Latest news with #LoganAirport
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Boston Logan airport has 3 new nonstop flights to U.S. cities, see routes here
Summer is a very popular time to take a vacation. The kids are out of school. The weather is nice. It's the perfect time to pack a bag and fly somewhere in search of adventure. It's around this time of the year that airports start bringing back more direct flights so the influx of travelers can get where they want to go. Massachusetts' Boston Logan International Airport is no exception, adding new direct flights to make it easier to get where you want to go this summer. Here are the new summer services being offered at Logan airport, according to a Massachusetts Port Authority spokesperson. Logan's new nonstop domestic routes include Jetblue's service to Norfolk, Virginia and Wilmington, North Carolina, as well as Delta Airlines' direct flight to Pensacola, Florida. "So the only new international destination announced so far is Milan, with Delta starting flights this week," the spokesperson said. The spokesperson for Logan airport also said that other airlines have stated that they will be having new nonstop routes to existing international destinations. "Delta with service to Barcelona, JetBlue to Madrid, Edinburgh and London-Gatwick, TAP to Porto and WestJet to Vancouver," the spokesperson said. Rin Velasco is a trending reporter. She can be reached at rvelasco@ This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Logan airport has new non-stop flights this summer. See where
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Judge Rips Government for Acting Illegally in Harvard Scientist Case
A Harvard University scientist detained by immigration authorities for over three months was granted bail by a federal judge Wednesday in a rebuke to the Trump administration. U.S. District Judge Christina Reiss ruled that Kseniia Petrova's detention and the revocation of her J-1 visa for failing to declare frog embryos at Boston's Logan Airport in February should not have happened, and raised serious legal concerns. 'There does not seem to be either a factual or legal basis for the immigration officer's actions,' Reiss said in her ruling, adding that the samples Petrova brought into the U.S. were 'wholly non-hazardous, non-toxic, non-living, and posed a threat to no one.' 'Ms. Petrova's life and well-being are in peril if she is deported to Russia,' Reiss added, which the Trump administration has said it plans to do. Petrova has said that she fears returning to the country due to her protests against the war in Ukraine. Over three months ago, Petrova arrived back in the U.S. from a vacation in France with frog embryo samples, which she agreed to bring from a laboratory affiliated with her own at the request of her supervisor at Harvard Medical School. When her bags were inspected at the airport, a customs official immediately canceled her visa and began deportation proceedings. '[W]hat happened in this case was extraordinary and novel,' Reiss said. If she did not take action in Petrova's case, Reiss said that 'there will be no determination' if Petrova's constitutional rights were violated. Petrova was recruited from Russia in 2023 to work at Harvard's Kirschner Lab, studying the earliest stages of cell development as part of the lab's work to find ways to repair cell damage that leads to diseases such as cancer. She has admitted to failing to declare the embryo samples, and her lawyer says that this would normally be punished with a minor fine. Petrova still may not be released, as she also faces felony charges in Massachusetts for allegedly smuggling the embryos into the U.S., and is currently in federal custody in Louisiana. For now, though, Reiss's ruling is another rebuke to an administration that is trying to fast-track mass deportations of immigrants while ignoring the law.
Boston Globe
17-05-2025
- Climate
- Boston Globe
Weather mailbag: Is Boston windier this year, and how are NOAA layoffs impacting forecasting?
This is interesting. The topic of wind has been brought up to me a bunch of times this year, especially over the spring months. I looked back at weather observations so far this year at Logan International Airport, in particular, and the findings were quite alarming. In terms of average wind speed, 2025 has been the windiest since 2007, with an average speed of 12.55 miles per hour through May 15. We're nowhere near setting a new record, but it's windier than the 30-year average. Advertisement The most interesting thing that jumped out to me was the average wind gust at Logan — a record-setting 33.59 miles per hour, 2 miles per hour stronger than the previous record for the same 5.5-month stretch set back in 2010. Wind gusts at Logan Airport so far in 2025 have been the strongest on record. IEM The reasons behind this are fairly simple. For one, we had a stronger North Atlantic high pressure so far this year, while a weak La Niña influenced a slightly more interior storm track over New England. This resulted in many storms passing through or near New England to strengthen as they passed. What does this mean? A stronger-than-average high next to stronger lows passing nearby leads to stronger pressure gradients and more gusty conditions. Add in the fact that storm frequency was high this spring, then New England has seen more occurrences of gusty winds. Advertisement This is not directly related to the Carolinas seeing more hurricanes last year, but a strong North Atlantic high does tend to push the surface of the Gulf Stream closer to the shore, so we can make that correlation. The largest component leading to the Gulf Stream shifting closer to the coast is due to increasing sea surface temperatures, allowing for the stream to warm, expand, and slow down. Q: What explains why the summer seems to bring weaker and less frequent windy days than the winter? – Valentin C., Boston New England becomes less windy during the summer than winter because the increasing sun angle decreases the difference in temperature and air pressure between weather patterns across the Northern Hemisphere during summer months. The jet stream, which divides pockets of cool and warm air, becomes less pronounced and pressure gradients between systems are weaker, reducing general wind speeds. Sea surface temperatures across the Gulf of Maine are, of course, warmer during the summer months, so even coastal storms will have a less pronounced temperature and pressure gradient, reducing overall wind speeds. The average wind speed during the summer months in Boston is 10.60 miles per hour and 13.09 miles per hour during the winter. Advertisement Q: How do you see the reduction in staffing and funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) affecting the ability to forecast the weather? – Daniel Spirer, Berkshire County The cutting of staff and voluntary buyouts at NOAA and at the National Weather Service have been an ongoing discussion in the industry and among my peers. And quite frankly, forecasting in general has suffered because of it. There are two main concerns that I have. Part of the reason why the National Weather Service is so darn accurate is because of the data received from weather balloon launches that used to occur multiple times per day, shaping forecasts across the country. Many offices have dropped the frequency of launches, which opens the door for more discrepancies in forecasts. It's always better to have more clues to solve a case than to have fewer, right? Then I think about areas of the country that have been hammered with severe weather since the layoffs, i.e., tornado season currently underway across the Plains, the Midwest, and the South. There has been a tremendous amount of severe weather this season, with some National Weather Service offices scrambling to keep the public notified as outbreaks occur. Short-staffed offices have to prioritize what gets the most attention. Do storm surveys get punted because there aren't enough people working? What happens if staffing isn't possible overnight? I've already seen initiatives shut down ahead of the hurricane season that would have resulted in better forecasting and preparedness. All in all, forecasting suffers when experts and meteorologists can't do their job to protect the public. In a world where extreme weather is increasing in both frequency and severity, it's not the time to make the public even more at risk. Advertisement Erick Ramos searches through the remains of his auto body shop in Lake City, Ark., after it was destroyed in a tornado, April 3, 2025. BRAD J. VEST/NYT Have a question on a weather topic that you'd like to ask the Globe weather team? Let us know what's on your mind! To send in a question or comment, email You can also stay in touch with the weather team by to receive our that will arrive straight into your inbox bright and early each weekday morning. Ken Mahan can be reached at
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Rümeysa Öztürk chose grace over bitterness. What we can learn
Rümeysa Öztürk could have said a lot of things when she got off the plane at Logan Airport last Saturday night, freed after 45 days in custody at a Louisiana detention center. She could have ripped the masked U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents who snatched her off the street in Somerville in March as she was on her way to break her Ramadan fast. She didn't. She could have excoriated the Trump administration for stripping her of her visa and putting her into a legal purgatory that endangered her health and tested her resolve. She didn't. She could have confirmed the Trump White House's worst fears and offered some full-throated support for the murderous terrorists who call themselves Hamas. She didn't. Instead, the soft-spoken, 30-year-old Tufts University graduate student from Turkey stepped to the microphone and just said: 'America is the greatest democracy in the world.' 'And I believe in those values that we share. I have faith in the American system of justice,' she continued. Those few sentences were a powerful reminder that sometimes it takes someone who's not from here to see us as we should see ourselves. A quick refresher: Öztürk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university's response to student activists who were demanding that the university 'acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,' disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Öztürk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. She was never charged with criminal wrongdoing, leaving only the slender pretext of the commentary piece she co-authored. And last week, a federal judge ordered her released while her case makes its way through the courts. You don't have to like, or even agree, with Öztürk to be troubled by the circumstances of her arrest and detention. 'She never should have been detained for one day, let alone 45,' Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said after Öztürk was released. 'It's a violence to rip someone from home, their community ... for nothing but their beliefs.' There's growing agreement that the rule of law is under assault. And if that were just coming from the current White House's critics — and it is, make no mistake — that would be one thing. But it's not. Half of all respondents to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released earlier this month said they saw more overreach from President Donald Trump than they did from the courts. Only 3 in 10 respondents to the poll said federal judges have too much power, according to the poll. The survey is one of several recent tests of public opinion that have shown public anxiety over Trump's actions. A Pew Research Center poll found that about half of U.S. adults say Trump is setting too much policy by executive order, while about 3 in 10 say he's doing about the right amount. A separate CNN-SSRS poll found that 46 percent of Americans have 'a lot' or 'some' confidence in Trump's ability to use the power of the presidency responsibly, which is down from 54 percent in December. The findings indicate a rising sense of panic among Democrats as Trump takes aggressive actions to implement his agenda. Republicans were less troubled, according to the poll. According to the AP-NORC poll, the share of U.S. adults who say the president has too much power in the way the U.S. government operates has jumped significantly since last year, when Democrat Joe Biden was in his final year in office. It has risen from 32 percent in a March 2024 AP-NORC poll. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, has defended the administration's tactics, arguing that visas are a privilege, not a right, and instituted a 'one-strike' policy for students and all temporary visa holders, according to Forbes. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who disagrees with removing dangerous criminals from the country, as the White House has sought to do with its mass deportation program. But when due process protections are sidestepped — a right afforded to citizen and non-citizen alike — the potential for abuse and error multiplies. Such was the case with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who remains in prison in Central America, despite a U.S. Supreme Court order to return him to the United States. If you cover the criminal justice system long enough, two separate and distinct patterns quickly emerge. The first is that we are far more cavalier with the rights of those we don't know than we are with our own. Someone else is accused of a crime? Lock 'em up and throw away the key. The heck with the niceties of a trial or due process. And maybe even off with their heads. You're accused of a crime? There will be no stone unturned, no defense untested, no expense spared as you proclaim your innocence to anyone willing (or not) to listen. The second is that being arrested, charged, and processed through the criminal justice system is physically, psychologically, and emotionally draining for the accused and the victim alike. It is the great equalizer, hitting the powerful and vulnerable. And it spits them out, vastly diminished, at the other end. You can argue that this is as it should be. And justice indeed has elements of punishment and retribution about it. But it also has elements of mercy and rehabilitation about it as well. So before we put someone through that process, who may or may not be guilty — and our system, citizen or not, is premised on the assumption that they are innocent — we need to make sure that we dot every 'I' and cross every 'T.' That's due process. And it's in the U.S. Constitution. It's not a suggestion. It's not something we do if we have the time or the luxury. And it's for everyone. No matter who they are, what they believe, or where they come from. Because right now, it's the accused. Next time, it could be you. Rümeysa Öztürk could have condemned the judicial system last weekend. Instead, she reaffirmed it. 'I have faith in the American system of justice,' she said, seeing us as we badly need to see ourselves again. Associated Press reports are included in this story. 'What About Us?': Native leaders say time's up on broken promises | John L. Micek Broken brokers' fees: Mass. lawmakers try again for a fix | Bay State Briefing A hospital that fights antisemitism? This Israeli doctor wants to make it happen | John L. Micek Read the original article on MassLive.
Boston Globe
15-05-2025
- Boston Globe
Federal judge orders transfer of Harvard scientist to Massachusetts to face smuggling charge
The criminal charge marks a significant escalation of a case that has troubled many in the scientific community, both in Massachusetts and around the world, and has sent a chill through the closeknit group of scientists who worked at her Harvard Medical School laboratory. The charge of smuggling goods into the United States carries On Thursday, Petrova made her first court appearance in the criminal case. She was seated in an office chair in a blank room during a livestreamed Zoom hearing. Wearing a brown khaki shirt over a white t-shirt, Petrova mostly stared straight ahead and occasionally hunched over in her chair as Magistrate Judge Kayla McClusky for the Western District of Louisiana read the criminal charge and an affidavit against her. When asked if she understood the charge, Petrova sat up in her seat and declared, loudly, 'Yes, innocent!' Advertisement According to a criminal complaint, Petrova initially denied carrying any biological material when she arrived at Boston's Logan Airport on Feb. 16. When a Customs and Border Protection agent asked her again, Petrova identified a plastic bag. An inspection of the bag revealed that it contained a foam box with frog embryos as well as embryo slides. When asked if she knew that she was supposed to declare biological material, Petrova said she was not sure, according to the complaint. When a customs officer reviewed Petrova's phone, they found a text message from a colleague at Harvard Medical School urging Petrova to 'get permission' if she brought any samples into the United States. In another text message, a colleague asked Petrova what her plan was for getting the samples through customs. Petrova allegedly replied via text, 'No plan yet. I won't be able to swallow them.' A specialist in bionformatics, Petrova described her work at the Harvard Medical School laboratory as her 'dream job,' in Petrova was part of a team investigating how to extend the human life span by investigating how cells rejuvenate themselves. She and others in her laboratory also used a high-powered microscope to measure lipids, or types of fat in the body, which can be used to understand cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other chronic ailments. 'There is so much beauty in what we can learn through science, in how complicated life is, and in trying to understand how it works,' Petrova wrote in her essay. Advertisement Leon Peshkin, a principal research scientist in Harvard Medical School's department of systems biology and Petrova's laboratory supervisor, said much of the work at the laboratory has stalled or ground to a halt since her detention. 'Some of the important things that [Petrova] does could be done by other people, but only much slower,' Peshkin said. 'She is irreplaceable.' Petrova has been public about her opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and has said she fears being arrested if she is sent back there. On Feb. 24, 2022, when Putin sent columns of Russian tanks into Ukraine, Petrova joined protests in Moscow's streets. On March 2, she was arrested, charged with an administrative violation, fined and released, Gregory Romanovsky, an attorney for Petrova, said in a written statement that Petrova did not need a permit to bring 'non-living scientific samples' into the United States. He said the smuggling charge is an attempt by the Trump administration 'to justify its outrageous and legally indefensible position that this scientist working for the U.S. on cures for cancer and aging research has somehow become a danger to the community. The government confirmed in court yesterday its intent to deport Kseniia to Russia, where it knows she will face grave danger for opposing the Putin regime.' Romanovsky said he expect federal authorities to transfer Petrova to Massachusetts in the next few weeks. Petrova had requested the transfer. Brian Taylor, a professor of political science at Syracuse University who specializes in Russian politics, said it would be 'very bad' for federal authorities to send Petrova back to Russia given her history of opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Advertisement 'She has a legitimate fear of being arrested and sent to jail,' Taylor said. 'Even if they did want to deport her, why they would say they intend to return her to Russia as opposed to allow her to leave for some other third country? … It just seems deliberately cruel." Chris Serres can be reached at
