Suffolk County, Boston | featured news

Years after being introduced with much hype and fanfare and then labeled a flop, virtual reality adoption and software development continues to grow and keep marching on, game developers in town for the PAX East convention said yesterday.“There’s enough of an audience of people that are doing VR that you could make money, and that’s when developers start jumping in,” said Steve Arnold, head of Oculus Studios. “Entertainment, news, working experiences, those are starting to come along now that an audience has been built around it.”

The state board that determines whether people convicted of minor misdemeanors should have a shot at getting a firearms license has not held a meeting or hearing in more than seven months — a mysterious delay that violates state law and has prompted a lawsuit by its former attorney.

EASTON — Police say the remains of a man have been found along with a moped in a wooded area of Easton.The discovery was made Thursday by a K-9 officer who had been searching for Gregory Glavin, a 35-year-old Easton man who disappeared in February after leaving a friend's house in North Attleborough on a moped.Police say they are awaiting an official determination of the identity of the remains, found under a camouflage tarp.Foul play is not suspected.

Tens of thousands of video game diehards are converging on the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center this weekend for the annual PAX East convention. Dressed to the nines as characters universal and niche, gaming buffs will line up to play the newest games, watch professionals duke it out on the big screen and more. Here are the top things to look for if you go to PAX this year.

Droves of loyal fans donned parkas and ski hats to support the Red Sox at their 117th home opener yesterday, where temperatures only reached the low 40s and a brutal wind cut through the Fenway Park bleachers.Despite the wintry weather, fans were thrilled to welcome the Sox, who got off to a red hot start to the season on the road.“It’s wonderful. It’s a holiday,” said fan Marilyn Deedy of Princeton. “Once Fenway opens, spring has sprung.”

Federal and state health officials are joining forces to put the brakes on a spike in HIV infections among drug users in the northeast part of the state, health officials announced.The Massachusetts Department of Public Health requested help from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after seeing the increase in new HIV cases last year in Lawrence and Lowell among people who inject drugs, DPH said.

High winds yesterday morning left many Bay State residents without power until late in the afternoon or early evening.National Grid spokesman Bob Kievra said the wind-related outages reported in eastern Massachusetts mostly occurred in Middlesex and Essex counties, with 400 Tewksbury residents impacted.As of yesterday afternoon, Kievra said a bulk of the outages had been restored and extra crews would be working overnight as well.“We had 1,700 without power across the state and most of them are wind-related,” Kievra said.

A hospital employee has been fired from his job after authorities say he used a pen with a hidden camera to record his colleagues in a staff-only restroom.A Lahey Health spokesman said the pen was found by staff at the Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington last week during a routine cleaning of an employee restroom.Burlington police said Michael Mcdermott, 21, of Tewksbury is being charged with possession of a wiretap device and three counts of photographing an unsuspected nude person.

Investigators found saliva on the gun of an Internal Revenue Service agent that a college student-intern claims the agent shoved in her mouth while he raped and choked her in a parked car after a night of heavy drinking, prosecutors said.James R. Clarke, 44, was released on personal recognizance yesterday by assistant Suffolk Superior Court Clerk-Magistrate Edward J. Curley and ordered not to leave Massachusetts. He pleaded not guilty to six indictments, including aggravated rape, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and strangulation.

U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III said Facebook’s privacy crisis “opens the door” to government regulation of the internet behemoth.“When you see lapses like that, it opens the door for Congress to get involved,” Kennedy told the Herald about news that “malicious actors” mined data from most of Facebook’s 2 billion users.