Suffolk County, Boston | featured news

DEERFIELD — A Massachusetts man who police say left a bomb at his workplace has pleaded not guilty.Nelson LaCaprucia, of Easthampton, entered his plea Thursday on a charge of manufacturing an explosive, incendiary or destructive device.The 46-year-old worked at Trew Stone Inc., a stone products supplier in Deerfield. Police say LaCaprucia made the device at work while off the clock.Authorities found the device Wednesday and evacuated the building. The device has been safely deactivated.

The debate over renaming Yawkey Way will rage on for at least another two weeks, as the city board charged with approving or rejecting the change delayed its vote in an emotional hearing in a room named after another Boston fixture with a racially charged history.

The heartbroken mother of a missing Marine recruit who disappeared last November called her gregarious son the “mayor of Winthrop” yesterday, hours after authorities confirmed that his decomposing body was found earlier this week in the woods off a stretch of highway in Canton.“My baby, to be on the side of the road for all that time — it kills me,” Kim Brancato said through tears at her Winthrop home yesterday afternoon.

Leave it to a court officer to recognize a judge.Keith Downer, the assistant chief court officer at Dudley District Court, used his investigative skills to identify a judge whose portrait long sat unidentified at the Supreme Judicial Court. He studied the portrait and after painstaking review, determined it was former Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, who was appointed to the court on Aug. 31, 1830.

Suffolk prosecutors say a Roslindale pipe company accused of manslaughter in the 2016 deaths of two men in a South End trench collapse forged documents claiming their workers had undergone excavation training.At a hearing yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, Assistant District Attorney Lynn Feigenbaum claimed the training sign-in sheets were “intentionally falsified.”

MOSCOW — Russia announced the expulsion of more than 150 diplomats, including 60 Americans, yesterday and said it was closing a U.S. consulate in retaliation for the wave of Western expulsions of Russian diplomats over the poisoning of an ex-spy and his daughter in Britain, a tit-for-tat response that intensified the Kremlin’s rupture with the United States and Europe.

President Trump bid farewell to one of his longest-serving aides yesterday as he departed D.C. to discuss infrastructure in Ohio.The president appeared alongside outgoing communications director Hope Hicks outside the Oval Office on Hicks’ last day at the White House.Trump pointed at Hicks, waved to the cameras, and gave Hicks a handshake and a kiss on the cheek before heading to Marine One.Hicks has been one of the president’s most trusted, loyal and influential staffers. She held a portfolio that extended well beyond her job title.

The towering gambling resort rising over Everett will probably not carry Steve Wynn’s tarnished name, with casino executives saying they are “absolutely” considering renaming it after months of sexual harassment allegations targeting the disgraced former CEO.“We are absolutely considering a rebranding of the project and we’ll have an announcement on that at a later date,” Wynn Boston Harbor President Robert DeSalvio said after a Massachusetts Gaming Commission hearing yesterday. “It’s under active consideration right now.”

A Boston police officer accused of drunkenly slamming his personal vehicle into another car early New Years Day — critically injuring the other driver — has been indicted on felony assault charges, prosecutors said.Dominic Columbo, 39, a six-year department veteran, was charged with two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, as well as negligent operation of a motor vehicle and operating under the influence.

After earning more than $400,000 while on leave and facing federal extortion charges, two top aides to Mayor Martin J. Walsh are back at City Hall.City officials confirmed entertainment czar Kenneth Brissette and intergovernmental relations director Timothy Sullivan had returned to work this week following the dismissal of a federal case against the two for allegedly pressuring Boston Calling organizers to hire unnecessary union workers in 2014. A spokeswoman said neither man was available for comment.