Published May 17, 2010
When we asked for your ideas for the forthcoming WBUR iPhone app, you responded overwhelmingly. Now, in cahoots with PRX, we’re busy putting the finishing touches on an app that you invented.
Join me here on Tuesday, May 25, at 12 noon, for a preview of what we’re cooking up. You can sign up for an e-mail reminder below:
Published May 17, 2010
A slow news Monday morning, also known as Monday morning:
So far this year, more than a dozen new shops have opened on Newbury Street — from Cotelac women’s apparel to British clothier Ben Sherman — giving the street a 95 percent occupancy rate among more than 300 retail properties. (Johnny Diaz, Globe)
The nation’s top cop saluted the progress the country has made in areas such as race relations as he received an honorary Doctor of Laws, invoking both his status as the nation’s first African-American attorney general and the fact that the country and the commonwealth of Massachusetts have black chief executives. (Rich Barlow, BU Today)
On Sunday, just days after 14-year-old Jaewon Martin’s funeral, clergy in predominantly African-American congregations across Boston spoke out against youth violence and vowed to minister to way ward teenagers in hope of preventing more deaths. They pledged to turn the grief from Martin’s death into resolve. (Peter Schworm, Globe)
An owner of a wounded pit bull who mauled a Hyde Park child defended his pet yesterday as an excitable puppy who didn’t deserve to take a bullet from a cop. (Laurel J. Sweet, Herald)
The renewed vigor of the Boston Celtics, who thumped Orlando 92-88 on Sunday, has gotten even the attention of NPR. (Tom Goldman and Renee Montagne, NPR)
Got a suggestion for Hubbub’s daily roundup? Share your links in the comments.
Published May 15, 2010
We’ve all sat in Sagamore Bridge traffic for, oh, three hours on a Sunday afternoon. For months, surface repairs shut down lanes in both directions.
Here’s a first-person view from the Army Corps Engineer, via Flickr:
Published May 14, 2010
As thousands of parents search for parking in advance of commencement here at the BU campus, Meghna interviews two grads from the Class of 1970 who walk for the first time this weekend — 40 years after a BU boycott in the wake of the Kent State shootings. BU Today produced a video story to commemorate the political turmoil in Boston at the time.
Nowadays we have something different, albeit less serious, to protest: interminable commencement addresses. Jumbo prof Barry S. Levy skips the pomp and circumstance and captures all the inspirational quotes and pithy wisdom in a joyous 60-second speech — sung to the tune of Mozart’s Turkish Rondo:
Published May 14, 2010
Iris Adler, my colleague at Radio Boston, shares this story, with an introduction:
I was meandering through Boston.com last night and happened upon James F. Smith’s blog post, “Seeking a Life Saving Match,” the compelling story of four-year-old Devan Tatlow, who suffers from a rare form of leukemia. Devan is in a desperate race for time. Doctors say they have less than 12 weeks to find the right match for a potentially life-saving bone marrow transplant. Chances of a match are one in 200,000.
I read the story, imagined the anguish, closed my laptop and then moved on. Minutes later I went back to the story — what could I possibly do to help? This is what I can do: Pass on the information as part of the effort to help secure a donor.
Take a look at the picture of young Devan. You too will want to help.
The story: Seeking a life-saving match (Worldly Boston)
Published May 14, 2010
Which WBUR personalities do you wish you could follow on Twitter? Shout out in the comments (or tweet us @WBUR). I’m lobbying for Bob Oakes!
Here are the WBUR people already tweeting:
And our programs and blogs:
You can follow them all in one fell swoop with our Twitter lists.
Published May 14, 2010
More on the arrest in Maine, the haziest detail of this whole story:
Sen. Susan Collins says there’s not a direct tie between the man arrested in Maine and the suspect in the attempted bombing in New York’s Times Square. (AP)
First, we heard she was a woman. Then she was a man. Now he’s not connected to the probe.
Updated: Wait, actually he — Mohamad Rahman, a computer programmer — is connected. So what was Collins talking about?
Published May 14, 2010
Morning reading on yesterday’s FBI raids in the Boston area.
Three Pakistani men taken into custody during a series of raids in the Boston area as part of the investigation into the failed Times Square car bombing may have provided money to the man who has admitted carrying out the unsuccessful attack, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday. (William K. Rashbaum and Scott Shane/NYT)
It could have been a drug raid or a murder probe, neighbors thought, but no one could believe that the federal government’s investigation into the failed terrorist bombing in New York’s Times Square had touched down in Watertown. (Milton J. Valencia/Globe)
Forty-four years ago, when he was a newly married 18-year-old, Bill Audy and his wife left their seaside village in northern Lebanon and followed her family to America. Two years later, after Audy used their life savings to open his first gas station in Brighton, his younger brother Elias followed him to Boston and into the gasoline business. (David Abel and Patricia Wen/Globe)
The feds followed the money and arrived in Boston. That has brought a lot of attention to the hawala system, an informal system of money transfer that doesn’t involve a bank. It might have connected the men arrested to the Times Square bomb suspect. An ex-FBI counter-terrorism expert explains that 99.9 percent of hawala transactions are perfectly legitimate. (Bob Oakes/WBUR)
What are you reading about the raids? Share links in the comments, please.
Published May 13, 2010
And all anyone can talk about is the raids.
Published May 13, 2010
Deserving stories you might not have read or heard:
The firefighters union, Local 718, has been meeting with councilors, influential insiders, and select reporters to explain why it believes the city is misleading the public and is in much better financial shape than it lets on. (David S. Bernstein/Phoenix)
Greater Boston has the third largest Haitian community in the country. The community is so large that many Haitians are offended that this year’s census doesn’t allow for them to identify as Haitian. Part of a weeklong series. (Bianca Vazquez Toness/WBUR)
The bureau took out a full-page ad in the April-May edition of Plastic Surgery News, a newsletter circulated to more than 6,000 plastic surgeons worldwide, with photos of Bulger’s gal pal, Catherine Greig, asking, “Have you treated this woman?” (Shelley Murphy/Globe)