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    D.C. Plane Crash Echoes Boston Skating Club’s 1961 Tragedy

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    Two months after the D.C. plane crash killed 67, including six people affiliated with the Boston club, the members had to prepare for the world championships. Unfathomably, they had a blueprint.One floor above the ice rinks at the Skating Club of Boston, there’s a lounge that would have hosted a party after January’s U.S. Figure Skating national championships.Its glass doors would have been thrown open, and its fireplace set aglow, as several hundred people gathered to toast the club’s latest champions, the pairs skaters Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov, who had won their first national title.But that celebration never happened. It couldn’t, and it wouldn’t, after six of the club’s members died in a plane crash on Jan. 29 in Washington. Twenty-eight passengers involved in skating, including 11 young athletes and four coaches, were among the 67 people killed that day.Jinna Han, 13, and Spencer Lane, 16, two of the organization’s up-and-coming skaters, were traveling home with their mothers from a development camp held after the nationals in Wichita., Kan., when an Army helicopter collided with their passenger jet above the Potomac River. No one survived. Two of the club’s coaches — Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, a married couple who were the 1994 world champions in pairs — were also on the plane.Yet the lounge at the Boston club did not remain empty. In the hours and days after the crash, one by one, or arm in arm, people arrived and filled the space, drawn to the beloved club that has existed for more than a century, and to a community that many consider a second family.Paul George, a longtime club member, hugs former Olympic figure skaters Dr. Tenley Albright and Nancy Kerrigan.Sophie Park for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Wintry Mess Predicted Across Parts of the Northeast

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      Nearly a foot of snow could fall in Boston, and three to five inches of snow and sleet are expected in New York.A winter storm that has been working its way across the country is expected to bring a strong dose of winter weather to the northeastern United States on Saturday, with snow accumulations as high as seven inches expected across Boston and other cities.In New York, snow is expected to begin falling late Saturday afternoon before changing to a mix of rain, snow and sleet into the night. Three to five inches of snow and sleet are possible by Sunday, with even more in some parts of the metro area, according to the National Weather Service.Areas around Boston, where up to an inch of snow an hour may fall on Saturday night, are expected to see snow totals of between five and 11 inches before the storm moves off the East Coast on Sunday.In the Northeast, winter weather advisories and winter storm warnings were in effect until Sunday across New York, New Jersey and New England. Winter storm warnings on Saturday also stretched from Wisconsin through Minnesota and into the Dakotas.This is the second winter storm in a week to traverse the country, creating a dividing line of warmer rainy weather in the south and colder snowy weather to the north — and a messy wintry mix in between.Philadelphia, on the southern edge of this storm, is likely to see a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain as early as noon on Saturday, and icy roads will make driving treacherous, forecasters warned.How Much Snow To Expect More

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      Justice Dept. Charges 2 Men in Deadly Drone Attack on U.S. Soldiers

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      The men are accused of supplying key parts in Iranian drones that killed three U.S. service members and injured dozens of others at an American military base in Jordan.The Justice Department has charged two men with illegally supplying parts used in an Iranian-backed militia’s drone attack in January that killed three U.S. service members and injured more than 40 others at an American military base in Jordan, federal prosecutors in Boston announced on Monday.Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, 42, a dual U.S.-Iranian national of Natick, Mass., and Mohammad Abedini, 38, of Tehran, were charged with conspiring to export sophisticated electronic components to Iran, violating American export control and sanctions laws.Mr. Abedini was also charged with providing material support, resulting in death, to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian military that the U.S. has designated a foreign terrorist organization.Mr. Sadeghi was arrested on Monday and made an initial appearance in the federal court in Boston. Mr. Abedini was arrested, also on Monday, in Italy by Italian authorities at the request of the United States.Iran has made serious advances in the design and production of military drones in recent years, and has stepped up its transfer to terrorist groups across the Middle East, including Hamas and Hezbollah.Iran has used its drone program to build its global importance and increase weapons sales but has suffered setbacks in its confrontation with Israel. In April, Iran launched an attack on Israel that largely failed. Israel intercepted most of the roughly 200 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Barbara Lynch Will Close All Her Restaurants

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      She helped put her city on the modern culinary map, but many employees said they paid a price in workplace abuse.Barbara Lynch, the celebrated chef who helped kick-start Boston’s modern fine-dining scene, announced Wednesday that her remaining restaurants were closing, ending a starry 30-year run that was shadowed in recent years by accusations of toxic working conditions in her kitchens.Her flagship, No. 9 Park, popular among the city’s political class since it opened in 1998 on Beacon Hill, will close at the end of the year, according to a statement first reported by Eater Boston. Ms. Lynch also announced on Instagram that the Rudder, a storied seafood spot that she took over and reopened last year in Gloucester, on the North Shore, had already closed. Her company, the Barbara Lynch Collective, did not immediately respond to an email seeking details about the closing of B & G Oysters, in the South End of Boston.In a report last year in The New York Times, more than 20 former and current staff members described a variety of abuse Ms. Lynch had inflicted on employees, including verbal attacks, inappropriate propositions, and touching, shoving and hitting. She denied the allegations, saying they were “fantastical” and “seemed designed to bring me down.”In January, she closed her white-tablecloth restaurant Menton, along with Sportello and Drink, all in the same building in the city’s Fort Point neighborhood, blaming an “uncooperative landlord.” She sold the Butcher Shop and Stir, the South End spots where the chef Kristen Kish began her run from “Top Chef” winner in 2012 to the show’s current host.In her statement on Wednesday, Ms. Lynch attributed the final closings to “the harsh realities of the global pandemic” and other “difficulties.” Last week, her company was sued for outstanding debt by its linen supplier; a 2023 class-action lawsuit by former employees over tips withheld during the pandemic is scheduled to be heard in November.The closings mark the end of a prominent culinary career for Ms. Lynch, whose roles as a Boston native, an early leader among women chefs, and a survivor of childhood neglect and rape won her national attention. She has described physical abuse in the kitchen by her first high-profile boss, the chef Todd English, and campaigned against such practices. But among the hundreds of alumni of Ms. Lynch’s kitchens, her short temper and drinking problem became an open secret, especially after she was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated in 2017.That same year, when her memoir was published, she led seven restaurants and was on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential Americans. She trained many young chefs, including Ms. Kish, Stephanie Cmar, Colin Lynch and Jason Bond.Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

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      Supreme Court to Decide Whether Mexico Can Sue U.S. Gun Makers

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      The justices will consider whether a 2005 law that gives gun makers broad immunity applies in the case, which accuses them of complicity in supplying cartels with weapons.The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether Mexico may sue gun manufacturers in the United States for aiding in the trafficking of weapons used by drug cartels.Mexico sued seven gun makers and one distributor in 2021, blaming them for rampant violence caused by illegal gun trafficking from the United States spurred by the demand of Mexican drug cartels for military-style weapons.Mexico has strict gun control laws that it says make it virtually impossible for criminals to obtain firearms legally. Indeed, the suit said, its single gun store issues fewer than 50 permits a year. But gun violence is rampant.The lawsuit, which seeks billions of dollars in damages, said that 70 to 90 percent of the guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico came from the United States and that gun dealers in border states sell twice as many firearms as dealers in other parts of the country.Judge Dennis F. Saylor, of the Federal District Court in Boston, dismissed Mexico’s lawsuit, saying it was barred by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a 2005 law that prohibits many kinds of suits against makers and distributors of firearms. The law, Judge Saylor wrote, “bars exactly this type of action from being brought in federal and state courts.”But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Boston, revived the suit, saying that it qualified for an exception to the law, which authorizes claims for knowing violations of firearms laws that are a direct cause of the plaintiff’s injuriesIn urging the Supreme Court to hear the case, the gun makers said that “Mexico’s suit has no business in an American court.” Mexico’s legal theory, they added, was an “eight-step Rube Goldberg, starting with the lawful production and sale of firearms in the United States and ending with the harms that drug cartels inflict on the Mexican government.”“Absent this court’s intervention,” the gun makers’ petition continued, “Mexico’s multi-billion-dollar suit will hang over the American firearms industry for years, inflicting costly and intrusive discovery at the hands of a foreign sovereign that is trying to bully the industry into adopting a host of gun-control measures that have been repeatedly rejected by American voters.”In response, Mexico said the defendants were complicit in mass violence.“The flood of petitioners’ firearms from sources in the United States to cartels in Mexico is no accident,” Mexico’s brief said. “It results from petitioners’ knowing and deliberate choice to supply their products to bad actors, to allow reckless and unlawful practices that feed the crime-gun pipeline, and to design and market their products in ways that petitioners intend will drive up demand among the cartels.” More

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      Googly-Eyed Trains Lift the Spirits of Boston Riders

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      Organizers of a plan to adorn some trains with googly eyes said that if the trains could not be reliable, they could at least make commuters smile.Demonstrators marched to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Boston headquarters in April with a single, deeply researched demand.Put googly eyes on some trains, they said. Two months later, their demands have been met — at least until the decals wear off.The campaign was organized by two recent college graduates who cast the effort as an attempt to improve commuters’ spirits and promote empathy for the metal contraptions that transport them.“When T trains are delayed, people can at least look into the eyes of the train when it finally arrives, and feel some love and understanding in their hearts,” the organizers wrote before the march to the Transportation Authority’s headquarters.“The T doesn’t want to be late,” they wrote. “It feels bad being late.”The organizers said the Transportation Authority also had “a responsibility to improve the lives of Bostonians.”If the city’s trains can’t be reliable, they wrote, at least they could bring a smile to riders. The system averages about 766,000 riders on weekdays.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      More Than 170 Protesters Arrested at Northeastern and Arizona State University

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      The police made arrests at Northeastern University, Arizona State and Indiana University on Saturday, as more schools move in on encampments protesting the war in Gaza.Nearly 200 protesters were arrested on Saturday at Northeastern University, Arizona State University and Indiana University, according to officials, as colleges across the country struggle to quell growing pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments on campus.More than 700 protesters have been arrested on U.S. campuses since April 18, when Columbia University had the New York Police Department clear a protest encampment there. In several cases, most of those who were arrested have been released. More

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      Boston Marathon Criticized for Branded Finisher Medals

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      Runners are disappointed that the new finisher medals feature a large bank logo across the bottom. “This isn’t a turkey trot.”Cathy Connor loves the Boston Marathon. She loves the camaraderie. She loves the mystique of the event, which dates to 1897 as the world’s oldest annual marathon. She loves the idea that she gets to run the same rolling course that has been conquered by greats like Kathrine Switzer, Meb Keflezighi and Des Linden.Ms. Connor, 58, loves the Boston Marathon so much that she has raced in it nine times. But there is one thing that she, and many of her fellow runners, do not love: the redesigned medal, which will be bestowed upon the 30,000 athletes who finish the 26.2-mile race on April 15.“It was kind of a letdown when I saw the picture,” Ms. Connor, a graphic designer from Pittsburgh, said in a telephone interview. “Why mess up a good thing? This isn’t a turkey trot.”Cathy Connor has completed the Boston Marathon nine times, receiving a similar medal for each finish.via Cathy ConnorThe new medal bears more than a passing resemblance to versions from past years. The principle image, as usual, is of a golden unicorn, the longtime logo of the Boston Athletic Association, the marathon’s organizing body.But the new medal has raised hackles among purists because of a key difference: It was redesigned to feature a large banner for Bank of America, the race’s corporate sponsor, along the bottom edge.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Was Boston’s Snow Forecast a Bust? Depends on Whom You Ask.

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      The quick-moving winter storm sweeping across the Northeast was once poised to blanket the Boston area with up to a foot of snow but will now push farther south than expected, cutting snowfall totals in the region by more than half than expected earlier, according to the latest estimates.“Snow lovers may be very upset that snow totals have decreased because the system has moved farther south,” Torry Dooley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boston said by phone early Tuesday. “But other folks that are maybe not as into the snow may be rejoicing this morning that the snow totals have come down.”No matter where weather watchers land on snow debate, Mr. Dooley emphasized that the weather is fickle and predictions are just that — predictions.“Our weather is a very fluid thing,” Mr. Dooley said. “So the atmosphere is very fluid. Forecasts do evolve with better data.”Officials in Boston kept a close eye on the storm and ultimately closed schools on Tuesday. Nearby school systems, like in Plymouth and Salem, made the same decision.Mr. Dooley said Weather Service meteorologists do not discuss school closing decisions with officials and that superintendents make those judgment calls.On Monday afternoon, meteorologists began receiving newer data showing the storm’s track shifting farther and farther south.While snowfall expectations for the Boston region have significantly diminished since the original forecast, southern Massachusetts can still expect several inches through Tuesday afternoon.Still, the Boston area will not be completely unaffected. Light rain showers were expected to transition to snow before 9 a.m.“Once that happens, we’ll have some moderate snowfall,” Mr. Dooley said. “Areas around Boston can expect, generally four to six inches of snow, throughout today.” More