The arrest of 108 at Emerson College in the pre-dawn hours had politicians taking shots at the police who warned the students pitching tents in a public way gave them no choice. Social media video of the police sweep shows protesters being forcibly removed from the Boylston Place location around 2 a.m. Thursday, with some refusing to move in a scrum that also had protesters linking arms and chanting, “We keep us safe.” https://www.bostonherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BPD_Emerson_Captain.mp4 Arrests were streamed live on some social media platforms as police moved in as community members ..read more

A Duxbury man who killed his father by “baptizing” him in a local pond because the son apparently saw the “demon” in his dad’s eyes has been convicted, according to the DA. Jack Callahan, 22, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter on Thursday, the Plymouth district attorney’s office announced. Callahan had been charged with one count of murder after the fatal incident in the middle of the night on June 28, 2021, when he was 19 years old. His father, 57-year-old Scott Callahan, was found submerged in Island Creek Pond at Crocker Park. Before the drowning, the teen at the time had reported ..read more

Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden has agreed to pay a $5,000 civil penalty for violating conflict of interest law by allowing his office to issue an official press statement aimed at discrediting his primary opponent days before the election. The State Ethics Commission said Thursday that Hayden was aware of, and took no action to prevent, his office staff from releasing a statement that undercut claims made publicly by former City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, who stated investigators had deemed decades-old sexual assault allegations against him to be unfounded. “The authority and prestige o ..read more

The Karen Read murder trial, which has become a hot-button case not only locally but for true crime lovers across the nation, will be held in a much smaller courtroom. Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone also reiterated during a hearing Thursday that attorneys could not directly raise the federal probe into the Read investigation or that the Massachusetts State Police investigator, Trooper Michael Proctor, is under internal review. Opening arguments in the trial are scheduled for Monday morning. Cannone will allow 45 minutes for each side. The defense is barred from introducing their ..read more

Former Boston Police Commissioner William Gross is stepping up to the plate for North End restauranteurs. He’s headlining a rally Friday at the Paul Revere Mall on Hanover Street at 3 p.m. The Herald has learned part of that rally will be a poster that will be passed around urging those who disagree with the crackdown on outdoor dining in the North End to call the mayor’s 311 “with reservations.” A group of restaurant owners say they have been unfairly targeted by Mayor Michelle Wu for banning on-street dining in the North End, limiting the al fresco option to “compliant sidewal ..read more

The owner of a Southie dog training and boarding business admitted to animal cruelty charges, for which he was sentenced to two years of probation. Tyler Falconer, 30, of Falco K9 LLC, was charged in May of last year with three counts of animal cruelty by a custodian and three counts of improperly tethering or confining an animal. He pleaded not guilty to those charges in municipal court in South Boston on May 31. On Wednesday, Falconer changed his plea. Instead of guilty, Falconer opted to accept a continuance without a finding to two charges of animal cruelty by a custodian. Judge Margaret A ..read more

Holy cow, inflation is really getting out of control. Quincy Mayor Tom Koch’s salary could spike to $370,000 under a recommendation to the City Council — possibly a 132% jump from his current salary of less than $160,000. If Koch’s salary ends up soaring to $370,000, the mayor of the city with about 100,000 people would reportedly be the highest paid mayor in the country. The Patriot Ledger previously reported on the recommended salary increase for the Quincy mayor. The city had hired a firm to conduct an executive salary study, with Koch not seeing a salary increase in nearly a decade. The sa ..read more

House Democrats handily shut down a Republican-backed attempt to redirect millions set aside for no-cost prisoner calls to local aid for municipalities, a move that had representatives diving head-first into the second day of debate on their fiscal year 2025 budget. Lawmakers voted 29-127 to reject the proposal from Rep. Paul Frost, an Auburn Republican, before the branch approved a series of amendment bundles throughout the day that tacked on an additional $25.8 million to the $57.9 billion budget. Lawmakers were expected to continue working on the yearly spending plan into the evening after ..read more

Massachusetts lawmakers were in the process of shipping Gov. Muara Healey a spending bill Thursday that hands her $426 million to spend on emergency shelters over the next year-plus and caps families’ time in the system at nine months. The dollars come at a crucial moment for the Healey administration, which has warned for months that cash to pay for shelter services was quickly running out and expected to run dry this month. But the decision to throw more money at family emergency shelters has drawn heavy scrutiny from Republicans in Massachusetts who argue the state needs reforms before gree ..read more

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and DAVE COLLINS (Associated Press) NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein ’s 2020 rape conviction, reversing a landmark ruling of the #MeToo era. The court found the trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against the ex-movie mogul based on allegations that weren’t part of the case. Weinstein, 72, will remain in prison because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape. But the New York ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a ..read more