ATTORNEY GENERAL Andrea Campbell is coming after Milton hard. Officials in the badly divided town are struggling to figure out their next move with regard to the MBTA Communities Act, but Campbell isn’t giving them much time to think. Thirteen days after Milton residents voted by a 54-46 percent margin to reject a zoning plan put forward by the Select Board and approved at Town Meeting, Campbell filed suit against the town, claiming it was not in compliance with the MBTA Communities Act. A day later she filed a motion to have the case moved directly to the Supreme Judicial Court. Legal briefs ..read more

DUCKING THROUGH the crypts beneath the Old North Church, Commander Billie J. Farrell kept a tight grip on her hat. Her dark, gold-trimmed bicorne under her arm, the 77th commander of the USS Constitution and first woman to helm the historic ship considered the legacy of her original predecessor, Samuel Nicholson, in his final resting place.  “He did not necessarily have what people would consider a successful first voyage for Constitution,” Farrell said, delicately, of an unfortunate series of events in the Caribbean including improperly claiming a ship under orders of Great Britain as a ..read more

(This story has been updated with information about an upcoming report.) WALKING THROUGH the Boston Common, the towering bronze sculpture is hard to miss. Stories-tall winding metal depicts the embracing arms of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.  A year after the monument first rose up in the Common, Embrace Boston president and CEO Imari Paris Jeffries is “even more affirmed that we made the right decision” about the design. It can be touched, walked through, played under. From above, the disembodied arms form the shape of Irish love knots.  It was a controver ..read more

Until this week, every bust in the Massachusetts State House was of a White man. Now, the Massachusetts Senate has added the first state-commissioned bust of a Black person, civil rights activist Frederick Douglass. “We are proud to honor a man who left an indelible mark on our Commonwealth and nation. Frederick Douglass takes his rightful place as a founding father,” said Senate President Karen Spilka of Ashland. The Douglass bust is the first to be added to the Senate chamber’s permanent collection since 1898. It now it sits in an alcove near his quote — “Truth, justice, liberty, and humani ..read more

SOME MEMBERS OF a community south of Boston sought to ban a piece of literature because they found its content too controversial and disruptive to their belief systems. What’s so startling about this? That sentence applies to both the year 1637 and recent times. The very first book ban in early colonial America occurred in 1637 in what is now Quincy. Author Thomas Morton’s work, New English Canaan, was critical of Puritan customs. Because he dared to challenge existing power structures, Morton was labeled “Lord of Misrule” by Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford, and New English Canaan w ..read more

ON SUNDAY, the doors of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the New England Aquarium, and four other Boston arts and cultural institutions were flung open to welcome Boston Public Schools students and family members for free.  It was the inaugural day of a new city initiative that Mayor Michelle Wu announced to great fanfare last month in her State of the City address.  In her speech, Wu shared the emotional story of visiting a Chicago art museum as a child with her Taiwanese immigrant mother on a Tuesday – when admission was free – which she said made all the difference for her cash ..read more

THE NEW FILM “American Fiction,” directed by the adept Cord Jefferson and graced by the compelling performance of Jeffrey Wright, is not merely a piece of entertainment; it is a profound commentary on the state of our cultural and media landscapes. “American Fiction” follows Monk, a novelist disillusioned by the industry’s commodification of “Black” narratives, ones often steeped in offensive and reductive stereotypes. In a daring move, Monk adopts a pseudonym to pen a book that, ironically, catapults him into the very vortex of the hypocrisy and madness he seeks to critique. This film is Jef ..read more

THE NEW FILM “American Fiction,” directed by the adept Cord Jefferson and graced by the compelling performance of Jeffrey Wright, is not merely a piece of entertainment; it is a profound commentary on the state of our cultural and media landscapes. “American Fiction” follows Monk, a novelist disillusioned by the industry’s commodification of “Black” narratives, ones often steeped in offensive and reductive stereotypes. In a daring move, Monk adopts a pseudonym to pen a book that, ironically, catapults him into the very vortex of the hypocrisy and madness he seeks to critique. This film is Jef ..read more

BOSTON’S FOOD SCENE has come a long way from the classic chowder bowls.  Recent years have seen a boom with the introduction of star restauranteurs like Todd English, Gordon Hamersley, Jody Adams, Lydia Shire, Joanne Chang, and Barbara Lynch – who last week announced the closure and sale of several iconic restaurants after reports of Lynch’s alleged workplace abuse and harassment of employees. We’re now on the front edge of another era, one driven by the pandemic and marked not just by evolution in outdoor dining or cocktails to go, but labor unrest.  “We started hearing a lot about ..read more

THE BUZZ hits you fast.  A few sips into a lemon seltzer, a few minutes of conversation about the end of a work day and the holiday cookies on the counter, and a mild high starts to take hold. A seltzer and a half later, and the most stoned decision to be made involved starting up a Tuesday night viewing of David Fincher’s film “Mank,” about the often-soused screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz.  Other people might enjoy these fizzy THC-infused drinks differently, but a local cannabis company thinks many are about to buy them the same way. Theory Wellness, a cannabis company with three ..read more