Massachusetts, Norfolk County | featured news

While most Milton residents have been paying some of the highest sewer rates in the region, officials say as many as 452 of their neighbors have been paying nothing at all –– some of them for decades.

Weymouth residents Anita DiNatale and Annette Holmes are sisters who opened Fabiano Florist in Quincy in 1986. The business has maintained its large customer base across the South Shore despite rising competition with online ordering companies.

Temperatures were a bit brisk, in the low- to mid-20s, but the sun was shining, and nearly 1,000 people turned out Wednesday for the state’s First Day hikes in the Blue Hills Reservation.

The line leading to Quealy and Son Funeral Home on Adams Street in Abington stretched nearly two-tenths of a mile toward Washington Street for the wake of fallen Marine Sergeant Daniel Vasselian Wednesday. A funeral Mass will be celebrated Thursday at St. Bridget Catholic Church at 9 a.m. After the Mass, Vasselian will be buried at Mount Vernon Cemetery on Ralph G. Hamlin Jr. Lane in Abington.

Hundreds of people took part in Marshfield’s annual Polar Plunge on Wednesday, a New Year’s Day tradition that raised more than $10,000 to benefit injured members of the military.

The National Weather Service in Taunton has issued a winter weather watch for all of Massachusetts on Thursday and Friday and a coastal flooding watch for Norfolk, Plymouth, Essex, Suffolk, Barnstable and Nantucket counties.

Locals from throughout our readership area took to social media last night and today to share their New Year's well wishes.

According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. population slowed in the past year, and slowed enough to be the lowest growth rate in more than 70 years. As of New Year’s Day, the population is expected to be 317,297,938.

There are hikes today at 1 p.m. at state reservations in Milton and Hull as part of MassParks First Day Hikes across the state, part of a national event.