samjmintz.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Police say a 45-year-old Brookline man was taken to the hospital after two men armed with a gun allegedly robbed and assaulted him on Kent Street just after 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning. brookline.news/police-inves...

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Here's a topical tweet from one year ago:

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Here's how Town Meeting member Richard Nangle responded when I asked him follow-up questions about his possible connection to an anonymous neighborhood group that sent mailings apparently in violation of campaign finance laws.

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Political intrigue here in Brookline: a mailing that went out before the town election, endorsing candidates with an anti-tax bent, purportedly came from a mostly defunct neighborhood group named after a 19th-century Select Board member. Who's actually behind it? brookline.news/mysterious-e...

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Campaign finance update from the town election in Brookline, where we've got more than $114,000 raised so far by campaigns for Select Board and School Committee. Stay tuned tomorrow for a story on a slightly less routine piece of campaign finance news... brookline.news/following-th...

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Overall crime was down in Brookline in 2024, but burglaries rose by 38%. Plus, Brookline police issued thousands more moving violations to drivers than in the previous year. Read more from BPD's annual report and an interview with chief Jennifer Paster: brookline.news/crime-was-do...

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We've been looking for ways to tell the story of what Trump's erratic cuts to scientific and medical research mean for Brookline, which is deeply intertwined with those fields. Much more to come from us, but I'm grateful to Paul for being willing to talk in such a personal way about his experience.

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The Trump admin's seemingly arbitrary VA cuts put Paul Hsieh's career in question, after years spent working on a groundbreaking genetic database. Now the uncertainty has forced him to uproot his life, selling his home and moving away from his town of 30 years. brookline.news/the-world-st...

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What does the D stand for again?

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Brookline's local election is two weeks away. We interviewed 14 candidates for townwide positions like Select Board, School Committee and Library Trustee, and sent a questionnaire to 120 candidates for Town Meeting. To see all of our coverage, click here: brookline.news/topics/elect...

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The race is well underway, and we'll be updating this article with words and photos from Beacon Street as the 129th Boston Marathon continues. brookline.news/thousands-of...

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John Korir turning the corner in Cleveland Circle en route to his blistering Boston Marathon win

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In @theverge.com, I explained why surge pricing needs a robotaxi rethink. Ridehail users may hate surge pricing, but it does attract more drivers, so more trips are fulfilled. But robotaxis have no drivers – and their fleets are tiny. That muddies the picture considerably.

submitted 7 days ago • 7 comments

This was a beast to produce so if you're voting in Brookline's election, I hope you'll read it. We sent a questionnaire to each of the 120 candidate for Town Meeting, asking them about concrete plans to address housing costs, budget challenges and more. brookline.news/guide-to-the...

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

Absolute disaster and a cautionary tale for nonprofit news outlets. Something (many things?) went really wrong in Houston. $20 million should be able to last more than two years with even moderately good management www.niemanlab.org/2025/04/the-...

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Good followup on this story from our reporter Vivi Smilgius. Found it surprising that "careless disposal of smoking materials" leading to a destroyed house, six displaced residents and two injured firefighters doesn't warrant criminal investigation because it was "accidental," per BFD chief.

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

The internet becomes more tolerable once you realize that 99% of the people who are being assholes to you online have never actually engaged with your work and have no plans to.

submitted 12 days ago • 167 comments

Margie Mendez, an 86-year-old Brookline resident, died last week, a few months after she was struck + seriously injured by a State Police cruiser in a Chestnut Hill crosswalk. Frustrated by a lack of communication and accountability, her family is seeking answers. brookline.news/margie-mende...

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Andrew Cuomo's policy paper on affordable housing, released this weekend, was written with the help of ChatGPT and was released rife with typos, in some parts devolving into unintelligible gibberish. hellgatenyc.com/andrew-cuomo...

submitted 12 days ago • 106 comments

I think I'm a golf fan now?

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For the first time in eight years, there's a contested election for Board of Library Trustees in Brookline. Meet the 5 candidates running for 4 seats, aiming to right the ship in the town's library system following staff complaints and a director's resignation. brookline.news/five-candida...

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There might be ways to gradually move more high quality news out from paywalls so that individual readers can pay less, but there's no world in which we societally do not have to pay a substantial price for that high quality news.

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Blaming "the press" somehow for not doing more to address a situation which has been reported on repeatedly, endlessly and in depth, and in which literally everything we know about it comes from "the press"

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We are ramping up election coverage ahead of the May 6 town election in Brookline. Stay tuned to @brooklinenews.bsky.social for more in the coming days, including profiles of all 14 candidates for town-wide office, and a newsy questionnaire sent to every candidate for Town Meeting.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

It's true, I got married, and it is in the newspaper

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Town transportation planners are proposing newly expanded bike lanes on Chestnut Hill Avenue. Here's what the plan looks like at the moment, and how the community has responded so far: brookline.news/what-to-know...

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I love this from @niemanlab.org. And if you read it and think about something going on in Brookline that deserves more attention, let's talk! www.niemanlab.org/2025/04/how-...

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

Excellent, intriguing story from one of the students working with us in collaboration with the Boston University journalism department

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Up to 60 Brookline Housing Authority residents will get $250 a month in direct payments for 12 months, part of an experiment that the public housing organization is launching with a guaranteed basic income. brookline.news/in-new-guara...

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Brookline town leaders are watching this closely www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/02/m...

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THREAD: Last year, ProPublica started receiving tips from an unusual kind of source: flight attendants. They said they'd worked on deportation flights for ICE, and they could tell us what it was really like on board. 1/

submitted 25 days ago • 99 comments

Worth a read about Pat McAfee's deeply irresponsible use of his massive platform in a way which is actively hurting people www.nytimes.com/athletic/624...

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

I love it when municipal documents have the same chaotic naming conventions that I use in my personal life

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

Big story from us today: The town of Brookline has agreed to pay $1.8 million to settle two lawsuits by police officer Amy Hall, who for several years has alleged retaliation and discrimination against her by department leaders. brookline.news/town-agrees-...

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

The National Trust for Local News is so promising, but the pay/benefit disparities described here are unacceptable IMO. The response is roughly "we're still paid a lot less than private sector CEOs" but that's ignoring the main issue, which is that they are not paying many employees a living wage.

submitted 27 days ago • 1 comment

“For local newspapers, the most predictable outcome of the digital era is failure. Cheating that fate is challenging, costly, and important.”

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Update to our story: Two firefighters were injured while putting out this blaze near Coolidge Corner earlier today. Taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Cause under investigation. Residents of multifamily building displaced.

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments