 deaths on Friday. There have now been 467,845 confirmed cases and 13,702 deaths, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Another 285 deaths are considered probably linked to COVID-19. The percentage of coronavirus tests coming back positive, on ave...

After being let go by the Detroit Lions, Matt Patricia reportedly is set to rejoin the New England Patriots coaching staff in a new role.

A Massachusetts circus coach was arrested Thursday on charges he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old former student multiple times in the summer of 2020, authorities said. Whitman native Steven Santos, 43, ran Simply Circus in Newton, Plymouth County prosecutors said in a statement Friday. Police spent months investigating whether he’d assaulted...

The city of Boston reported 485 new coronavirus cases on Friday, officially crossing the 50,000 case threshold. There have now been 50,325 COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. No new deaths were reported Friday, leaving the total at 1,113. For the week ending Jan. 14, an average of 5,594 people were tested each day, slightly less tha...

Pooled coronavirus testing could be coming to your child’s school in a couple of weeks. So what is it and how does work?

The coldest front of the winter so far is cruising from northwest to southeast across New England Friday evening and overnight. With it, we are tracking scattered rain and snow showers moving from the mountains and hills to the coast, most remaining scattered in nature. But locally, poor visibility and slippery conditions are possible just abo...

A Concord, New Hampshire, police officer is facing multiple charges for allegedly assaulting a woman and then attempting to conceal evidence from investigators. Bryan Croft, 39, of Concord, was arrested Friday on several felony and misdemeanor charges dating back to an incident that occurred on Oct. 17, 2020, according to the New Hampshire Attorney...

A woman was killed in a shooting in broad daylight in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood on Friday afternoon. The shooting occurred around 12:40 p.m. in the area of Bowdoin and Washington streets. When they arrived, police said they found an adult female victim suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. She was taken to a local hospital, where she...

Encore Boston Harbor on Friday announced plans resume 24 hour, seven-days-a-week service starting next week, after the Baker administration announced it would lift a business curfew on Monday. In a press release, the casino announced it would open its doors 24-7 starting Wednesday, pending approval from the state gaming commission. The resort casin...

Some businesses in Boston will be allowed to open past 9:30 p.m. starting next week as the state eases some COVID-19 restrictions, but others will be required to remain closed under the city’s cautious reopening plan, Mayor Marty Walsh said Friday. In a press conference, Walsh said Gov. Charlie Baker’s lifting of the state’s early...

We’re on the cusp of a mighty cold weekend – perhaps not cold by usual January standards in New England, but biting cold by THIS January’s standards in New England!  Canadian air spilling in on a northwest wind will hold temperatures shy of 30 degrees for most of the weekend, and that same steady northwest wind will suppress wind chill…...

Registration for the next phase of New Hampshire’s coronavirus vaccination plan got off to a quick start Friday, with nearly 150,000 people signing up in the first seven hours, Gov. Chris Sununu said. That’s almost half the people who are eligible. Registration opened at 8 a.m. for the approximately 325,000 people in phase 1B of the state’s v...

The Massachusetts stay-at-home advisory and an early closing order for businesses will expire next week as health officials see encouraging trends in the state’s COVID-19 data. An order that requires all businesses close by 9:30 p.m. concludes Monday, but businesses still won’t be able to exceed 25% capacity. That restriction will stay ...

Massachusetts schools are continuing to see an increase in coronavirus cases, with 938 more cases reported among students and staff this week. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released the numbers Thursday in its weekly COVID-19 report. A total of 541 students with district building access within seven days of the repo...

Gov. Chris Sununu on Friday morning ordered the immediate return of all New Hampshire National Guard members from Washington, D.C., citing an “alarming” report that Guardsmen from across the country were forced to sleep in unheated parking garages. “I’ve ordered the immediate return of all New Hampshire National Guardsmen and wome...

A two-alarm house fire broke out at 49 Hilltop Road in Dracut, Massachusetts, on Friday morning. The road was closed while firefighters worked to douse the flames. There was no immediate word on whether anyone was injured. No further information was immediately available.

Nearly 2,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine spoiled this week at the Jamaica Plain VA Medical Center in Boston, a spokesperson confirmed, at a time when vaccine doses coming to Massachusetts are down 73%. The Veterans Affairs Boston Pharmacy staff on Tuesday found out that a freezer at the Jamaica Plain campus failed, ruining 1,900 doses of Moder...

Police chased after a man accused of stealing a car and crashing it in Brockton Thursday night, sending four people to the hospital, according to authorities. Brockton Police were called just before 10 p.m. when the unidentified man first allegedly tried to steal a car at the Speedway Gas Station at 296 North Pearl Street. The suspect was unsuccess...

Today brings a little bit of milder air before real winter cold takes over for the weekend. Another shortwave has also brought in more flurries across southern New England this morning. Snow showers continue across ski areas, especially in Vermont, where they have picked up several inches of snowfall overnight. A little push of ...

Widline Pyrame couldn’t find a doll that looked like her when she was growing up. “We didn’t really have Black dolls,” the Haiti native said. “We had white dolls. I wanted my hair to be just like my dolls. The dolls’ hair was straight.” As an adult in the United States, she mentored Black children while get...

Phase 2 of Massachusetts’ vaccine distribution timeline is scheduled to begin in less than two weeks – that’s two months ahead of the general population. Some were surprised to learn that one “co-morbid condition” that qualifies people to get the vaccine in that earlier phase is smoking. “Doesn’t really seem righ...

A man ran over over another man, killing him, after shouting racial slurs at at him in Belmont Tuesday, according to prosecutors who filed a civil rights violation and other charges against the driver.

The quintuple murder conviction in one of Vermont’s highest-profile criminal cases was before the Vermont Supreme Court Thursday, with the defense claiming errors in the trial mean the guilty verdicts should be tossed out. However, prosecutors insist justice was carried out correctly in the case of Steven Bourgoin of Williston. “Mr. Bou...

In one of his first orders of business, President Joe Biden issued an extension of the pause on federal student loan payments for eight more months. It is a relief to many struggling borrowers. “I ended up with $30,000 in federal student loans,” says Jenny Rollins, a Boston University graduate. Rollins is expecting her first baby next w...

There are fewer Massachusetts communities at the highest risk of coronavirus transmission this week than last week, state health data released Thursday shows. The town-by-town coronavirus risk data — which classifies communities’ risk level on a scale from red, the highest, to grey — puts 222 cities and towns in the red zone, from...

Despite security concerns and the coronavirus pandemic, a New Hampshire man took a risk and traveled to Washington for the inauguration of President Joe Biden, saying he couldn’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Charlie St. Clair has been a Biden supporter from the start. “I wanted this, in the worst way, to happen,” he s...

An associate professor at the UMass Amherst College of Nursing found dozens of tolls from New York and New Jersey charged to her account after she connected a new SUV’s dealer plate to her E-ZPass account.

The Boston Celtics will be without star forward Jayson Tatum in Friday’s road game versus the Philadelphia 76ers.

Massachusetts reported 4,821 new confirmed coronavirus cases Thursday and an additional 75 deaths. There have now been 13,622 confirmed deaths and 462,910 cases, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Another 284 deaths are considered probably linked to COVID-19. The percentage of coronavirus tests coming back positive, on aver...

Birds often found in tropical places like the Caribbean and Florida are appearing in Maine. Over the past week, people from Gray, outside Portland to the Acadia region have reported what scientists have identified as purple gallinules. “If you see photos of them, they’ve got these incredibly long toes,” said Doug Hitchcox, a naturalist at Maine Aud...

A brief warm-up is here before an extended stretch of more familiar mid-winter New England weather: cold. It’s actually a warm front passing over that generated our scattered flurries and snow showers with little accumulation Thursday, followed by some evening clearing. But another front moves in late night Thursday with more snow s...

Vermont officials are expected to release more information Friday about how people age 75 can get vaccinated against the virus that causes COVID-19. On Monday the state will begin taking reservations for that age group. During the state’s twice weekly virus briefing on Friday state officials are expected to announce details of how people can make t...

A Massachusetts lawyer who has previously been charged with rape is wanted in Boston on a new rape charge as well as for allegedly breaking and entering at night, police said.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, in her second day as head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is already executing on plans to fulfill President Joe Biden’s promise to administer 100 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine in his first 100 days. “We recognize that this is the most immediate emergency — to get this coun...

This week’s weather pattern has been repetitive – a series of energetic disturbances aloft are prompting clouds, flurries and snow showers with gradually cooler air each day. Meanwhile, significant moisture needed for larger storm development stays separate, to the south. The pattern won’t change much in the days ahead, though changes in temp...

A four-year-old child was seriously injured in a crash Thursday morning in Falmouth, Massachusetts involving a sedan and commercial truck. Falmouth police responded to the crash on Route 151 near the ramp to Route 28 at around 9 a.m. The child, a passenger in one of the vehicles, was flown to a Boston-are hospital. The crash remains under investiga...

Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack has been tapped to serve in the Biden-Harris administration as deputy administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. Pollack departs after six years as one of the state’s most visible cabinet secretaries, leaving at a time when the transportation landscape has been upended by the ...

[This story first appeared on Boston Restaurant Talk.] A local brewery is going to be closing its Boston location for the time being. According to a source, Night Shift Brewing at Lovejoy Wharf is planning to temporarily shut down this weekend, with a Facebook post from the business saying that it will close after business hours on Saturday, Januar...

Gov. Chris Sununu provided an update Thursday on the start of the vaccination process for New Hampshire residents age 65 and up. “Tomorrow is a very big day,” he said of the next phase of the vaccine rollout. At 8 a.m. Friday, he said the state will begin accepting vaccination appointments for individuals who fall under “Phase 1b....

A 23-year-old New Hampshire man has been charged with murdering his mother at her Wakefield, Massachusetts home earlier this week, prosecutors said Thursday. Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement Thursday morning that Timothy Martin, of Manchester, had been arrested and charged with murdering his 61-year-old mother, Pamela Woo...

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday said he will next week lift a stay-at-home advisory and an order requiring all businesses close by 9:30 p.m. as health officials see encouraging trends in the state’s COVID-19 data. The orders will be lifted Monday at 5 a.m., Baker said, adding the moves were possible because COVID-19 hospitalizati...

Lawmakers are poised on Thursday to dig into whether staff and labor issues might have exacerbated a catastrophic COVID-19 outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home. A legislative committee convened to investigate the tragedy that led to the deaths of at least 76 veterans early in the pandemic who resided at the home will hold a hearing focusing...

Waves of snow showers or flurries stick around in the forecast as little disturbances pass through the northeast.  Another shortwave moves through for today and will again bring snow showers across parts of New England, mainly north for the morning hours, and farther southeast by afternoon. Another inch or two is possible in hig...

Now that the inaugural events are over, President Joe Biden’s focus turns to the first 100 days — a closely watched time period for a new administration. “It is absolutely critical,” said political science professor Christina Kulich-Vamvakas. “And it’s more critical for this president than, I think, any president since...

As President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made history Wednesday at their inauguration, former President Donald Trump was already out of Washington. But outgoing Vice President Mike Pence and members of past Republican administrations were on hand for the transfer of power. Andy Card, a native of Holbrook, Massachusetts, who served as...

Kamala Harris made history Wednesday as she became the nation’s first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president. In Massachusetts, many celebrated the major milestone by paying tribute to Harris and her style.  Women all over the country wore pearls and Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers to honor the historic inauguration. Harris wa...

Experts say it will take an “army of vaccinators” to protect millions of Americans from COVID-19. Proudly helping to wage that war on coronavirus are about 400 students from UMass Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. “There are so many people that need to be vaccinated in a very short period of time,” said graduate nu...

A New Hampshire teenager addressed the nation on the night of President Joe Biden’s inauguration as part of NBC’s “Celebrating America” special. Brayden Harrington, who has a stutter, met Biden on the campaign trail, and the 13-year-old says his life was forever changed. Harrington first met the new president last February a...

Amid all the formality of Wednesday’s inauguration of President Joe Biden, sightings of a decidedly casual and comfortable accessory choice by Vermont’s junior U.S. Senator turned heads and lit up social media.

Massachusetts reported 3,987 new confirmed coronavirus cases Wednesday and an additional 78 deaths.

State and city officials in Massachusetts took to Twitter to celebrate the ascension of now-President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris into the nation’s highest offices Wednesday. In an historic ceremony of firsts, Harris was sworn in as the nation’s first female, first Black and first Asian American vice president. The former...

Waves of snow showers or flurries stick around in the forecast as little disturbances pass through the northeast.

Massachusetts residents, qualified to get a COVID-19 vaccine, are beginning to have more options of places to get vaccinated.

With all of the pomp and circumstance surrounding President Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday, who would have thought that a certain Vermont senator’s mittens would be captivating people’s attention? Yet Sen. Bernie Sanders’ brown winter handwear was all over Twitter and Instagram on Wednesday. The mittens, which he also...

Thousands of doses of coronavirus vaccine exceeded temperature requirements during their shipment to Maine, public health authorities said on Tuesday.

Rhode Island on Tuesday began allowing the resumption of competitions in sports deemed lower or moderate risk amid the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Department of Environmental Management, competitive events in such sports as swimming, sideline cheering, basketball, ice hockey and gymnastics can resume if they follow state guidelines. The ...

A second person tested positive Tuesday in Massachusetts with the more contagious variant of COVID-19 first detected in the United Kingdom, Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said. Bharel said the case of the B.1.1.7 variant was discovered by the Massachusetts Public Health Laboratory, but she did not offer further details. The first case of ...

Inauguration Day 2021 features colder air moving into the northeastern United States, including Washington D.C., where the temperatures are in the lower 40s. There’s also a chance of a passing rain or snow shower as the wind picks up there. As usual, it’s a complex weather map around New England today. We have dual cold fronts coming across a...

A group of restaurant investors and operators focused on casual-dining chains has completed its acquisition of Friendly’s Restaurants. The chain, founded in Springfield more than 80 years ago, includes 130 corporate-owned and franchised locations. Amici Partners Group LLC says it plans to keep all locations open, preserve “thousands” of jobs, and b...

State Street Corp. plans to eliminate approximately 1,200 jobs this year, mostly in middle management, another cost-cutting move after it reduced its global real estate footprint by about 1 million square feet, an executive said Tuesday. Boston-based State Street CEO Ron O’Hanley had said in April that the company would not conduct any layoffs thro...

An 18-year-old woman is in the hospital with a stab wound after a robbery at a Holiday Inn in Dedham, Massachusetts Wednesday morning, according to authorities. Just before 6 a.m., a 911 caller reported that a man entered the hotel room and threatened to shoot the six people who were staying there. The man allegedly pointed a black semi-automatic f...

On the day President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be sworn into office in Washington, law enforcement officials in Massachusetts are again saying they are not aware of any specific or substantiated threats of violence directed at the state capitol or other government buildings in the area. “Rest assured, if ther...

More than 20 Massachusetts businesses and nursing homes have been cited by OSHA for coronavirus-related violations, according to reports. Most of the businesses facing fines are local nursing homes, including the Life Care Centers of Littleton, Leominster and Merrimack Valley and CareOne of Lowell, The Lowell Sun reports. In the latest rebuke of it...

A man ran over over another man, killing him, after shouting racial slurs at at him in Belmont Tuesday, according to prosecutors who filed a civil rights violation and other charges against the driver.

Temperatures will continue to take a tumble over the next couple of days. Scattered heavy snow showers are possible Wednesday morning – up to an inch or two is possible in a few locations in southern New England.   We aren’t expecting a big storm any time soon, but we are expecting a return to some even colder, more seasonable...

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick’s girlfriend, Linda Holliday, fired back at an Instagram commenter who brought up Belichick “letting Tom Brady go.”

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services has updated its instructions to health care providers about registering medically vulnerable patients for the coronavirus vaccine.

A Maine couple is getting ready to start selling an invention that they dreamed up out of pandemic necessity. Over the past four months, Jocelyn Olsen and Colin Greig have developed a battery-powered, heated seat cushion and created their own company to sell them. Their business is named Hüga, which is a spin on the Danish word “hygge” which......

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott and the state’s top health official are among those quarantining after possible exposure to the coronavirus, the governor’s office announced late Tuesday. Scott, Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine and other administration officials were told that a contractor who provided services for coronavirus briefings on Ja...

The Boston Celtics are steadily moving toward having a full roster again.

Brayden Harrington, the teenager whom President-elect Joe Biden befriended as a fellow stutterer — and will be part of a primetime inaugural special — has a book coming out this summer.

Massachusetts reported 2,567 new confirmed coronavirus cases Tuesday and an additional 45 deaths.

Fenway Park will be Massachusetts’ second mass vaccination site, joining Gillette Stadium when it opens Feb. 1, Gov. Charlie Baker’s office announced Tuesday. The Baker administration also announced a new partnership with CVS and Walgreens pharmacies that will begin to vaccinate qualified residents. Also announced Tuesday were the expan...

We have more waves of clouds, flurries, and cooling temperatures as we continue the week.

Times of social isolation and insecurity affect us all, but for our veteran and military families, it can be the tipping point that triggers depression and even suicide. Veterans between the age of 18 to 35 have the highest and fastest growing suicide rate among the veteran community. According to the National Veteran Suicide Annual Report the suic...

One of the best-known places for wings in the Greater Boston area has closed for the time being. According to a source, Buff’s Pub in Newton Corner is shuttered, with the website for the Washington Street spot saying, “For the safety of our staff and customers, Buffs will be closed until further notice.” The note goes on to tell.....

A dozen games are in the books for the Celtics and there is plenty to digest. Our Chris Forsberg highlights a few team and individual statistical takeaways that jump out to him.

A missing 10-year-old child last seen Tuesday morning in Newton, Massachusetts, has been safely located, police said. Clara Alfermann walked away from the Montessori School on Crescent Street in the Newton Center area at about 11 a.m., according to police. A couple of hours after pleading for help locating the child, police tweeted that Alfermann h...

Boston has been crowned as the state capital with the highest quality of life in the United States, according to a study by WalletHub. The study compared each of the 50 state capitals using various metrics measuring four aspects of living: affordability, economic well-being, quality of education and health and quality of life. In addition to having...

Gov. Charlie Baker is being urged by a coalition of community activists and medical professionals to give the state’s Black and immigrant communities priority access to COVID-19 vaccines. “Our Black and Latino neighbors have been the hardest hit by the pandemic, and we have failed to implement sufficient measures to protect them,”...

A New Hampshire Democratic lawmaker’s criticism of a local police chief for attending a rally preceding the attack on the U.S. Capitol has prompted her removal from her committee assignments while some officials voiced support for the chief. Rep. Rosemarie Rung, of Merrimack, tweeted a video of rioters breaking through barriers and confrontin...

The steady stream of energetic disturbances through the sky of New England continues for days to come – creating periods of clouds, flurries, sprinkles and showers of snow and rain, but cut off from substantial moisture locked way to the south in the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico and Tropical Atlantic, meaning significant storm development just isn’t goi...

Police checking on a speech therapist’s wellbeing found her dead in the basement of her home in Wakefield, Massachusetts, where her son charged police officers investigating the home armed with a knife, prosecutors said Tuesday. The officers shot the 23-year-old man, who remains in intensive care after surgery at a local hospital, Middlesex D...

More than a dozen sites are being illuminated in Boston Tuesday evening in solidarity with cities across the nation memorializing the hundreds of thousands of lives lost to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Presidential Inaugural Committee announced that it would host the COVID-19 Memorial in honor of those who have died from the coronavirus the day befor...

The iconic South Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade has been canceled for a second straight year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, organizers said Tuesday. The South Boston Allied Veterans Council said in a tweet the event had been canceled for 2021 due to ongoing restrictions on public gatherings put in place by Gov. Charlie Baker. It marks...

The NFL is all about winning games, and no player has done that job at a higher level in the playoffs than Tom Brady.

Massachusetts health officials early this week announced its first confirmed case of the new, more contagious COVID variant amid concerns that mutations to the virus could worsen the pandemic. While the state had only confirmed one case of the new variant, initially detected in the United Kingdom, health experts say it has likely been circulating i...