With health care centers in Boston facing a capacity crisis, a nursing home’s plan to close could exacerbate the problem.
The Edgar P. Benjamin Healthcare Center in Mission Hill, which opened in 1927, is set to shut down soon.
“Two w…
Massachusetts
Ex-councilor in Holyoke fled US before trial on child pornography charge, authorities believe
A former city councilor in Holyoke, Massachusetts, has gone from a local public figure to a fugitive from justice facing serious charges.
Wilmer Puello-Mota represented District 2 in Holyoke when he was arrested in 2020 in Warwick, Rhode Island, an…
Pentagon leak suspect Jack Teixeira expected to plead guilty in federal case
Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guard member accused of leaking highly classified military documents on a social media platform, is expected to plead guilty in his federal case, according to court papers filed Thursday.
Prosecutors asked the judge to schedule a change of plea hearing for Monday, but no other details were immediately available. Teixeira had previously pleaded not guilty.
Teixeira was indicted on six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information. Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The Massachusetts U.S. attorney’s office declined further comment. An attorney for Teixeira didn’t immediately return a phone message Thursday.
Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, has been behind bars since his April arrest for a leak that left the Biden administration scrambling to assess and contain the damage among the international community and reassure allies that its secrets are safe with the U.S.
He was accused of sharing classified military documents about Russia’s war in Ukraine and other sensitive national security topics on Discord, a social media platform popular with people who play online games. Investigators believe he led a private chat group called Thug Shaker Central, where enthusiasts shared jokes, talked about their favorite types of guns and discussed wars, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Authorities say Teixeira, who enlisted in the Air National Guard in 2019, began around January 2023 sharing military secrets with other Discord users — first by typing out classified documents and then sharing photographs of files that bore SECRET and TOP SECRET markings. Teixeira worked as a “cyber transport systems specialist,” essentially an IT specialist responsible for military communications networks.
Authorities have said that Teixeira was detected on April 6 — the day The New York Times first published a story about the breach of documents — searching for the word “leak” in a classified system. The FBI says that was reason to believe Teixeira was trying to find information about the investigation into who was responsible for the leaks.
Prosecutors say he continued to leak government secrets even after he was warned by superiors about mishandling and improper viewing of classified information. After being admonished by superiors, he was again seen viewing information not related to the intelligence field, not his primary duty, according to internal Air National Guard memos filed in court.
Authorities have provided few details about an alleged possible motive, but accounts of those in the online private chat group where the documents were disclosed have depicted Teixeira as motivated more by bravado than ideology.
Prosecutors had urged the judge to keep Teixeira jailed while the case played, in part because of an arsenal of weapons found at his home and his history of disturbing online statements. They included one social media post saying that, if he had his way, he would like to kill a “ton of people” because it would be “culling the weak minded.”
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani last year denied Teixeira’s bid for release, saying “No set of release conditions will reasonably assure the safety of the community, or prevent destruction of evidence.”
In pressing for their client to be freed from jail, Teixeira’s attorneys pointed to the pretrial release of former President Donald Trump and others in high-profile classified documents cases. Teixeira’s lawyers noted that prosecutors did not seek to detain Trump — or his co-defendant, Walt Nauta — even though they said the former president and his valet “possess extraordinary means to flee the United States.”
Keolis commuter rail workers protest wages, benefits
The breakthrough labor agreement MBTA officials and union leaders reached last year included significant increases in pay, retention bonuses and other perks that supporters say are already yielding benefits for the workforce’s culture.
But over on the commuter rail, whose operations the MBTA contracts out to Keolis Commuter Services, employees are telling a far different story.
More than a dozen Keolis workers packed into an MBTA Board meeting Thursday to describe low pay and lackluster benefits, and they urged the agency’s leader to think about “safeguards” the T can install when the time comes to decide the future of commuter rail operations.
“For years, the MBTA has treated the commuter rail as the illegitimate stepchild of the MBTA, only paying child support to whoever runs it, and the provider takes their cut before it comes down to us,” said Ed Flaherty, president of Local 2054 Transportation Workers Union, which represents car inspectors and coach cleaners at Keolis, Amtrak and CLX.
Negotiations are ongoing between Keolis and unions representing more than 2,000 employees, and Flaherty said the company’s talks so far with his union have proceeded “in good faith.” However, he described significant disparities that have opened up in the past two decades or so.
When Amtrak was in charge of running the T’s commuter rail about 20 years ago, Flaherty said, worker wages were “identical” across the two agencies, and employees at the commuter rail were paid similarly to their counterparts at other agencies.
“Today, we are the lowest-paid by far,” Flaherty told the board, describing his colleagues as paid 12 percent less than Amtrak workers, 16 percent less than workers at Metro North, and 11 percent less than workers at New Jersey Transit.
Some Keolis employees work 80 hours per week “just to live in this very expensive state,” Flaherty said, adding that there are first-year cleaners who earn little enough to qualify for SNAP benefits and housing vouchers despite working 40 hours per week. He also contended that some Keolis workers are among the only employees in Massachusetts with no paid sick time.
“These jobs used to be a path to the middle class, not a path to the welfare line,” he said.
The MBTA first tapped Keolis, a French transportation company that operates several rail networks around the world, to operate its commuter rail system in 2014 with an eight-year, roughly $2.7 billion base contract.
MBTA officials in 2020 agreed to extend Keolis’s contract through June 30, 2026, though at the time, they said the T could opt to end the contract one year earlier if they want to begin formally searching for a successor.
A T spokesperson said Thursday that the MBTA is “considering potential alternative approaches for its successor contractual structure,” with a focus on achieving a decarbonized, high-frequency “region rail” service in both directions.
“There have been significant developments in passenger railroad technology and operations worldwide since the current structure was developed, and MBTA is considering whether different contractual structures may better serve the communities of Massachusetts,” said T spokesperson Joe Pesaturo, who added, “The plan for the next procurement is to identify a partner who can help deliver on this vision via a new, innovative operating contract structure.”
According to Keolis, previous negotiations with unions provided raises roughly once per year between 2017 and 2022. The last raise took effect June 15, 2022.
“Keolis Commuter Services is one of the largest employers in Massachusetts and we are proud to have more than 14 unions representing our workforce of nearly 2,500,” a Keolis spokesperson said Thursday. “We are currently negotiating in good faith with each collective bargaining unit, including TWU, to amend their existing collective bargaining agreements, and we look forward to coming to agreements that are fair to workers and ensure that we can continue to operate the Commuter Rail safely and reliably on behalf of the MBTA.”
Flanked by fellow workers, Flaherty called on MBTA higher-ups to consider “what has changed in the last 20 years since Amtrak left” and, as they think about the next commuter rail operation contract, to think about “what safeguards can you put into it to make sure that the employees are not being left behind.”
“To our political leaders who had press conferences to celebrate the [MBTA] labor contract that was passed in July, congratulations, but don’t forget about the little brothers,” he said. “We will not take a contract that’s outside the industry standard. To me, this is proof that privatization does not work.”
“Under the National Railway Labor Act, we have to go through so many steps before we have to strike. Keep in mind, we don’t want to strike, but when we’re legally able to, we will,” Flaherty later added.
MBTA Board Chair Tom Glynn said the T’s general manager, Phil Eng, has been “working to try to move this situation forward.”
“We have talked with Keolis with regards to the status of this, and we do value the workforce. All of the things that you’ve asked for, my understanding, are being discussed right now, robustly back and forth,” Eng said. “We do look for good resolution between the parties because we do understand just how important it is for everyone to not only be able to perform their job, but to live the quality of life that they’re looking to do.”
Later in Thursday’s meeting, Eng offered praise for the commuter rail’s performance, which in the past few years has emerged as a bright spot for the MBTA with some of the highest ridership compared to pre-pandemic levels.
In fact, according to Eng, the MBTA’s commuter rail now has “the strongest return to ridership post-pandemic across the nation of all the commuter rails.”
For MBTA board member Mary Skelton Roberts, that fact was “incredibly ironic.”
“It has incredible service, and we had members from the union here saying that they’re not being treated well,” Skelton Roberts said. “I hope it’s something that we really take a serious look at. When you have that level of performance, you want to make sure your staff is being — I mean, I know this isn’t your staff, but you want to make sure the staff is well cared for.”
“They are our workforce. We consider them all in one. We’re all the T,” Eng replied. “We understand there’s a negotiation that is ongoing, but we are fully supportive of workforce, the importance of workforce, and we’ll stay on top of that.”
Beloved local reverend identified as victim of deadly crash in Newburyport
A beloved local reverend has been identified as the person struck and killed by a pickup truck in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Wednesday evening.
Helen Murgida, 81, was killed when she was hit by a Ford pickup truck near the intersection of Green a…
So much for Salt Bae: Nusr-Et Steakhouse won’t be returning to Boston
[This story first appeared on Boston Restaurant Talk.]
Last summer, it was reported that the Boston location of a group of trendy steakhouses said goodbye to its space, though at the time, a relocation of the restaurant was being considered. Now we…
