Car crash kills teen driver, brother
HOPKINTON (AP) – A 17-year-old driver and her ten-year-old brother are dead after a single car accident in Hopkinton.
The teen-age driver has been identified by her Hopkinton High School principal as Andrea Goncalves, a junior at the school. She was driving a 2001 Saab that skidded off the road yesterday and hit a tree.
Her brother, Joshua – a fourth grader at the Hopkins School – died at the scene. The girl was later pronounced dead at the UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.
A preliminary investigation shows that speed may have been a factor. The crash is under investigation.
Principal Dee Gould says she met with the teachers Monday morning before classes, and counselors would be available for the students – individually and in groups – throughout the day.
The accident came at a time when some lawmakers are talking about raising the minimum driving age in the state to 17-and-a-half, from the current 16-and-a-half. The talk is in response to several recent accidents involving teenagers, including a crash on Route 128 in Wakefield just over a week ago that killed two 16-year-old high school students.
Two fishermen rescued after boat runs aground
EASTHAM (AP) – Two fishermen and a dog managed to swim to safety Monday after their vessel ran aground off a beach in Eastham.
One fisherman, Michael Darragh, was taken to Cape Cod Hospital for treatment of severe hypothermia. A second fisherman, Ian Orchard, was found huddled in an unused Coast Guard station several hours after a call for help, said Coast Guard spokeswoman Kelly Turner.
Darragh and Orchard, both of Orland, Maine, were aboard the Stonington, Maine-based fishing vessel Josephine. Someone aboard called at 4:15 a.m. to report it was taking on water off Nauset Light Beach along the Cape Cod National Seashore.
When he was rescued, Darragh told officials he thought his crewmate had also managed to swim ashore, prompting a land search while the Coast Guard searched the water by helicopter and vessel. Orchard was found by fire officials around 8 a.m. on Coast Guard beach.
The Josephine broke up and was being removed by the National Seashore Park Service.
The ages of the men were not released.
Weapons ban softened to allow historical events
LAWRENCE (AP) – Civil War buffs, outdoorsmen and police officers all claimed victory in the creation of a citywide knife ban that was softened to accommodate historical exhibits and re-enactments and some recreational and occupational uses.
Under the new rule, which will take effect April 20, machetes, sabers, swords, knives, ice picks and other similar weapons with 2.5-inch or longer blades capable of penetrating a police officer’s vest are banned in Lawrence. However such weapons used in fishing, hunting, performing arts and job- or historical-related activities are allowed.
“Flag staff tips to bayonets to sabers is really the lifeblood (of the Lawrence Civil War Memorial Guard),” Sean Sweeney, 44, of Lawrence told city councilors, who had considered an ordinance that banned all the swords, knives and other bladed weapons that are on display at historical exhibits and used in Civil War re-enactments.
State Trooper Mark F. Blanchard, who is assigned to District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett’s drug task force and was a catalyst for the measure, hailed the new ordinance as a victory.
Blanchard said police have confiscated what he called a box full of “scary weapons” – including a Samurai sword, a machete, and a knuckle knife in the shape of a Batman emblem with blades on its wings.
The ban will make each offense subject to an arrest and a fine of up to $100. Anyone caught with an illegal knife in a park, on a playground or on school property could be fined up to $300.
Several other North Shore communities, including Salem and Saugus, have bylaws prohibiting bladed weapons.
Springfield’s non-union workers get two percent pay raise
SPRINGFIELD (AP) – Non-union employees of this cash-strapped city are getting their first raise in four years.
The 216 clerks, administrators and department heads making between $500 and $2,000 a week are getting a 2 percent boost that will be retroactive to last July. The total cash value is just over $188,000.
Phil Puccia, the executive director of the state-appointed control board overseeing the city’s finances, called the raise a “cost of living increase” that falls far short of the offers so far rejected by Springfield’s three largest unions representing teachers, firefighters and police officers.
Those unions have been offered either 11 percent raises or 75 percent of the four years of back pay they’re owed.
“What’s been offered to those three large unions is substantially greater than what is being offered to these folks who are non-bargaining,” Puccia said.
Puccia said the money being given to the non-union workers is not being subtracted from the offers still on the table for the so-called “big three” unions.
But, he said, “at some point, our ability to continue to roll over the dollars to pay retroactive bonuses will diminish – if not, as some point, be eliminated – for the major three unions.”
Tim Collins, president of the Springfield Education Association, said he’s “concerned that the money is going to spent on other things.” But he has said repeatedly that the teachers union is rejecting the city’s contract offer because it is not competitive with salaries in other communities.
Representatives from the fire, police and teachers unions did not immediately return telephone calls Monday. The city, which is grappling with at least $6.5 million in debt, has already settled contracts with a dozen other unions.
