BOSTON
Boston plans to use $400,000 in US environmental grants to help pay for an estimated $1.2 million cleanup of two former industrial sites slated for redevelopment in the Jackson Square area of Roxbury, officials said Tuesday. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields Program awarded two grants to Boston to clear two adjacent city-owned sites, 1540 and 1542R Columbus Ave. Evelyn Friedman, director of the city’s Neighborhood Development Department, said the city plans to sell them for $1 each to nonprofit developer Urban Edge to build a recreation center and a mixed-use development that includes affordable housing.
Lynch visits site of double homicide
US Representative Stephen F. Lynch visited the South Boston housing development Tuesday where firefighters battling an early morning blaze Sunday discovered the bodies of two people who are believed to have been slain. Lynch told reporters outside the apartment complex at 4 Linskey-Barry Court that authorities are doing everything they can to help residents after the discovery of the victims, whom sources have identified as Diane Bourglas, 52, and her friend Richard. The pair were found badly burned in their third-floor apartment with apparent stab wounds. Lynch told reporters that local and federal authorities are doing their best to combat drug problemsin the neighborhood, but challenges remain.
Body discovered off Castle Island
State Police are investigating after the body of a 60-year-old Dorchester man was found in the shallows near Castle Island in South Boston Tuesday morning, Suffolk County prosecutors said. The cause of the man’s death has not been determined, said Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. The state medical examiner will conduct an autopsy. A passerby spotted the remains near shore about 7 a.m. and called police. The body was in shallow water in the Sugar Bowl, a body of water enclosed by a jetty at the eastern tip of South Boston.
NEW ZEALAND
Mute since crash, BU student speaks
The Boston University undergraduate critically injured in a crash that killed three other BU students in New Zealand has spoken her first words since the May 12 accident, the hospital treating her in that country said. Meg Theriault, 21, of Salisbury, told a trauma nurse coordinator at Waikato Hospital on Wednesday, New Zealand time, that she wanted her mother, the hospital said, noting that Theriault later told her father, Todd, that she loved him. The crash occurred when the driver of a van the students were in lost control of the vehicle after it hit a patch of gravel.
PLYMOUTH
Pilgrim plant gets 20-year renewal
A federal official signed a letter Tuesday officially renewing Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s license for another 20 years. The plant’s operators will not be required to change its technical specifications, according to the letter signed by Nathaniel Ferrer, project manager for the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. The new license goes into effect June 8 at midnight. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 3 to 1 to approve the license Friday, concluding the longest-ever review for a US plant’s permit renewal. Entergy Corp., a Louisiana company that operates the plant, first applied for license renewal Jan. 25, 2006.