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Giant Step for Paralyzed Teen, Boston Herald, Dec. 2016
An 18-year-old West Roxbury teen, paralyzed from the waist down in a car crash three years ago, is walking again.
Mark Delamere Jr. is one of only 100 people worldwide and just two in Massachusetts who have the opportunity to use an exoskeleton suit that lets him get up out of his wheelchair — if only briefly for now.
Delamere was a high school freshman at Boston Latin Academy, just weeks shy of his 15th birthday, when he was riding in a car driven by a friend that crashed on the Arborway in Jamaica Plain. A spinal cord injury left him paralyzed from the waist down.
With the help of Marlboro-based ReWalk Robotics’ exoskeleton suit he’s had since August, he’s been able to stand to his full-grown height, 6-foot-3. In November, he shot his first basket since the accident.
Hundreds of BPS students stage walkout in protest of proposed budget cuts, Boston Herald, May 2016
Hundreds of Boston Public Schools students — some joined by their parents — gathered outside City Hall this afternoon to protest ahead of a city council meeting focused on proposed budget cuts.
As they streamed into City Hall Plaza, some of the students used microphones connected to speakers to address the crowd and share why they decided to leave school today to speak out against the cuts.
Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders look to pull away in N.H. primary, Boston Herald, Feb. 2016
HAMPTON, N.H. — After slugging it out to a near draw in Iowa, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders hit the Granite State yesterday, each looking for a more clear-cut victory in the nation’s first primary.
“I am excited about the next week, I feel really great being back in New Hampshire after winning in Iowa,” Clinton said to a raucous crowd of 1,050 in Hampton, touting her .3 percent margin. “This needs to be a contest of ideas, about who is ready to be our president of the United States, our commander in chief, starting next January.”
Thanks to New Hampshire primary, 12-year-old gets to cover prez politics, Boston Herald, Feb. 2016
NASHUA, N.H. — At 12-years-old Maxwell Surprenant is one of the youngest reporters covering the Presidential primaries in New Hampshire.
“It’s a really fun experience,” said Maxwell, who drove with his parents from their home in Needham after school to cover Ted Cruz during a campaign stop in Nashua Wednesday. “I’m learning a lot from it and I think the article is going to turn out great, too.”
Maxwell is a reporter with Scholastic News Kids Press Corps, one of just 27 kids across the country that are covering the 2016 Presidential election, according to Scholastic. It's one of the oldest and largest student reporting programs.
Grandmaster draws a crowd in chess exhibition, Boston Herald, June 2015
Most people sitting across from a grandmaster of chess would feel pressure, but not 11-year-old Mark Chudnovsky or his 7-year-old sister Michelle.
“I like to counter attack,” announced Mark, when he knew grandmaster Larry Christiansen was out of earshot. “So, I first let the person come and get me and when they can’t do anything else I start attacking them.”
The siblings joined a public 18-board tournament at South Station to see if they could outwit the three-time U.S. champion, two-time captain of the U.S. Olympic Chess team and winner of 25 international tournaments.
Dorchester girl, 8, fulfills dream in ‘The Nutcracker’, Boston Herald, Dec. 2015
It’s a big dream for a little girl — performing in the Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre’s timeless production of “The Nutcracker.”
For 8-year-old Claudia Hernandez, that dream is now reality — she’s one of the mice during this year’s run at the Cutler Majestic and Strand theaters.
“I just have fun dancing,” Claudia said, as makeup and a furry costume transformed her into a mouse backstage before rehearsal.
Allston couple confined by snowy, icy sidewalks, Boston Herald, Feb. 2015
With 100 inches of snow in Boston so far, and more likely before spring arrives, an Allston couple who use a scooter and wheelchair are weathering the winter together, struggling to get around their icy neighborhood.
“Basically we just haven’t gone anywhere,” said Mallory Cyr, 29, who works for a downtown nonprofit. “We’ve both been able to work remotely.” …..
Cyr primarily uses a motorized scooter to get around because of stunted growth, joint deformities and weak bones. Erquiaga was born with spina bifida and uses a manual wheelchair.
The couple is confined to a two-block radius of their home if they want to travel independently. Sidewalks often aren’t shoveled wide enough for wheelchairs to pass, crosswalks are blocked by huge snow piles, curb cuts have been plowed in, and the slush has turned to the ice.
Sony hack hits actors in Boston, Boston Herald, Jan. 2015
The massive Sony hack that has spurred an FBI investigation and nearly canceled the rollout of “The Interview” is hitting home with Boston actors who this week received a letter from Sony stating they may be vulnerable to identity theft.
“When I received the letter, I was like, ‘I cannot believe this,’ ” said Jan Waldman, who was an extra in “The Equalizer,” a movie shot in Boston, “I mean, I am such a small player in a huge thing, and if my information is compromised, it’s an incredible hassle’.”
Vets push to extend visas for Afghan interpreters who helped U.S., Boston Herald, Dec. 2014
Two local Marines are behind a desperate eleventh-hour move to save the lives of Afghan interpreters who worked alongside U.S. troops and now face deadly retribution at the hands of the Taliban as America pulls its forces out of the war-torn country.
Marine Sgt. Andrew Biggio of Winthrop — who told the Herald he “slept, ate and worked alongside” his interpreter — and Marine platoon Sgt. Peter Boisvert of Nashua, N.H., are urging Congress to allow more Afghans to earn visas.
“My interpreter … I know he saved lives,” said Boisvert yesterday. “Now that I’m not there, I’m not there to protect him.”
A Dec. 31 deadline is looming for interpreters — and other Afghans who aided Americans — to apply for 1,000 new visas.
Stopped by cops too many times to count, Boston Herald, Oct. 2014
Alex Ponte-Capellan and Ivan Richiez said they’ve lost track of how many times they’ve been stopped by police in the city.
“I wouldn’t be able to count, honestly. At one point I was getting stopped multiple times a day,” said Ponte-Capellan, who noted being stopped and questioned by police hit a peak in high school.
“I feel powerless, like I have no rights,” said the 23-year-old from Roxbury.
“Like a second-class citizen almost,” Richiez said. “You’re treated based on their perceptions only.”
Barrier grief: English issues mistaken for learning disabilities in Boston schools, Boston Herald, July 2014
Even as the state braces for a wave of unaccompanied immigrant children, school systems, including Boston, are failing in assessing and educating non-English speaking students they already have.
More than one in five children of immigrants who are learning English in Boston schools have been placed in special education classes in what advocates say is a costly waste of taxpayer dollars that could also be robbing hundreds of bright students of any chance to go to college and create better lives.
ODs hit an alarming level, Boston Herald, June 2014
Governors from New England joined forces yesterday to combat the opioid scourge in the region — just as an alert went out about an alarming number of overdoses in Everett.
Whidden Hospital, which is part of the Cambridge Health Alliance, reported six heroin overdoses in one night this past Friday.
“For us, that’s unusual to have that many people come to the hospital for that reason in that short of a time frame,” said Dr. Melisa Lai Becker, chief of emergency medicine and director of medical toxicology at the hospital. “In the last one to two weeks we’re seeing an uptick in the number of patients who are coming in to the hospital from what appears to be an opioid overdose.”
None of the overdoses was fatal, but it was a number so alarming Cambridge Health Alliance sent out an alert to its own regional program which does exactly what the governors are hoping to do: share information across geographical boundaries. The alert went to Cambridge, Watertown, Somerville, and Medford and through the network was passed on to other communities.
Racer recalls emotional day, frantic search, Boston Herald, March 2014
This year, Jonathan Hill will run for the American Red Cross for the second time with the memory of the tragedies of Marathon Monday still fresh in his mind.
Last year, Hill was stopped at the 25.5 mile marker when he learned there was a bomb.
“At that point, your mind starts racing. You don’t know the magnitude of those explosions,” he said. “My wife who was 81⁄2 months pregnant was at the finish line, and it was a difficult 45 minutes for me until I figured out she was OK.”
Youths leaving foster care get a leg up – in own apt., Boston Herald, Dec. 2013
Former foster children who have aged out of the system too often face life on the street alone — except for a lucky few who have landed a room at a new oasis for the young adults looking for a break.
Paige Apartments in Lowell is a $1.1 million property development the state linked up with the nonprofit Caleb Group to launch.
With nine units, and room for one staff member, the former foster kids living there are all over 18 years old and learning to survive on their own with a little help. There’s also a waiting list to get an apartment.
Tight quarters in performing arts school, Boston Herald, Nov. 2013
Creativity is bursting at the seams — literally — at Boston Arts Academy.
There is ballet and theater, but no performance facility with a stage and seating for an audience.
Art supplies are stored in a girl’s bathroom. A cramped room used by aspiring actors doubles as a geometry classroom.
Teachers travel from classroom to classroom, wheeling their supplies on carts because there is no storage space.
22 and Autistic: Now what?, Boston Herald, Oct. 2013
Frantic parents whose autistic children are turning 22 — and aging out of the public school system — face an uncertain future as the state struggles to care for a population that is booming at a record pace.
“The turning 22 process is pretty scary — there is no road map,” said Maura Clow of Walpole, whose eldest son Peter must leave the public school system in December. “You’re kind of left flapping in the wind.
Homeless school kids at 9-year high, Boston Herald, Sept. 2013
The number of homeless children in Bay State schools has hit a nine-year high, according to the latest survey, as families living on the edge of the economy struggle to find housing.
The state Department of Education reports 1 in 60 students in Massachusetts are listed as homeless. Boston, Springfield, Worcester and Lynn are some of the top communities struggling to cope with homeless students, according to an annual census of kids with no permanent homes released just before the start of the school year.
A total of 15,812 schoolchildren were listed as homeless — the most since the state first started doing the survey in 2005.
Gruesome details unveiled in ‘video-chat murder’ trial, Boston Herald, Sept. 2013
A Woburn High student who witnessed the stabbing death of his friend’s mom over video chat described the attack in horrifying detail in Middlesex Superior Court yesterday, saying 40-year-old Christopher Piantedosi was “wide-eyed” and clenching his jaw as he repeatedly stabbed his longtime girlfriend with a kitchen knife in her Burlington home.
“She was saying ‘No, Chris, stop, I love you,’ ” said Michael Edwards, 16, testifying at Piantedosi’s murder trial in the May 3, 2012, killing of Kristen Pulisciano.
Bombing victim says ‘I’m blessed’ as he leaves hospital, Boston Herald, May 2013
Holding back tears, Jarrod Clowery, one of the Boston Marathon bombing victims, pointed to his grandniece as he said he was overjoyed with the prospect of being able to go home.
“I just can’t wait to just spend the afternoon with her,” said the 35-year-old Stoneham man as he left Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown today.
Clowery suffered burns on his hands, and shrapnel injuries from his ankle to lower back in the explosions April 15 near the Boston Marathon finish line in Copley Square.
City moves to preserve bombing shrine, Boston Herald, May 2013
The city’s archivist, racing to preserve all the heartfelt notes left at the Boylston Street shrine to marathon bombing victims before it rains today, stopped to honor one timeless message.
“No more hurting people. Peace,” a poster from an elementary school class read. It mirrored the poster 8-year-old Martin Richard was shown holding when the world learned the little Dorchester boy was one of the three killed on Marathon Monday.
“A lot of people wrote Martin’s words,” John McColgan said as he delicately placed the poster on a table at the city’s archiving house in West Roxbury yesterday.
First young victim to be laid to rest, Boston Herald, Dec. 2012
NEWTOWN, Conn. — Today, the first small victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre will be laid to rest.
Noah Pozner, a much-loved 6-year-old, will be mourned by the community that raised and adored him.
Newtown church briefly evacuated due to threat, Boston Herald, Dec. 2012
NEWTOWN — The church that had provided sanctuary to this town rocked by unimaginable tragedy was briefly evacuated today due to a “credible threat,” according to Brian Wallace, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Bridgeport.
The noontime Mass was interrupted by the pastor, who evacuated St. Rose of Lima, telling the congregation a “credible threat” on the property had been received, Wallace said.
A SWAT team swarmed the building and armored cars and state police surrounded it for about an hour until it was cleared. No threat was found.
Town weeps as shock hits home, Boston Herald, Dec. 2012
NEWTOWN, Conn. — Raymond Baker wept yesterday for a kindergarten girl gunned down with more than two dozen other victims — mostly children — at the scene of a horrific elementary school mass shooting.
“It’s awful. She was a lovely, sweet girl. I saw her in church and she was always so respectful and said, ‘Peace be with you,’ ” said Baker, who declined to identify the 6-year-old — the daughter of a family friend — ahead of authorities, who have yet to release the names of those who died after a gunman stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Newtown residents flocked to Mass at St. Rose of Lima Church last night as the small bedroom community braced for authorities to release victims’ names.