Suffolk County, Boston | featured news

SPRINGFIELD  — Officials say a child playing with matches sparked the March Springfield apartment building fire that killed three people.State fire and police officials announced the identification of fire victim Aden Abdakadr and his children two-year-old Ahmet and one-year-old Fatumo.They died in the March 18th fire that displaced 60 to 80 people living in the 20-unit building.

The man allegedly responsible for carrying out a deadly stabbing on a busy Downtown street Monday night as crowds of concert-goers walked by was arrested, police said. Mark Love, 55, of Boston was arrested today and is expected to be arraigned for  murder tomorrow in Boston Municipal Court, police said.  Hub police continue to investigate what lead to the stabbing Monday night.

FITCHBURG - A badly injured 9-year-old boy rescued yesterday from a home where his younger sister was found unresponsive and later died was told by his parents not to call 911, court records released today state.The boy suffered "serious injuries and bruising to his face," and told officers his mother, Shana Pedroso, "had glued a wound on his neck closed with super glue," records show.His sister, just 6 years old, was pronounced dead after being found unconscious in their single-family home on Stoneybrook Road in this central Massachusetts city.

The state Department of Higher Education is also scrubbing the sale of Mount Ida College to UMass.In the deal, announced Friday, the private liberal arts college’s 74-acre campus will become part of the University of Massachusetts, which in exchange will take on the school’s estimated $55 million to $70 million debt. The students will move more than 50 miles away to UMass Dartmouth.

BOSTON — A nearly $41 billion state budget unveiled Wednesday by House Democratic leaders calls for a 3 percent increase in overall spending, no tax increases and intensified oversight of the embattled Massachusetts State Police.Speaker Robert DeLeo said the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 protects services for the state's most vulnerable residents while remaining within the "fiscal realities" facing the state and U.S. as a whole.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Massachusetts museum that won a legal battle over its plan to sell dozens of works of art announced Tuesday that 13 of those pieces, including one by Norman Rockwell, will be auctioned next month.Rockwell's "Blacksmith's Boy-Heel and Toe" is among the pieces for sale by Sotheby's in May, the Berkshire Museum announced. Works by William Bouguereau, Alexander Calder and John La Farge also are going on the auction block.

BOSTON — Allegations of sexual misconduct have roiled the Massachusetts Legislature in recent months, leading to a shake-up of Senate leadership and heated debate in the House.Yet the Legislature's longstanding exemption from the state's public records law and frequent use of non-disclosure agreements make fully assessing the scope of the sexual harassment problem on Beacon Hill virtually impossible.

GREENFIELD, Mass. — Jurors in the trial of a Massachusetts man charged with killing a 95-year-old man and severely injuring his 77-year-old wife during a home invasion in 2016 have heard a recorded statement he made to police.The Recorder reports that jurors in the double murder trial of 25-year-old Joshua Hart on Tuesday heard a recording made by police in Virginia in which Hart recounts the attack on 95-year-old Thomas Harty, who used a wheelchair, and 77-year-old Joanna Fisher, in their Orange home. Fisher died several weeks after the home invasion.

BOSTON — Massachusetts students have again taken home the top scores in national reading and math exams, outscoring their peers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam.The Baker administration announced Tuesday that the scores marked the seventh consecutive time Massachusetts students scored first or statistically tied for first on the tests.Despite the high scores, a stubborn achievement gap persists.