A federal judge said Thursday, September 10, he will issue an order condemning parts of three streets in West Roxbury, giving the property to a company that plans to build a natural gas pipeline through the neighborhood and setting the stage for construction to possibly start within weeks.
The ruling allows Algonquin Gas Transmission to take possession of what is currently city property under Washington, Grove and Centre Streets in West Roxbury.
Algonquin brought the city to court seeking an order that would force the city to give it the property. Lawyers for Boston argued that Algonquin had not proved the easements were necessary.
A city attorney said Boston will explore its appeal options.
Later proceedings will determine how much Algonquin will pay Boston for the property.
Famed neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks died over the weekend at 82. Sacks made a double career of exploring the human brain, and writing about the most remarkable patients and stories he found in that work. “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” was just one of his bestselling books. “Awakenings” another. Robin Williams played Sacks in the movie. In 2013, we talked with Oliver Sacks about life and aging. “The joy of aging,” he called it. As always, he was remarkable.
A university mathematician found something that didn’t add up, and now she’s suing the state of Kansas to make sure every vote counts.
Wichita State University statistician Beth Clarkson requested Sedgwick County release election records for the recent election.
This week, Secretary of State Kris Kobach asked a judge to block that request.
Kobach argued the records are not part of the open records act, and said they’re covered under the same issues from a previously rejected lawsuit.
In Sedgwick County, the voting tapes record every stroke a voter makes on the machine.
The Election Commissioner there said the tapes are 385 feet long and are stored in 42 boxes.
The mathematician wanted to examine the voting tapes after something didn’t add up.
Clarkson explained, “I don’t understand why those patterns are there, the patterns are very definitely real. But we don’t know what’s causing them or why they’re there. They do fit what would be expected if election fraud is occurring, and that’s very concerning.”
On August 18, 23-year-old Marianne Diaz says she and her children awoke to state police detectives and a SWAT team breaking down her door. She said that the officers were looking for a man that hadn’t lived in the home for months.
Diaz alleges that she was not allowed to put on clothes and was frisked by a female officer even though she was naked. Diaz’s fiancé said he suffered a minor back injury during the raid. Diaz said that officers used vulgar language in front of the children.
The city man state and local police sought last Wednesday in a fruitless Hillside Street SWAT raid that frightened residents has been regularly checking in with a probation officer for months.
Additionally, Worcester police appear to have arrested the man Friday afternoon and listed him on the arrest log as living at a different address than the apartment they raided.
Shane B. Jackson Jr., 36, is listed as living at 120 Southgate St. Apt. 2 in Friday’s police log. A spokesperson for the state probation office also confirmed Friday that, as terms of his pretrial release on an April drug test, Mr. Jackson has been checking in with a probation officer three times a week.
There was no immediate indication Friday that Mr. Jackson had violated probation, the spokesperson said, and his next scheduled hearing in that case is a routine one slated for October.
The office confirmed that people under the eye of probation officers are required to give a valid home address, which probation officers are allowed to visit unannounced at any time. The office is not allowed, however, to publicly disclose that address, the spokesperson said.
Police who arrested Mr. Jackson at 120 Southgate St. Friday entered his address on the log as 120 Southgate St. Apt. 2. The charges of the arrest were driving a vehicle with a revoked or suspended license.
On Aug. 19, Mr. Jackson was the target of a Worcester SWAT team that – at the behest of state police – conducted an unannounced, or “no-knock,” warrant search at 17 Hillside St. Apt. 3. State police wrote in an affidavit that Mr. Jackson lived there and was illegally in possession of two firearms.
The three adults who live in the Hillside Street three-decker apartment – including a mother with two young daughters – say they’ve never seen Mr. Jackson, and that he lived there before they moved in this May. They allege that police stormed the apartment, used vulgarities and required the mother, Marianne Diaz, to kneel naked at gunpoint for minutes clutching her daughters before being allowed to cover up.
State Police Col. Richard D. McKeon told the T&G this week that officers did not hit the wrong location, and that the trooper who applied for the warrant had been led there by “probable cause.” The trooper affidavit attached to the search warrant said the information came from a confidential informant. It did not say whether surveillance was conducted on the home prior to the warrant’s issuance.
A core sample pulled from the concrete of the Cocoli Locks where cracks and leaks have appeared does not bode well for the Panama Canal expansion project, which is on a strict deadline for completion in April 2016.
The crack and subsequent leaks appeared recently in the concrete of one of the interior chambers of the new Cocoli Locks on the Pacific side of the waterway during testing of the new locks.
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