{"body":[{"guid":"53113fd3-a897-440a-a670-fda3ffec517c","id":1111661,"channel":"WBUR News","fullChannel":null,"channelType":"section","channelID":3,"program":null,"channelURL":"\/news","wordpressSlug":"karen-soloman-search-worcester-police","wordpressID":1111661,"source":"news","headline":"Woman sought in Massachusetts officer's death co-founded mental health group for first responders","subhead":null,"newsSection":null,"publishDate":"2026-08-19 09:31:43","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/news\/2026\/08\/19\/karen-soloman-search-worcester-police","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-19&slug=karen-soloman-search-worcester-police&sources=news","externalURL":"","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/4qmVsEE","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"Police in are still searching for Karen Soloman after off-duty officer Kurt Solomon was found dead at a Worcester home on Tuesday. ","bylines":[{"name":"The Associated Press","nameLastFirst":"Associated Press","slug":"the-associated-press","wordpressID":781,"title":"","type":"site","channels":["news"],"thumbnail":null,"photo":null,"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/the-associated-press","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/the-associated-press","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"The Associated Press is a nonprofit cooperative wire service that covers news happening across the globe. ","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":null,"content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["Police <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/18\/worcester-police-shooting-death-investigation\">investigating the death of an off-duty police officer<\/a> in Massachusetts in what they called a domestic matter are searching for a woman who co-founded a group that focuses on suicide and mental health issues among first responders.","The officer, a 31-year veteran, was found dead at a home in Worcester on Tuesday. Police and Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said the 58-year woman was at the house. Police were passing out flyers with her photo to drivers in the area Wednesday morning.","Local, state and federal agencies were involved in searching for the woman, who may be armed, Worcester Police Chief Paul Saucier and Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early said at a news conference.","\u201cI can't get into too much of it with regards to our domestic violence rules and regulations,\u201d Early said.","An email seeking comment on the investigation was sent to a spokesperson for Early's office Wednesday.","Police identified the woman as Karen Solomon and did not name the officer. Thomas Duffy, the president of the local police union, identified the officer as Kurt Solomon. Police did not describe the relationship between the two. City records show the Solomons own the home and have paid property taxes on it.","\u201cWhen you serve 31 years with an individual, you become more than co-workers. You become family, and today we lost a member of our family,\u201d Duffy told reporters Tuesday. \u201cJust a tremendous human being. Extremely committed. Always reliable. Always dedicated to the job and to the citizens.\u201d","He added, \u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult time. His loss is deeply being felt by the men and women of this department right now.\u201d","Karen Solomon is a co-founder of an organization called First H.E.L.P., the organization said in a statement Tuesday night.","The group \u201cis dedicated to honoring the service of first responders who have died by suicide, supporting their families, reducing the stigma associated with seeking mental-health assistance, and increasing awareness of mental-health challenges within the law-enforcement and first-responder communities,\u201d it said.","\u201cOur first concern is for the officer who lost his life, his family, his colleagues, and the Worcester law-enforcement community,\u201d the group said in its statement. \u201cWe extend our deepest condolences to all those affected by this tragedy.\u201d","First H.E.L.P. said the circumstances surrounding the Worcester investigation \u201care an active matter for law enforcement\" and the group will have no further comment on it."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/18\/worcester-police-shooting-death-investigation","title":"Worcester police search for woman after officer found dead in her home","prefix":""}],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"","broadcastDate":"","broadcastTime":"","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":null,"volume":3,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":null,"taxonomy":[{"id":73,"type":"category","name":"News","description":"","slug":"news","series":false,"global":false,"count":79266,"hide":false,"primary":true}],"audio":[],"embedMeta":null,"images":[{"type":"featured","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0513_worcesterpolice-3.jpg","width":3000,"height":1549,"title":"City Of Worcester Police Headquarters. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)","caption":"City Of Worcester Police Headquarters. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)","description":"City Of Worcester Police Headquarters. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)","alttext":"City Of Worcester Police Headquarters. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0513_worcesterpolice-3-400x207.jpg","width":400,"height":207},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0513_worcesterpolice-3-1000x516.jpg","width":1000,"height":516},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0513_worcesterpolice-3-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0513_worcesterpolice-3-768x397.jpg","width":768,"height":397},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0513_worcesterpolice-3-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0513_worcesterpolice-3-2048x1057.jpg","width":2048,"height":1057},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0513_worcesterpolice-3-2560x1322.jpg","width":2560,"height":1322},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0513_worcesterpolice-3-1536x793.jpg","width":1536,"height":793},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0513_worcesterpolice-3.jpg","width":3000,"height":1549}}}]},{"guid":"8af0a6f8-8e7a-4ac1-8ee9-f206fad0be94","id":1111460,"channel":"WBUR News","fullChannel":null,"channelType":"section","channelID":3,"program":null,"channelURL":"\/news","wordpressSlug":"massachusetts-rooftop-solar-interconnection-fee","wordpressID":1111460,"source":"news","headline":"Why solar advocates are cheering this new fee on small projects in Mass.","subhead":null,"newsSection":null,"publishDate":"2026-08-19 07:05:27","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/news\/2026\/08\/19\/massachusetts-rooftop-solar-interconnection-fee","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-19&slug=massachusetts-rooftop-solar-interconnection-fee&sources=news","externalURL":"","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/3U6E8b0","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"Putting solar panels on your roof? Massachusetts homeowners and businesses will soon have to pay a $225 fee for small-scale solar projects. But advocates say the charge will make costs more predictable and save an unlucky few customers from five-figure interconnection fees.","bylines":[{"name":"Nik DeCosta-Klipa","nameLastFirst":"DeCosta-Klipa, Nik","slug":"nik-decosta-klipa","wordpressID":747297,"title":"Senior Editor, Newsletters","type":"newsroom","channels":["news"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2022\/01\/nik-decosta-klipa-new-hs-600x600.jpg","photo":{"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2022\/01\/nik-decosta-klipa-new-hs.jpg","width":1694,"height":1694,"title":"nik-decosta-klipa-new-hs","caption":"Nik DeCosta-Klipa","description":"Nik DeCosta-Klipa","alttext":"Nik DeCosta-Klipa","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2022\/01\/nik-decosta-klipa-new-hs-400x400.jpg","width":400,"height":400},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2022\/01\/nik-decosta-klipa-new-hs-1000x1000.jpg","width":1000,"height":1000},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2022\/01\/nik-decosta-klipa-new-hs-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2022\/01\/nik-decosta-klipa-new-hs-768x768.jpg","width":768,"height":768},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2022\/01\/nik-decosta-klipa-new-hs-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2022\/01\/nik-decosta-klipa-new-hs-1536x1536.jpg","width":1536,"height":1536},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2022\/01\/nik-decosta-klipa-new-hs.jpg","width":1694,"height":1694}}},"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/nik-decosta-klipa","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/nik-decosta-klipa","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Nik DeCosta-Klipa is a senior editor for newsletters at WBUR. ","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":"ndk@bu.edu","content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":"Boston's Morning Newsletter","superTitleURL":"\/tag\/wbur-today-newsletter","content":["<em><strong>Editor's Note:<\/strong> This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/wburtoday\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sign up here<\/a>. <\/em>","<hr \/>","Red Sox newcomer Adley Rutschman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/adley-rutschman-hits-first-home-run-with-red-sox\">hit his first home run for the team yesterday<\/a>, while the Connecticut Sun bid farewell to Boston with <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ConnecticutSun\/status\/2089889112874516703\">a dub<\/a>. (You can watch the highlights of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lDrlY10k4hA\">the TD Garden sendoff here<\/a>.)","Now, in other sun news:","<strong>Good news for the solar curious: <\/strong>Massachusetts passed a rule this month that will tack on a $225 fee for putting solar panels on your roof. Wait, why is that good news? As WBUR's Miriam Wasser reports, the change will make the costs of going solar more predictable for everyone \u2014 and saves an unlucky few from paying much, <em>much<\/em> more to connect their new panels to the grid.","<ul> \t<li>The problem: Up until now, homeowners and businesses installing solar panels had to wait and see if they'd get stuck with a dreaded \"interconnection fee.\" The fee paid for the cost of upgrading the local transformer (and other infrastructure) so it could handle the electricity the new solar project would send back to the grid. It was only triggered for a small percentage of customers, if their particular project was the one that maxed out the grid's capacity. But it could unexpectedly add thousands of dollars to a project \u2014 like it did for <a href=\"https:\/\/commonwealthbeacon.org\/energy\/its-like-russian-roulette-a-bellingham-mans-plan-to-add-solar-and-battery-storage-to-his-home-meets-a-nearly-12k-utility-price-tag\/\">this Bellingham man<\/a> who got hit with a $12,000 fee. \"One unlucky customer could get stuck with an entire bill for an electric upgrade that benefited everyone who came after them,\" Lindsay Griffin, a policy expert for the advocacy group Vote Solar, told Miriam, adding that the system was \"arbitrarily killing individual projects.\"<\/li> \t<li>The fix: Last week, the state's Department of Public Utilities <a href=\"https:\/\/eeaonline.eea.state.ma.us\/dpu\/fileroom\/#\/dockets\/docket\/12949\">finalized a rule<\/a> to basically spread out those interconnection fees among all solar customers. \"Everyone chips in a predictable $225, and the utility then spreads the shared upgrade costs across the pool of applicants who benefit from that,\" Griffin said. The new \"Common System Modification\" fee applies to solar and battery storage projects up to 25 kilowatts \u2014 more than enough for your common home solar project.<\/li> \t<li>The caveat: In certain scenarios, the $225 fee won't cover all costs. For Eversource and National Grid customers, it covers the first $10,000 in interconnection fees. So, for example, if your project requires $11,000 in grid upgrades, you'd have to pay $1,225. For Unitil customers, the fee covers only up to $1,450.<\/li> \t<li>What's next: DPU officials say the new fee will be in place in two to three months. (Look to your utility for more info on the application process.)<\/li><\/ul>","<strong>Park it:\u00a0<\/strong>Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is urging the city's parking garage and lot owners not to lease spots to ICE, following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/05\/ice-search-parking-boston\">the news earlier this month<\/a> that the federal agency was looking for 250 parking spaces in the area. After ICE surges turned deadly in Minnesota this past winter, Wu and other local mayors <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/02\/05\/boston-mayor-michelle-wu-ice-executive-order\">signed executive orders<\/a> prohibiting the agency from using municipal property and parking lots. In a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/file\/2026\/08\/Mayor-Wu-Letter-to-Parking-Owners.pdf\"> letter yesterday<\/a>, she called on the city's private parking owners to follow suit. \"Reject any proposition by ICE to facilitate an attack on the people of Boston,\" Wu wrote. \"In the face of escalating attacks on cities across the country, we have repeatedly seen that the strongest defense is solidarity.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/18\/wu-boston-parking-ice\">WBUR's Eve Zuckoff has more here on Wu's letter and the response<\/a> from the Trump administration.","<ul> \t<li>Meanwhile: Wu's administration also filed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/file\/2026\/08\/FOIA-to-ICE-re-Parking.pdf\">a FOIA request<\/a> to see if ICE's request for parking spaces had gotten any local responses.<\/li><\/ul>","<strong>In Worcester:\u00a0<\/strong>Police are searching for a woman they say is a suspect in the death of an off-duty police officer in the city. According to the department, the body of officer Kurt Solomon, a 31-year WPD veteran, was found at a home on Wildwood Avenue early yesterday morning. Officials say they are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/18\/worcester-police-shooting-death-investigation\">looking for 58-year-old Karen Solomon in connection with his death<\/a>, and believe she may be armed and dangerous. Police are urging anyone who sees her to call 911.","<ul> \t<li>In Boston: Police are also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/19\/south-station-stabbing-suspect-texas\">asking for the public's help finding Marico Levy<\/a>, a 17-year-old from Texas who is wanted for murder after last week's fatal stabbing of a Memphis man at South Station.<\/li><\/ul>","<strong>Heads up:\u00a0<\/strong>MassDOT is installing\u00a0wrong-way driving deterrents and detection technology along several local highways this week, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SenatorBruceTarr\/posts\/-starting-tomorrow-tuesday-august-18th-at-9-am-massdot-advisory-peabody-to-glouc\/1453737673247426\/\">Route 128 between Peabody and Gloucester<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RepScanlon\/posts\/pfbid021c18cuRz4HN64ezZTMSmMBw5YZ8cH1GCWKEu9ui1NnKsbTGWAjyPcPnLdv7wQi9Ll\">I-95 between Attleboro and North Attleborough<\/a>. (ICYMI: State Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/upnext\/2026\/08\/14\/wrong-way-crashes-highway-road-safety\">recently gave WBUR a behind-the-scenes look at the effort<\/a>.)","P.S.\u2014 The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wcvb.com\/article\/bridgewater-little-league-world-series\/73430103\">kids from Bridgewater<\/a> play their first game in the Little League Baseball World Series down in Williamsport, Pennsylvania today. They face the team from Bayonne, New Jersey at 7 p.m. on ESPN. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.littleleague.org\/world-series\/2026\/llbws\/tournaments\/world-series\/\">Full schedule<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.littleleague.org\/world-series\/2026\/llbws\/bracket\/\">bracket<\/a>.)","<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"optinmonster\"><\/span>"],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/07\/16\/wildfire-smoke-climate-change-solar-panels-production-iso-new-england","title":"All that wildfire smoke sent New England's solar production plummeting","prefix":""},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/hereandnow\/2026\/05\/19\/agrivoltaics-solar-farming","title":"There's a solar boom in rural America. Can agriculture and renewable energy share the land?","prefix":"Here & Now:"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/07\/02\/masschusetts-utility-rates-energy-policy-mass-save","title":"Beacon Hill negotiators face tough election-season decisions on energy policy","prefix":""}],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"","broadcastDate":"","broadcastTime":"","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":null,"volume":3,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":null,"taxonomy":[{"id":61,"type":"category","name":"Boston","description":"","slug":"boston","series":false,"global":false,"count":63147,"hide":false,"primary":true},{"id":73,"type":"category","name":"News","description":"","slug":"news","series":false,"global":false,"count":79266,"hide":false,"primary":false},{"id":67,"type":"category","name":"Environment","description":"","slug":"environment","series":false,"global":false,"count":8771,"hide":false,"primary":false},{"id":75,"type":"category","name":"Politics","description":"","slug":"politics","series":false,"global":false,"count":35682,"hide":false,"primary":false}],"audio":[],"embedMeta":{"embed-1":{"id":1,"parentID":1111460,"type":"optinmonster","attributes":{"id":"om-ivruob8mjxirh7nq55vw-holder"},"body":"","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"optinmonster\"><\/span>"}},"images":[{"type":"featured","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07.jpg","width":3000,"height":1800,"title":"0421_geothermal-weiss-07","caption":"A home in Somerville with rooftop solar panels. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)","description":"A home in Somerville with rooftop solar panels. ","alttext":"A home in Somerville with rooftop solar panels.","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-400x240.jpg","width":400,"height":240},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-1000x600.jpg","width":1000,"height":600},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-768x461.jpg","width":768,"height":461},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-2048x1229.jpg","width":2048,"height":1229},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-2560x1536.jpg","width":2560,"height":1536},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-1536x922.jpg","width":1536,"height":922},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07.jpg","width":3000,"height":1800}}},{"type":"standard","bgPosition":null,"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07.jpg","width":3000,"height":1800,"title":"0421_geothermal-weiss-07","caption":"A home in Somerville with rooftop solar panels. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)","description":"A home in Somerville with rooftop solar panels. ","alttext":"A home in Somerville with rooftop solar panels.","index":0,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-400x240.jpg","width":400,"height":240},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-1000x600.jpg","width":1000,"height":600},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-768x461.jpg","width":768,"height":461},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-2048x1229.jpg","width":2048,"height":1229},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-2560x1536.jpg","width":2560,"height":1536},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07-1536x922.jpg","width":1536,"height":922},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0421_geothermal-weiss-07.jpg","width":3000,"height":1800}}}]},{"guid":"e3426dcd-4011-46ed-8b63-addc3c38c715","id":1111638,"channel":"WBUR News","fullChannel":null,"channelType":"section","channelID":3,"program":null,"channelURL":"\/news","wordpressSlug":"south-station-stabbing-suspect-texas","wordpressID":1111638,"source":"news","headline":"Boston police seek 17-year-old from Texas in fatal South Station stabbing","subhead":null,"newsSection":null,"publishDate":"2026-08-19 06:18:14","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/news\/2026\/08\/19\/south-station-stabbing-suspect-texas","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-19&slug=south-station-stabbing-suspect-texas&sources=news","externalURL":"https:\/\/www.dotnews.com\/2026\/08\/18\/boston-police-seek-17-year-old-from-texas-in-south-station-murder\/","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/4ihMkPC","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"Boston police are asking for the public\u2019s help locating Marico Levy, 17, in connection with the stabbing death of 29-year-old Latavius Owens at South Station.","bylines":[{"name":"Dorchester Reporter Newsroom","slug":null,"wordpressID":null,"content":null,"apiURL":null,"relativeURL":null,"organization":"wbur","embedMeta":null,"shortBio":"","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"title":"","type":null,"channels":null,"photo":null,"website":null,"email":null,"nameLastFirst":null,"thumbnail":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["Boston police are asking for the public\u2019s help locating Marico Levy, 17, of Aubrey, Texas, who is wanted for murder in connection with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/13\/fatal-stabbing-south-station-boston-police\">fatal stabbing of a man at South Station<\/a> last week.","Police describe Levy as 5-foot-7, about 140 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.","<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"twitter\"><\/span>","At about 5:33 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 12, Transit Police responded to a reported stabbing at South Station. Officers found Latavius Owens, 29, of Memphis, Tennessee, suffering from an apparent stab wound inside the station. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.","Police said their preliminary investigation indicates Owens and the suspect got into an altercation on an escalator leading to an exit from South Station. BPD\u2019s Homicide Unit is investigating.","Anyone who can help locate Levy is \u201cstrongly urged\u201d to contact the Boston Police Homicide Unit at 617-343-4470.","____","<em> WBUR and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dotnews.com\/\">the\u00a0Dorchester Reporter<\/a>\u00a0have a partnership in which the news organizations share resources to collaborate on stories.\u00a0This story was originally\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dotnews.com\/2026\/08\/18\/boston-police-seek-17-year-old-from-texas-in-south-station-murder\/\">published<\/a>\u00a0by the Dorchester Reporter.<\/em>"],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/13\/fatal-stabbing-south-station-boston-police","title":"Boston police investigate fatal stabbing inside South Station","prefix":""}],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"","broadcastDate":"","broadcastTime":"","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":null,"volume":3,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":null,"taxonomy":[{"id":73,"type":"category","name":"News","description":"","slug":"news","series":false,"global":false,"count":79266,"hide":false,"primary":true},{"id":61,"type":"category","name":"Boston","description":"","slug":"boston","series":false,"global":false,"count":63147,"hide":false,"primary":false}],"audio":[],"embedMeta":{"embed-1":{"id":1,"parentID":1111638,"type":"twitter","attributes":{"url":"https:\/\/x.com\/bostonpolice\/status\/2089824595306017080?s=20"},"body":"","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"twitter\"><\/span>"}},"images":[{"type":"featured","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0528_southstation-10.jpg","width":3000,"height":1837,"title":"South Station, pictured here in 2024. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)","caption":"South Station, pictured here in 2024. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)","description":"South Station, pictured here in 2024. (Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)","alttext":"South Station, pictured here in 2024. 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Police and town officials are pushing for stricter regulations.","bylines":[{"name":"Patrick Madden","nameLastFirst":"Madden, Patrick","slug":"patrick-madden","wordpressID":850444,"title":"Senior Investigative Reporter","type":"newsroom","channels":["investigations"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2023\/04\/patrick_madden-1-600x600.jpg","photo":{"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2023\/04\/patrick_madden-1.jpg","width":1600,"height":1600,"title":"Patrick Madden","caption":"Patrick Madden","description":"Patrick Madden","alttext":"Patrick Madden","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2023\/04\/patrick_madden-1-400x400.jpg","width":400,"height":400},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2023\/04\/patrick_madden-1-1000x1000.jpg","width":1000,"height":1000},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2023\/04\/patrick_madden-1-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2023\/04\/patrick_madden-1-768x768.jpg","width":768,"height":768},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2023\/04\/patrick_madden-1-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2023\/04\/patrick_madden-1-1536x1536.jpg","width":1536,"height":1536},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2023\/04\/patrick_madden-1.jpg","width":1600,"height":1600}}},"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/patrick-madden","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/patrick-madden","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Patrick Madden is a senior investigative reporter for WBUR.","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":"pmadden@bu.edu","content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["Bode Rogers had just learned to ride his bicycle without training wheels.","On a hot June afternoon in Hingham, the 5-year-old boy pedaled down the driveway and turned onto the sidewalk. His mother, Meagan Rogers, heard the collision from the garage.","\"It sounded like a car crash,\u201d said Rogers. \u201cThat's how hard the impact was.\u201d","A teenager on an electric-powered bike had collided with Bode. Rogers ran outside and found her son pinned under the heavy e-bike. She called 911.","\u201cRight away, we knew he was hurt. He couldn\u2019t feel his arm,\u201d Rogers said.","Bode\u2019s helmet had cracked and his arm had shattered, requiring several surgeries and a five-inch pin. Another operation is scheduled next month.","<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>","Bode's injury is part of a dramatic spike in children hurt in e-bike and electric scooter crashes across Massachusetts this summer. Doctors say the injuries are often far more severe than pedal bike crashes.","\u201cWe've seen so many catastrophic TBIs \u2014 traumatic brain injuries \u2014 in children who are riding or being hit by these things, or being hit by a car because they're riding in high-speed traffic and they don't know the rules of the road,\u201d said Dr. Cornelia Griggs, a pediatric surgeon at Mass General Brigham for Children.","As e-bike injuries mount, emergency department doctors, police and town officials are pushing for tougher rules and clearer guidelines from the state on age requirements and speed limits.","<span data-index=\"2\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>","Rogers said Bode will recover. But she said something needs to change.","\u201cThe kids riding them are younger than the age of having a [driver\u2019s] license, so they haven't learned all of the road regulations and safety,\u201d she said. \u201cWe shouldn't wait until something really bad happens to do something.\u201d","____","<h3>ERs sound alarm over kids hurt by e-bikes<\/h3>","Physicians at some of the state\u2019s largest pediatric trauma centers told WBUR they\u2019re alarmed by the sharp increase in serious injuries from electric bikes and scooters.\u00a0<strong><br \/><\/strong>","Dr. Errol Mortimer, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, estimated \"close to a tenfold increase\u201d in ER visits for children hurt by e-bikes over last year.","In Springfield, Baystate Health pediatric emergency physician Dr. Kala Frye Bourque said \"a good 90% of the trauma pages just in the last week have been e-bikes or e-scooter accidents.\"","And in Boston, Griggs at Mass General said \u201cevery single time I am on call, there is a trauma activation for a child injured on or by an e-bike.\"","<span data-index=\"3\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>","Griggs said electric bikes weigh roughly twice what pedal bikes do and go about twice as fast. Regular bike helmets are rated to protect a rider at about 14 to 20 miles per hour.","\"A lot of these e-bikes can go 30 miles an hour with a flick of a wrist,\u201d she said. \"When they're just wearing a bike helmet, they can still get a severe brain injury.\u201d","In July, she posted a viral video on TikTok in blue scrubs alerting the public about the injuries that ER doctors and nurses are seeing.","<span data-index=\"4\" data-type=\"tiktok\"><\/span>","She wants people buying machines for kids to know about the risks.","\"What we hear over and over again in the trauma bay is parents and grandparents who say, 'I had no idea,' \" she said.","____","<h3>Altered e-bikes vex police<\/h3>","As e-bikes and scooters rise in popularity, law enforcement officials said they're also struggling to keep up with the safety problems that come with them.","Milford Police Chief Robert Tusino said his department in central Mass. has seen a spike in crashes, near-misses and 911 calls reporting e-bikers weaving through traffic or riding on sidewalks, which isn\u2019t allowed.","\"It's not the cycling community that is abusing e-bikes,\" he said. \"It's this young, juvenile group that knows there's really not much the police can do.\"","<span data-index=\"5\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>","Tusino said his officers can\u2019t chase e-bikes because it might lead to even more crashes. He\u2019s also found kids are tampering with the bikes\u2019 factory settings to ride faster than they\u2019re supposed to go.","\"Every one of these e-bikes that we have interaction with are usually modified,\u201d Tusino said, \u201cso they go in excess of 40 miles an hour.\u201d","As e-bike crashes and complaints pile up, Milford and nearly a dozen other local police departments have issued <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/longmeadowpolice\/photos\/-hey-parents-we-need-your-helpthe-lpd-has-seen-a-sharp-increase-in-complaints-re\/1343462964633228\/\">public<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DuxburyPolice\/posts\/with-an-increase-in-e-bikes-throughout-town-as-a-reminder-please-follow-all-safe\/1391577209670249\/\">safety<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HoldenMAPD\/posts\/the-holden-police-department-has-encountered-many-cases-of-both-youths-and-adult\/1278044797871669\/\">warnings<\/a> about teenagers on e-bikes.","____","<h3>E-bike rules are uneven, outdated<\/h3>","Public safety experts said a key problem is that the rapidly evolving technology for e-bikes has outpaced regulations.","A Massachusetts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mass.gov\/doc\/special-commission-on-micromobility-report-january-2026\/download\">statewide commission study<\/a> released in January found a patchwork of local ordinances that vary town by town for e-bikes and motorized devices. That\u2019s left riders, police and local officials without clear guidance on who can legally operate the devices and where.","Some communities that tried to overhaul their e-bike regulations faced pushback.","In Plymouth, Select Board Chair Deb Iaquinto drafted a bylaw after two serious crashes involving teenagers. The proposal included helmet requirements, age restrictions and fines for reckless riding.","The December 2025 hearing drew a packed crowd of roughly 100 people.","\"Most of them, surprisingly, were against the regulations,\" Iaquinto said, \"because they felt that it unduly penalized people that were using the e-bikes as they were meant to be used.\"","The board voted it down 3-2. Iaquinto said a local bylaw wouldn't have been enough to prevent problems.","\"The rules change as soon as you cross a town border,\" she said. \"I do think the best solution will be for the state to come up with some standards that we can all adopt.\"","<span data-index=\"6\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>","Lawmakers on Beacon Hill are working to create a statewide safety framework to regulate e-bikes.","In May, Gov. Maura Healey filed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mass.gov\/news\/governor-healey-files-ride-safe-act-to-strengthen-public-safety-regulate-e-bikes-mopeds-and-scooters\">Ride Safe Act<\/a>, which would classify these machines by top speed rather than device type. Powered devices that exceed 20 miles per hour would be off limits to anyone under 16.","The bill has support from legislative leaders and its provisions were rolled into a broader economic development package that\u2019s pending in the Statehouse.","Meanwhile, crashes keep happening. In June, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcboston.com\/news\/local\/medway-teenager-ebike-crash\/3959463\/?ro&fbclid=IwY2xjawTdsblwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAGJyaWQRMUR2ZnFIYVpMdnplaHQ2YjJzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe5baKhKsyuA7xnIIGQJs4TDCJruTr5TslxjAigOeoHcxUHx8IMCpHG6h7fak_aem_b-wDvmuYyY4Od7gDfBTpgA\">14-year-old e-bike rider<\/a> in Medway was airlifted to a trauma center after being struck by a car. Weeks later in Haverhill, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wcvb.com\/article\/girl-12-killed-haverhill-scooter-bus-crash\/71744397\">a 12-year-old girl<\/a> died when the motorized scooter she was riding collided with a bus.","Some physicians like Mortimer at UMass Memorial said they\u2019re worried about what will happen this fall as kids use e-bikes for commuting to school and practices.","\u201cI'm concerned that there will be even higher numbers of injuries once kids are back at school,\u201d he said."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/05\/05\/maura-healey-massachusetts-ebike-scooter-bill-speed-tiers","title":"Gov. Healey proposes new rules for electric bikes, scooters and more","prefix":""},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2022\/03\/31\/electric-bikes-boston","title":"Electric bikes taking hold without regulatory framework","prefix":"2022:"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2019\/04\/01\/e-scooters-launch-in-brookline-accident-sends-woman-to-hospital-minutes-later","title":"E-scooters launch in Brookline; Accident sends woman to hospital minutes later","prefix":"2019:"}],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"","broadcastDate":"","broadcastTime":"","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":null,"volume":3,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":"1787143353","taxonomy":[{"id":200,"type":"tag","name":"WBUR's Morning Edition","description":"","slug":"morning-edition","series":false,"global":false,"count":6899,"hide":true,"primary":true},{"id":73,"type":"category","name":"News","description":"","slug":"news","series":false,"global":false,"count":79266,"hide":false,"primary":true},{"id":61,"type":"category","name":"Boston","description":"","slug":"boston","series":false,"global":false,"count":63147,"hide":false,"primary":false},{"id":70,"type":"category","name":"Life","description":"","slug":"life","series":false,"global":false,"count":11907,"hide":false,"primary":false}],"audio":[{"id":152787,"createdAt":"2026-08-19T12:42:33.000000Z","updatedAt":"2026-08-19T12:42:34.000000Z","fileName":"news_0819_bikes-injuries-deaths-scooters-massachusetts-pedestrians","playCount":0,"airDate":"2026-08-19","source":"news","wordpressTitle":"Child e-bike injuries have skyrocketed across Mass., ER doctors warn","wordpressSlug":"bikes-injuries-deaths-scooters-massachusetts-pedestrians","status":"available","subType":"primary","audioLength":275,"nprCDNFilename":null,"description":"The doctors say electric bike and scooter crashes are often far more severe than those involving pedal bikes: broken bones, head injuries, even deaths. 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Can they be impartial?","subhead":null,"newsSection":null,"publishDate":"2026-08-19 05:49:07","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/news\/2026\/08\/19\/jag-lawyers-immigration-court-massachusetts-conflict-trump","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-19&slug=jag-lawyers-immigration-court-massachusetts-conflict-trump&sources=news","externalURL":"","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/4g7JZp1","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"Some legal observers say the military lawyers have obligations to follow orders, and that could conflict with the traditional goal of providing fair hearings in immigration court.\u00a0","bylines":[{"name":"Sim\u00f3n Rios","nameLastFirst":"Rios, Sim\u00f3n","slug":"simon-rios","wordpressID":917,"title":"Correspondent","type":"newsroom","channels":["news"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/WBURCropped-TheDangerBooth-213-600x600.jpg","photo":{"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/WBURCropped-TheDangerBooth-213.jpg","width":1575,"height":1575,"title":"Sim\u00f3n Rios","caption":"Sim\u00f3n Rios","description":"Sim\u00f3n Rios","alttext":"Sim\u00f3n Rios","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/WBURCropped-TheDangerBooth-213-400x400.jpg","width":400,"height":400},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/WBURCropped-TheDangerBooth-213-1000x1000.jpg","width":1000,"height":1000},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/WBURCropped-TheDangerBooth-213-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/WBURCropped-TheDangerBooth-213-768x768.jpg","width":768,"height":768},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/WBURCropped-TheDangerBooth-213-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/WBURCropped-TheDangerBooth-213-1536x1536.jpg","width":1536,"height":1536},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/WBURCropped-TheDangerBooth-213.jpg","width":1575,"height":1575}}},"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/simon-rios","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/simon-rios","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Sim\u00f3n Rios is a WBUR correspondent, covering immigration, politics and local enterprise stories.","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":"srios@wbur.org","content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["At least four lawyers serving in the U.S. military's legal branch have been seated as judges on federal immigration courts in Massachusetts, after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/07\/27\/boston-immigration-judge-omalley-firings\">a number of judges were fired<\/a> by the Trump administration in the Bay State and around the country.","The military lawyers come from the Judge Advocate General's Corps, known as JAG. Three have been appointed to the Chelmsford court and one to Boston. The temporary hires come amid <a href=\"https:\/\/tracreports.org\/phptools\/immigration\/backlog\/\">a huge backlog<\/a> of deportation cases nationally and the increasing use of the military in civilian matters.","The ACLU of Massachusetts is suing the federal government to disclose information on the activation of military lawyers as immigration judges. ACLUM attorney Dan McFadden said the practice raises a host of concerns, including whether these lawyers can be fair adjudicators of immigration law.","\u201cAre military immigration judges, who are there on active duty orders, sufficiently independent and impartial to do that work?\u201d McFadden asked in an interview.","The practice also raises questions related to the century-and-a-half-old Posse Comitatus\u00a0Act, which restricts the use of the military in civilian matters, said Margy O\u2019Herron, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program at the New York University School of Law.","\"There's no expressly authorized exception, passed by Congress, for military lawyers to serve as immigration judges. Full stop,\" she said.","In the JAG Corps, reservists and full-time personnel provide a broad range of legal services to military staff, from helping deploying soldiers draft\u00a0their wills to prosecuting international terrorism suspects. In August of last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/pentagon-immigration-judges-trump-pete-hegseth-b07950833591270b926ad86ede8b961f\">reportedly approved<\/a> using up to 600 military lawyers as temporary immigration judges, a position typically occupied by veteran Justice Department attorneys with relevant experience.","The position of temporary immigration judge was created under the Obama administration in 2014 to deal with a \"surge\" in court cases. Last August, the DOJ eliminated the requirement that temporary judges have certain qualifications, including prior service as an immigration judge, or at least a decade of experience practicing immigration law within the Department of Justice.","Under the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalregister.gov\/documents\/2025\/08\/28\/2025-16573\/designation-of-temporary-immigration-judges\">new rules<\/a>, any lawyer can serve as a temporary immigration judge, for terms up to six months with possible extensions.","According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govinfo.gov\/content\/pkg\/FR-2025-08-28\/pdf\/2025-16573.pdf\">new regulation<\/a>, the DOJ \u201cno longer believes the restriction of [temporary immigration judges] to current Department employees with a threshold level of immigration law experience serves [DOJ<strong>]<\/strong> interests. Immigration law experience is not always a strong predictor of success\" as an immigration judge.","In July,\u00a0two JAG lawyers were appointed as temporary judges to the Chelmsford court, according to federal bulletins announcing the hirings. They include Kai Bernal-LeClaire, a commander in the Navy Reserve and a member of the Texas bar; and Terry Meinecke, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and member of the North Carolina bar. Appointed to the bench in Chelmsford in October was Jason David Thomas, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and a member of the Massachusetts Bar.","Jared Monaco, a temporary immigration judge appointed to the Boston court in May, serves as a captain in the Army Reserve JAG Corps, according to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/eoir\/media\/1441406\/dl?inline\">announcement<\/a> of new judges.","Hegseth's decision\u00a0drew condemnation from legal advocates concerned about the lawyers' lack of experience. The ACLU of Massachusetts sued the Pentagon in July, demanding it produce records related to the practice.","McFadden, the lead attorney for the ACLUM, said the records could answer key questions, such as whether JAG lawyers are serving voluntarily, and what the terms of their service include.","\u201cThe public and the legal community need to have access to the records of this program,\" McFadden said, \"and the instructions that define its operation, so that they can understand what is happening and understand whether or not this program complies with the law.\"","One <a href=\"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-18-at-10.58.35-AM.pdf\">email obtained by the ACLUM<\/a> and reviewed by WBUR appears addressed to JAG lawyers in the U.S. Marine Corps, seeking three volunteers for activations as immigration judges. The activations would last 179 days, including three weeks of training, followed by five months on the bench with an opportunity to extend.","<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"iframe\"><\/span>","Daniel Kanstroom, a law professor at Boston College, said he doesn't presume JAG lawyers appointed as judges will do the bidding of the Trump administration. But he is concerned about whether those appointed are equipped to tackle immigration law, a complicated area that he said takes years to master.","In the past, \"The government has generally looked for people who have experience practicing immigration law,\" to serve as judges, Kanstroom said. And that's not possible with short-term appointments.","\"It's kind of like asking a dentist to do abdominal surgery,\" he added.","Some legal observers note that JAG lawyers have obligations to follow orders, and that could conflict with the need to provide fair hearings in immigration court.","\"Any order that is given from somebody in their chain that potentially would conflict with the ability to provide a neutral adjudication would be a problem,\" said the Brennan Center's O'Herron.","She added that the practice is part of a broader move to militarize immigration enforcement in the U.S, including the use of military aircraft for deportation flights; the deployment of the National Guard and Marines to assist with immigration enforcement, and the establishment of military zones at the border.","\"\u200aRegardless of the legality, this is another move by the current administration to erode the line between military and civilian government, which has really been a core principle in the United States,\" O'Herron said. \"Doing that undermines public trust in the immigration courts as well as in the military.\"","A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on the policy, citing \u201cpending litigation.\u201d The Executive Office for Immigration Review also refused to comment."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/07\/27\/boston-immigration-judge-omalley-firings","title":"Another longtime immigration judge no longer at Boston court","prefix":""},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/npr\/nx-s1-5482883\/trump-immigration-court-firings-chelmsford","title":"Inside one of the most understaffed immigration courts in the country","prefix":""},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/07\/20\/boston-chelmsford-immigration-courthouses-massachusetts","title":"'Mega masters' hearings pack immigration court dockets. 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(Robin Lubbock\/WBUR)","index":0,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/03\/0219_chelmscourt-1-400x267.jpg","width":400,"height":267},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/03\/0219_chelmscourt-1-1000x667.jpg","width":1000,"height":667},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/03\/0219_chelmscourt-1-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/03\/0219_chelmscourt-1-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/03\/0219_chelmscourt-1-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/03\/0219_chelmscourt-1-1920x1280.jpg","width":1920,"height":1280},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/03\/0219_chelmscourt-1-2560x1707.jpg","width":2560,"height":1707},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/03\/0219_chelmscourt-1-1536x1024.jpg","width":1536,"height":1024},"2048x2048":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/03\/0219_chelmscourt-1-2048x1365.jpg","width":2048,"height":1365},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/03\/0219_chelmscourt-1.jpg","width":3000,"height":2000}}}]},{"guid":"f13cb4f3-a95e-4021-b2cf-8ba6a1ade91e","id":1111441,"channel":"WBUR News","fullChannel":null,"channelType":"section","channelID":3,"program":null,"channelURL":"\/news","wordpressSlug":"weekend-northeast-tea-festival-and-better-angels-pop-up","wordpressID":1111441,"source":"news","headline":"5 things to do this weekend, including the NorthEast Tea Festival and 'Better Angels' pop-up","subhead":null,"newsSection":{"name":"Arts & Culture","slug":"arts-culture"},"publishDate":"2026-08-19 05:00:32","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/news\/2026\/08\/19\/weekend-northeast-tea-festival-and-better-angels-pop-up","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-19&slug=weekend-northeast-tea-festival-and-better-angels-pop-up&sources=news","externalURL":"","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/4xUFtjT","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"Plus, Porchfest in Jamaica Plain and a lively production of \"The Barber of Seville.\"","bylines":[{"name":"Shira Laucharoen","nameLastFirst":"Laucharoen, Shira","slug":"shira-laucharoen","wordpressID":735795,"title":"Arts Writer","type":"contributor","channels":["arts-culture"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2021\/11\/1130_shira-square-600x600.jpg","photo":{"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2021\/11\/1130_shira-square.jpg","width":3000,"height":3000,"title":"Shira Laucharoen","caption":"Shira Laucharoen","description":"Shira Laucharoen","alttext":"Shira Laucharoen","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2021\/11\/1130_shira-square-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2021\/11\/1130_shira-square-400x400.jpg","width":400,"height":400},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2021\/11\/1130_shira-square-768x768.jpg","width":768,"height":768},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2021\/11\/1130_shira-square-1000x1000.jpg","width":1000,"height":1000},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2021\/11\/1130_shira-square-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2021\/11\/1130_shira-square-1920x1920.jpg","width":1920,"height":1920},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2021\/11\/1130_shira-square-2560x2560.jpg","width":2560,"height":2560},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2021\/11\/1130_shira-square.jpg","width":3000,"height":3000}}},"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/shira-laucharoen","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/shira-laucharoen","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Shira Laucharoen is a contributor to WBUR's arts and culture section.","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":"https:\/\/www.shiralaucharoen.com","email":null,"content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["There\u2019s so much joy to be found, even as we wind down towards the end of summer. This week, sample sips of tea from around the world at the NorthEast Tea Festival and step into a workshop to learn how to make your own drinkable creations. Jamaica Plain Porchfest presents a day full of free performances on porches and in public spaces around the neighborhood. Finally, enjoy a humorous work by classical composer Gioachino Rossini, brought to you by Boston Summer Opera. These and more, below.","<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.silkroad.org\/gmw\">Silkroad\u2019s Global Musician Workshop<\/a><\/h2>","<h3>Wednesday, Aug. 18-Saturday, Aug. 22<\/h3>","Yo-Yo Ma founded Silkroad in 1998, to bring together musicians from around the world in the face of globalization. Now under the leadership of Rhiannon Giddens, Silkroad asks the question of what happens when strangers come together to create art. This weekend, the Global Musician Workshop welcomes registered musicians to participate in elective classes, evening jam sessions, and workshops, culminating in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.silkroad.org\/gmw-performance-festival\">Performance Festival<\/a>. This series of concerts features music from Mexico, Mali, Armenia, China and other countries. On Wednesday, a Global Musicians Showcase will take place at New England Conservatory\u2019s Jordan Hall, featuring artists such as Veronica Robles and Ara Dinkjian. Participant concerts will be performed at the Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theater from Thursday-Saturday. Tickets to Tuesday\u2019s showcase cost $28.52, while the other events cost $17.85. A festival pass costs $28.52.","<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>","<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetriennial.org\/events\/better-angels-waterfront-park-august-21\">\u2018Better Angels\u2019<\/a><\/h2>","<h3>Friday, Aug. 21-Saturday, Aug. 22<\/h3>","Boston Public Art Triennial and conceptual artist Heather Kapplow invites viewers to find moments of grace, while acknowledging that we are only human. \u201cBetter Angels\u201d is a free, participatory pop-up installation. This weekend, you can find Kapplow\u2019s work at Waterfront Park, offering an experience in partnership with Friends of Christopher Columbus Park. Step inside, and you will see \"inflatable clouds, heavenly gates and campy angels,\" while being invited to imagine your best self, in the company of the strangers around you. After you\u2019ve verbalized your ideals and limitations with a fellow participant, a staff member will accept you \u201cinto heaven, via a decree and official paperwork,\u201d allowing you to waltz into the installation and immerse yourself. \u201cBetter Angels\u201d will be open on Friday and Saturday from 1-8 p.m.","<span data-index=\"2\" data-type=\"instagram\"><\/span>","<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/northeastteafestival.com\">NorthEast Tea Festival<\/a><\/h2>","<h3>Saturday, Aug. 22<\/h3>","The NorthEast Tea Festival is back! Now in its second year, the festival brings together Earl Grey and Genmaicha enthusiasts to sample a variety of different blends in Watertown. Your ticket comes with a porcelain cup with which you can peruse the stalls of vendors from Mem Tea, to K&amp;K Chai and Sugimoto Tea Company. Lectures and workshops will be ongoing, such as \u201cSip, Slow Down &amp; De-Stress: The Power of Tea &amp; Herbs for Body and Mind,\u201d by wellness coach Jo Feltman. You might also make your own blend in \u201cFruity Foundations: A Custom Tea Blending Workshop,\u201d where you\u2019ll be offered a raspberry black tea and a lemon black tea to use as foundations, then add flowers, fruits and herbs. General admission costs $20, and the festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.","<span data-index=\"3\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>","<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpporchfest.org\">Jamaica Plain Porchfest<\/a><\/h2>","<h3>Saturday, Aug. 22<\/h3>","Join arts enthusiasts for a community-run festival, produced by Dunamis, that has been taking over Jamaica Plain neighborhoods since 2014. Porches, green spaces and other gathering spots will be home to free live music, storytelling and dance. Local artists will perform on the Meraki Main Stage at Sam Adams Beer Garden, with guest performers\u00a0 curated by Roxbury rapper Cakeswagg. At Ula Cafe, WBUR\u2019s own <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/inside\/staff\/jacquinn-sinclair\">Jacquinn Sinclair<\/a> will host poetry readings, featuring guests such as Wendy Sanchez, Amanda Shea and Jennifer Martinez. Former WBUR Maker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2024\/10\/06\/the-makers-naomi-westwater\">Naomi Westwater<\/a> will curate The Folk Stage at Drawdown Brewing. The event runs from 12-6 p.m.","<span data-index=\"4\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>","<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/boston-summer-opera.com\/barber-2026\">\u2018The Barber of Seville\u2019<\/a><\/h2>","<h3>Saturday, Aug. 22-Sunday, Aug. 23<\/h3>","Boston Summer Opera and the Horizon Ensemble mount a delightfully comedic work, \u201cThe Barber of Seville,\u201d with music by Rossini. Directed by Hannah Shanefield, the production follows the story of the barber Figaro, who strives to help the Count Almaviva in courting the beautiful Rosina, while finding ways to thwart Rosina\u2019s greedy guardian, Dr. Bartolo. The opera is replete with disguises, false identities, mishaps, blunders and joyful melodies. The staging of this masterpiece represents the second year in a row that Boston Summer Opera has teamed up with Horizon Ensemble to present a classical work, following last year\u2019s \u201cThe Pirates of Penzance.\u201d The first performance takes place at Wellesley Hills Congregational Church at 7:30 p.m., while the second will be held at The Boston Synagogue at 3 p.m. General admission tickets cost $25."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"","broadcastDate":"","broadcastTime":"","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":"From Porchfest in Jamaica Plain to a public art installation of inflated clouds, here are five events to check out this weekend.","volume":3,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":null,"taxonomy":[{"id":6019,"type":"tag","name":"Field Guide to Boston","description":"","slug":"boston-massachusetts-neighborhood-field-guide","series":false,"global":true,"count":714,"hide":false,"primary":true},{"id":4597,"type":"tag","name":"The ARTery's Weekend Preview","description":"","slug":"weekend-preview","series":false,"global":false,"count":470,"hide":false,"primary":false},{"id":60,"type":"category","name":"Arts","description":"","slug":"arts","series":false,"global":false,"count":14783,"hide":false,"primary":true},{"id":61,"type":"category","name":"Boston","description":"","slug":"boston","series":false,"global":false,"count":63147,"hide":false,"primary":false}],"audio":[],"embedMeta":{"embed-1":{"id":1,"parentID":1111441,"type":"caption","attributes":{"id":"attachment_1111468","align":"aligncenter","width":"3000","alttext":"A workshop for global musicians organized by Silkroad. 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(Courtesy NorthEast Tea Festival)\" width=\"3000\" height=\"2000\" \/>","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"3\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>"},"embed-4":{"id":4,"parentID":1111441,"type":"caption","attributes":{"id":"attachment_1111473","align":"aligncenter","width":"3000","alttext":"Porchfest performances take place all over Jamaica Plain on Saturday. (Courtesy Deborah Karson Photography)","caption":"Porchfest performances take place all over Jamaica Plain on Saturday. (Courtesy Deborah Karson Photography)","imageSizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/DZ2A0609-1-400x286.jpeg","width":400,"height":286},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/DZ2A0609-1-1000x714.jpeg","width":1000,"height":714},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/DZ2A0609-1-200x200.jpeg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/DZ2A0609-1-768x549.jpeg","width":768,"height":549},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/DZ2A0609-1-600x600.jpeg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/DZ2A0609-1-2048x1463.jpeg","width":2048,"height":1463},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/DZ2A0609-1-2560x1829.jpeg","width":2560,"height":1829},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/DZ2A0609-1-1536x1097.jpeg","width":1536,"height":1097},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/DZ2A0609-1-scaled.jpeg","width":3000,"height":2143}}},"body":"<img class=\"size-full wp-image-1111473\" src=\"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/DZ2A0609-1-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"Porchfest performances take place all over Jamaica Plain on Saturday. (Courtesy Deborah Karson Photography)\" width=\"3000\" height=\"2143\" \/>","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"4\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>"}},"images":[{"type":"featured","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Heather-Kapplow_Better-Angels_2026_Mel-Taing_8792.jpg","width":3000,"height":2000,"title":"Heather Kapplow_Better Angels_2026_Mel Taing_8792","caption":"Heather Kapplow_Better Angels_2026_Mel Taing_8792","description":"Heather Kapplow_Better Angels_2026_Mel Taing_8792","alttext":"Heather Kapplow_Better Angels_2026_Mel Taing_8792","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Heather-Kapplow_Better-Angels_2026_Mel-Taing_8792-400x267.jpg","width":400,"height":267},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Heather-Kapplow_Better-Angels_2026_Mel-Taing_8792-1000x667.jpg","width":1000,"height":667},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Heather-Kapplow_Better-Angels_2026_Mel-Taing_8792-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Heather-Kapplow_Better-Angels_2026_Mel-Taing_8792-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Heather-Kapplow_Better-Angels_2026_Mel-Taing_8792-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Heather-Kapplow_Better-Angels_2026_Mel-Taing_8792-2048x1365.jpg","width":2048,"height":1365},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Heather-Kapplow_Better-Angels_2026_Mel-Taing_8792-2560x1707.jpg","width":2560,"height":1707},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Heather-Kapplow_Better-Angels_2026_Mel-Taing_8792-1536x1024.jpg","width":1536,"height":1024},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Heather-Kapplow_Better-Angels_2026_Mel-Taing_8792.jpg","width":3000,"height":2000}}}]},{"guid":"9cef2c4b-79ea-4cc6-9ee8-d82bb2d2f621","id":1111555,"channel":"Cognoscenti","fullChannel":null,"channelType":"section","channelID":109,"program":null,"channelURL":"\/opinion\/section\/cognoscenti","wordpressSlug":"jackie-shadow-bald-eagle-big-bear-valley-livestream-aimee-seiff-christian","wordpressID":1111555,"source":"cognoscenti","headline":"Being a bald eagle is hard. Being a human is, too","subhead":null,"newsSection":null,"publishDate":"2026-08-19 05:00:31","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/cognoscenti\/2026\/08\/19\/jackie-shadow-bald-eagle-big-bear-valley-livestream-aimee-seiff-christian","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-19&slug=jackie-shadow-bald-eagle-big-bear-valley-livestream-aimee-seiff-christian&sources=cognoscenti","externalURL":"","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/4gifJXv","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"Like millions of other people from all over the world, Aimee Seiff Christian was captivated by the Big Bear Valley eagle nest livestream starring Jackie, Shadow and their eaglets. \"Over the next eight months, I learned more about parenting and partnership \u2014 from a pair of birds \u2014 than I thought possible,\" she writes. ","bylines":[{"name":"Aimee\u00a0Seiff Christian","nameLastFirst":"Christian, Aimee","slug":"aimee-christian","wordpressID":643783,"title":"Writer","type":"contributor","channels":["cognoscenti"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2020\/12\/Aimee-Christian-600x600.jpg","photo":{"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2020\/12\/Aimee-Christian.jpg","width":1079,"height":1079,"title":"Aimee Christian","caption":"Aimee Christian","description":"Aimee Christian","alttext":"Aimee Christian","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2020\/12\/Aimee-Christian-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2020\/12\/Aimee-Christian-400x400.jpg","width":400,"height":400},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2020\/12\/Aimee-Christian-768x768.jpg","width":768,"height":768},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2020\/12\/Aimee-Christian-1000x1000.jpg","width":1000,"height":1000},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2020\/12\/Aimee-Christian-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2020\/12\/Aimee-Christian.jpg","width":1079,"height":1079}}},"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/aimee-christian","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/aimee-christian","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Aimee Seiff Christian is a memoirist, essayist, writing teacher and developmental editor based in the Boston area.","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":null,"content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":"Essay","superTitleURL":null,"content":["A couple of years ago, a friend texted me a link and said: \u201cYou have to see these bald eagles!\u201d","My first thought was: <em>Eh, it\u2019s another one of those sweet pastimes I don\u2019t have time for<\/em>. Little did I know.","My friend knew I was a bird person, if not an eagle person. Imagine my surprise when I started watching the Friends of Big Bear Valley <a href=\"https:\/\/friendsofbigbearvalley.org\/livestream\/\">eagle nest livestream<\/a> around the clock. (There are two cameras: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=B4-L2nfGcuE\">cam 1<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=41eq4VzCYc4\">cam 2<\/a>.) I\u2019m into birds for their majesty, not the gore: I can\u2019t even watch those \u201cPlanet Earth\u201d documentaries in which one animal kills and eats another, so in no way did I expect these apex predators to change my life.","At first, I was entertained. Then, captivated. I could barely take my eyes from the parents-to-be, Jackie and Shadow. When I got into this in early 2024<strong>, <\/strong>the pair was incubating three eggs, and I, like the rest of their followers, waited impatiently for them to hatch one at a time. Over the next eight months, I learned more about parenting and partnership \u2014 from a pair of birds \u2014 than I thought possible.","I watched it all the time. It was on my phone or laptop when I was out and about. I got a second monitor so I could have it on while I worked. When the three eaglets first hatched and the weather was stormy, I sometimes slept with it on. And I wasn\u2019t alone. Sometimes, I was one of upwards of 25,000 live viewers. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/08\/10\/us\/jackie-bald-eagle-california-dead.html\">Millions of people<\/a> from across the globe watched over the years.","<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"youtube\"><\/span>","With two cameras focused on the nest and their habitat, viewers had a unique view into their lives. It became increasingly difficult not to anthropomorphize them. I got deeply attached to Jackie in particular. I rejoiced as each egg hatched. I cried when, during a brutal storm that Jackie braved for days and nights on end without eating, drinking or even moving, one of the eaglets died. I gagged a little as Shadow brought her fish after fish, often still flopping. Jackie tore hungrily into them to feed bloody bits to the babies and herself.","After the storm, Jackie spread her wings as the two surviving eaglets, Sunny and Gizmo, clamored to get underneath her for safety and warmth. They were adorable little balls of fluff. But eaglets grow to full size in just eight weeks, and for the next five or six months, they were massive, awkward, flightless, gangly weirdos with huge yellow feet and uneven tufts of grey fuzz.","Once eaglets are full-grown and able to fly, they get the boot from mom and dad. Jackie and Shadow presided for years over Big Bear Valley as the only breeding pair; adult eagles perceive even their own grown children as threats to their food supply. Sometimes the eaglets don\u2019t want to leave. They come back to the nest repeatedly; giant babies begging for food, trying to cram their big bodies under their parents. The adults nip at their feet or scream at them until they go away for good.","Some<a href=\"https:\/\/www.niwra.org\/post\/the-low-survival-rate-of-eagle-fledglings\"> 50% to 60%<\/a> of young bald eagles don\u2019t survive their first year of life, not exactly a reassuring survival rate. I desperately wanted to know they would be okay.","It\u2019s a hard life, being a bald eagle. Being human is also hard.","My two daughters are both teenagers. They need me perhaps more now than ever before. The stakes are higher. We cry over relationships together. One of them is learning to drive. The other just had a major surgery on her spine. Of course I want all the easy and wonderful things for my girls. But mostly, I want them to be true to who they really are. If they do not always do what I think they should, that has to be OK.","<span data-index=\"2\" data-type=\"youtube\"><\/span>","Meanwhile, I\u2019ve kept up with the eagles. This season, Jackie and Shadow\u2019s first clutch of eggs did not survive. I cried when I saw the empty nest bowl. But soon the pair was working on their nest again. They exhibited all the signs of preparing to breed.","For me, the wait was unbearable. I did not think I could stand it, checking the channel and finding the nest sitting empty for as long as another year, while Jackie and Shadow were somewhere far off camera. I felt protective of them. I did not want them to grieve, to hurt, to have to wait it out.","I remember thinking when my girls were born, <em>I will not be like my parents were.<\/em> I will make sure my children know I love them. I will move mountains for my children. But no amount of my love could keep them from the pain the world will cause. There will be failures, there will be sadness. They will have their hearts broken, and I won\u2019t be able to fix it. I can hold them though, while they cry. I can make sure they know that the only way out is through.","Because life continues. Cycles keep turning. While I waited for the second clutch of eggs to hatch<strong>, <\/strong>instead of fretting about what I can\u2019t control \u2014 eagles<strong>\u2019<\/strong> mating rituals, the decisions my kids will make, and so on \u2014 I told my kids more about what life was like for me at their age. I told them I trust them to think carefully and make the choices they think are right, and to learn from their mistakes.","In February 2026, Jackie, the 14-year-old wild eagle, quietly laid a first and then a second egg of the second clutch of the season.","Jackie could not rush laying another clutch of eggs any more than I can rush my children through the most painful parts of adolescence. The calmer I am about it all, the better things are. When I am anxious, they are anxious. When I channel Jackie\u2019s patience to sit and wait and protect the nest, life unfolds all around me. It\u2019s slow growth, and it can be painful, but it\u2019s also healthy.","But Jackie got into a tussle with two younger eagles last month while defending her territory. The world watched as rehabbers from the Ojai Raptor Center lovingly took her into captivity, where she spent weeks in intensive care. I could not bear to see Shadow call for her at the nest and this year\u2019s babies, now grown, give up waiting for their mama to come back and feed them one last fish.","Jackie had to get better.","But she didn\u2019t. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ojairaptorcenter.org\/\">Ojai Raptor Center<\/a> announced one setback, then another. On August 10, Jackie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/08\/10\/us\/jackie-bald-eagle-california-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.51A.k3WS.p-4AQZwOU9k8&smid=url-share\">succumbed to her injuries<\/a><strong>.<\/strong> I cried out in shock. How could this be? My family and I sobbed together; they had come to love Jackie too.","<span data-index=\"3\" data-type=\"youtube\"><\/span>","No doubt Shadow will find another mate eventually (there are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.desertsun.com\/story\/news\/nation\/california\/2026\/08\/17\/katie-the-eagle-explained-facts-fans-want-to-know\/91340466007\/\">some reports<\/a> that he may have already found one)<strong>.<\/strong> Bald eagles are loyal partners, but when one dies, the surviving eagle continues. The cycle turns. There\u2019s beauty in that.","And I want to skip ahead to that day, to rush past this deeply painful part. But today, I am channeling Jackie\u2019s patience and fortitude. I am writing about the force that Jackie was. I am watching the empty nest. I am letting myself miss her.","<span data-index=\"4\" data-type=\"newsletter\"><\/span>"],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/cognoscenti\/2025\/09\/12\/merlin-bird-id-bird-watching-audobon-society-laura-mctaggart","title":"What does the great horned owl say?","prefix":"Laura McTaggart: "},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/cognoscenti\/2023\/10\/12\/infertility-and-wild-bird-rehabilitation-betsy-vereckey","title":"\u2018It felt like I was holding the sun\u2019: The gift of baby birds","prefix":"Betsy Vereckey: "},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/cognoscenti\/2022\/11\/08\/disability-john-fetterman-mehmet-oz-senate-accommodation-aimee-seiff-christian","title":"'You don\u2019t have to be like everyone else,' I tell my daughter. I hope she can believe me","prefix":"Also by Aimee Seiff Christian: "}],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"","broadcastDate":"","broadcastTime":"","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":"\"No doubt Shadow will find another mate eventually ... The cycle turns. There\u2019s beauty in that.\"","volume":5,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":null,"taxonomy":[{"id":74,"type":"category","name":"Opinion","description":"","slug":"opinion","series":false,"global":false,"count":7002,"hide":false,"primary":true},{"id":70,"type":"category","name":"Life","description":"","slug":"life","series":false,"global":false,"count":11907,"hide":false,"primary":false}],"audio":[],"embedMeta":{"embed-1":{"id":1,"parentID":1111555,"type":"youtube","attributes":{"url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FmCQ-0bxU-M&list=PLRLIi-1uQ3TxTuM1J6UX9iAx64TE_NfIX&index=131"},"body":"","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"youtube\"><\/span>"},"embed-2":{"id":2,"parentID":1111555,"type":"youtube","attributes":{"url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RcL47HrWYfs"},"body":"","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"2\" data-type=\"youtube\"><\/span>"},"embed-3":{"id":3,"parentID":1111555,"type":"youtube","attributes":{"url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/49DQeydr9rY"},"body":"","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"3\" data-type=\"youtube\"><\/span>"},"embed-4":{"id":4,"parentID":1111555,"type":"newsletter","attributes":{"slug":"cognoscenti"},"body":"","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"4\" data-type=\"newsletter\"><\/span>"}},"images":[{"type":"featured","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/AP26222788664952-1.jpg","width":1771,"height":1181,"title":"Jackie the bald eagle is examined on July 18 at the Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center in San Dimas, Calif. (Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center via AP)","caption":"Jackie the bald eagle is examined on July 18 at the Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center in San Dimas, Calif. (Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center via AP)","description":"Jackie the bald eagle is examined on July 18 at the Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center in San Dimas, Calif. (Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center via AP)","alttext":"Jackie the bald eagle is examined on July 18 at the Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center in San Dimas, Calif. 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(Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center via AP)","caption":"Jackie the bald eagle is examined on July 18 at the Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center in San Dimas, Calif. (Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center via AP)","description":"Jackie the bald eagle is examined on July 18 at the Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center in San Dimas, Calif. (Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center via AP)","alttext":"Jackie the bald eagle is examined on July 18 at the Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center in San Dimas, Calif. (Los Angeles County Parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center via AP)","index":0,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/AP26222788664952-1-400x267.jpg","width":400,"height":267},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/AP26222788664952-1-1000x667.jpg","width":1000,"height":667},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/AP26222788664952-1-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/AP26222788664952-1-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/AP26222788664952-1-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/AP26222788664952-1-1536x1024.jpg","width":1536,"height":1024},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/AP26222788664952-1.jpg","width":1771,"height":1181}}}]},{"guid":"e7e720d5-dcf1-4cd2-979e-e8cc78bd4c9b","id":1111562,"channel":"WBUR News","fullChannel":null,"channelType":"section","channelID":3,"program":null,"channelURL":"\/news","wordpressSlug":"massachusetts-childcare-worker-rally-wages","wordpressID":1111562,"source":"news","headline":"Family childcare workers in Mass. push for better compensation","subhead":null,"newsSection":null,"publishDate":"2026-08-18 17:57:17","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/news\/2026\/08\/18\/massachusetts-childcare-worker-rally-wages","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-18&slug=massachusetts-childcare-worker-rally-wages&sources=news","externalURL":"","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/4zrZm3f","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"Childcare providers say they're spending more money on food, utilities, school supplies and even insurance. Meanwhile, enrollment has dropped as families struggle to pay for childcare and the state voucher program has been frozen.","bylines":[{"name":"Zeninjor Enwemeka","nameLastFirst":"Enwemeka, Zeninjor","slug":"zeninjor-enwemeka","wordpressID":913,"title":"Senior Business Reporter","type":"newsroom","channels":["business","news"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2014\/09\/Zeninjor-headshot-web.jpg","photo":{"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2014\/09\/Zeninjor-headshot-web.jpg","width":300,"height":300,"title":"Zeninjor-headshot-web","caption":"","description":"","alttext":"","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2014\/09\/Zeninjor-headshot-web-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2014\/09\/Zeninjor-headshot-web.jpg","width":300,"height":300}}},"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/zeninjor-enwemeka","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/zeninjor-enwemeka","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Zeninjor Enwemeka is a senior business reporter who covers business, tech and culture as part of WBUR's Bostonomix team, which focuses on the innovation economy.","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":"zeninjor@wbur.org","content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["Family childcare providers in Massachusetts rallied on the steps of the State House Tuesday to call for higher wages. They say home-based childcare businesses are at risk of closing because of low wages and higher out-of-pocket expenses.","Childcare providers say they're spending more money on food, utilities, school supplies and even insurance. Meanwhile, enrollment has dropped as families struggle to pay for childcare and the state voucher program has been frozen.","More than two dozen unionized childcare workers gathered to urge the governor to fund a 3% reimbursement rate increase for providers who care for children eligible for state financial assistance. Rates have only increased 1.5% over the last two years, according to SEIU Local 509, which represents over 3,000 family childcare providers.","State vouchers that help low-income families pay for childcare have been frozen for over two years \u2014 and that has impacted enrollment, according to Celina Reyes, the president of the family childcare chapter of SEIU Local 509.","Reyes, a childcare provider for 20 years, said her enrollment has gone down \u2014 from 10 kids to only six.","\"\u200aWe cannot survive with six versus 10,\" said Reyes, of Lawrence. \"The reason is because they don't put funding to help our working families.\"","Reyes said it's hard to maintain her staff of three and keep her doors open without that funding. She's also taken on another job at a nonprofit to cover her expenses.","\"There are tens of thousands of children waiting for childcare, and the state needs to fund this,\" said SEIU Local 509 president Dave Foley. \"They have funded this in the past. They need to invest in this critical infrastructure.\"","Childcare provider Elena Pe\u00f1a of Hyde Park is also facing higher costs and lower enrollment. She said her monthly insurance costs went up by more than $100. Right now, she has 10 children enrolled, but half of them will leave to start school next month.","\"I don't have any waiting list or anything,\" Pe\u00f1a said. \"Without the vouchers, not everybody can pay private for childcare.\"","Pe\u00f1a will likely have to cut back hours for her assistants. And she is at risk of having to close her doors.","\"\u200aI am really scared,\" Pe\u00f1a said.","The union's contract with the state expired in June. Foley said he hopes to see some financial offers from the state soon."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/06\/23\/mass-family-child-care-expansion-pilot","title":"Pilot program could allow family childcare providers in Mass. to expand capacity","prefix":""},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/hereandnow\/2024\/06\/24\/family-child-care","title":"Family child care is vital, but declining. 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(Zeninjor Enwemeka\/WBUR)","index":0,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0818_child-care-rally-400x268.jpg","width":400,"height":268},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0818_child-care-rally-1000x670.jpg","width":1000,"height":670},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0818_child-care-rally-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0818_child-care-rally-768x514.jpg","width":768,"height":514},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0818_child-care-rally-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0818_child-care-rally-2048x1372.jpg","width":2048,"height":1372},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0818_child-care-rally-2560x1714.jpg","width":2560,"height":1714},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0818_child-care-rally-1536x1029.jpg","width":1536,"height":1029},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/0818_child-care-rally-scaled.jpg","width":3000,"height":2009}}}]},{"guid":"b75eab11-6728-4d72-af0c-9df6293d3fab","id":1111604,"channel":"WBUR News","fullChannel":null,"channelType":"section","channelID":3,"program":null,"channelURL":"\/news","wordpressSlug":"wu-boston-parking-ice","wordpressID":1111604,"source":"news","headline":"Wu urges Boston parking lot owners: Don't rent spots to ICE","subhead":null,"newsSection":null,"publishDate":"2026-08-18 17:51:59","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/news\/2026\/08\/18\/wu-boston-parking-ice","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-18&slug=wu-boston-parking-ice&sources=news","externalURL":"","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/4x6Sd6K","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"In a post on X, Department of Homeland Security officials called Wu's actions \"unhinged,\" saying she has \"NO authority to block us from using private property.\"","bylines":[{"name":"Eve Zuckoff","nameLastFirst":"Zuckoff, Eve","slug":"eve-zuckoff","wordpressID":384129,"title":"Reporter","type":"newsroom","channels":["news"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2018\/07\/1219_eve-zuckoff-600-600x600.jpg","photo":{"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2018\/07\/1219_eve-zuckoff-600.jpg","width":1133,"height":1133,"title":"Eve Zuckoff","caption":"","description":"","alttext":"","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2018\/07\/1219_eve-zuckoff-600-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2018\/07\/1219_eve-zuckoff-600-400x400.jpg","width":400,"height":400},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2018\/07\/1219_eve-zuckoff-600-768x768.jpg","width":768,"height":768},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2018\/07\/1219_eve-zuckoff-600-1000x1000.jpg","width":1000,"height":1000},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2018\/07\/1219_eve-zuckoff-600-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2018\/07\/1219_eve-zuckoff-600.jpg","width":1133,"height":1133}}},"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/eve-zuckoff","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/eve-zuckoff","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Eve Zuckoff is WBUR's city reporter, covering Boston politics, breaking news and enterprise stories.","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":"ezuckoff@wbur.org","content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is urging owners of parking lots and garages to reject federal immigration officials' requests to rent spots for their vehicles.","In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/file\/2026\/08\/Mayor-Wu-Letter-to-Parking-Owners.pdf\">letter released Tuesday<\/a>, Wu said, \u201cWere ICE to procure such resources, it would constitute an unprovoked and unwarranted escalation, creating potentially significant risks to public safety and halting economic activity across our entire region.\u201d","Earlier this month, ICE posted a public notice <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/05\/ice-search-parking-boston\">seeking nearly 250 parking spots around Boston<\/a>, stoking fears of escalated ICE enforcement in the city. It was part of a wider federal push to conduct \u201cmarket research\u201d and locate \u201cSurge Parking\u201d in 14 communities across the country.","The Wu letter culminates in a plea: \u201cToday, I ask you to join us: Reject any proposition by ICE to facilitate an attack on the people of Boston. In the face of escalating attacks on cities across the country, we have repeatedly seen that the strongest defense is solidarity.\u201d","The city also has sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the federal government to learn of any responses from lot owners to ICE\u2019s request.","In a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DHSgov\/status\/2089710556240306428?s=20\">post on X<\/a>, Department of Homeland Security officials called Wu's actions \"unhinged.\" It said, \"She knows she has NO authority to block us from using private property.\"","Earlier this year, Wu and the leaders of six other cities and towns signed orders banning federal agents from making arrests and taking action on city property \u2014 which includes some parking lots. But she has acknowledged that when it comes to private property, the city has fewer options.","\u201cWe will have to look into full legislative and legal options,\u201d she told reporters.","ICE\u2019s local headquarters is in Burlington, Mass.","When news broke that ICE is looking to expand its parking presence in Boston, Gov. Maura Healey pushed back, saying the agency \u201cabsolutely cannot\u201d be enabled to \u201cramp up\u201d deportation efforts in Massachusetts.","The governor also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/05\/massachusetts-governor-protect-act-ice-immigrants-chelsea\">signed the PROTECT Act<\/a> into law earlier this month, which seeks to restrict warrantless ICE arrests in courthouses, public schools, childcare centers and healthcare facilities.","ICE surges in some U.S. cities have had fatal consequences. Federal agents have shot and killed people in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/07\/20\/biddeford-maine-immigrants-grapples-shock-grief-ice-shooting\">Biddeford, Maine<\/a>, Houston and Minneapolis, intensifying public opposition to immigration enforcement."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/05\/ice-search-parking-boston","title":"Local officials line up against ICE quest for nearly 250 Boston parking spots","prefix":""}],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"","broadcastDate":"","broadcastTime":"","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":null,"volume":3,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":null,"taxonomy":[{"id":6371,"type":"tag","name":"Immigration enforcement","description":"","slug":"immigration-enforcement","series":false,"global":false,"count":282,"hide":false,"primary":true},{"id":73,"type":"category","name":"News","description":"","slug":"news","series":false,"global":false,"count":79266,"hide":false,"primary":true},{"id":61,"type":"category","name":"Boston","description":"","slug":"boston","series":false,"global":false,"count":63147,"hide":false,"primary":false},{"id":75,"type":"category","name":"Politics","description":"","slug":"politics","series":false,"global":false,"count":35682,"hide":false,"primary":false},{"id":6508,"type":"category","name":"Immigration","description":"","slug":"immigration","series":false,"global":false,"count":11,"hide":false,"primary":false}],"audio":[],"embedMeta":null,"images":[{"type":"featured","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/06\/0108_wu-interview01.jpg","width":3000,"height":2001,"title":"Mayor Michelle Wu speaks with WBUR during an interview in January, 2026. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR, File)","caption":"Mayor Michelle Wu speaks with WBUR during an interview in January, 2026. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR, File)","description":"Mayor Michelle Wu speaks with WBUR during an interview in January, 2026. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR, File)","alttext":"Mayor Michelle Wu speaks with WBUR during an interview in January, 2026. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR, File)","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/06\/0108_wu-interview01-400x267.jpg","width":400,"height":267},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/06\/0108_wu-interview01-1000x667.jpg","width":1000,"height":667},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/06\/0108_wu-interview01-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/06\/0108_wu-interview01-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/06\/0108_wu-interview01-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/06\/0108_wu-interview01-2048x1366.jpg","width":2048,"height":1366},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/06\/0108_wu-interview01-2560x1708.jpg","width":2560,"height":1708},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/06\/0108_wu-interview01-1536x1025.jpg","width":1536,"height":1025},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/06\/0108_wu-interview01.jpg","width":3000,"height":2001}}}]},{"guid":"ea52aca9-a7a9-46ab-bb35-8a7cdd4ae5f3","id":1093371,"channel":"WBUR News","fullChannel":null,"channelType":"section","channelID":3,"program":null,"channelURL":"\/news","wordpressSlug":"harvard-morgue-settlement-stolen-bodies","wordpressID":1093371,"source":"news","headline":"Harvard agrees to pay $53 million in settlement over body parts stolen from medical school morgue","subhead":null,"newsSection":null,"publishDate":"2026-08-18 16:18:56","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/news\/2026\/08\/18\/harvard-morgue-settlement-stolen-bodies","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-18&slug=harvard-morgue-settlement-stolen-bodies&sources=news","externalURL":"","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/4qrQ4jR","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"Cedric Lodge, a longtime employee of Harvard Medical School, began stealing body parts from donors in the morgue in 2018. The scandal became public in June 2023 when Lodge and his wife were indicted for\u00a0selling the body parts to collectors and traders across the country.","bylines":[{"name":"Ally Jarmanning","nameLastFirst":"Jarmanning, Ally","slug":"ally-manning","wordpressID":107659,"title":"Senior Reporter","type":"newsroom","channels":["news"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy-600x600.jpg","photo":{"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy.jpg","width":3000,"height":2000,"title":"Ally_Jarmanning_headshot copy","caption":"","description":"","alttext":"","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy-400x267.jpg","width":400,"height":267},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy-1000x667.jpg","width":1000,"height":667},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy-2048x1365.jpg","width":2048,"height":1365},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy-2560x1707.jpg","width":2560,"height":1707},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy-1536x1024.jpg","width":1536,"height":1024},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/12\/Ally_Jarmanning_headshot-copy.jpg","width":3000,"height":2000}}},"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/ally-manning","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/ally-manning","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Ally is a senior reporter focused on criminal justice and police accountability.","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":"allyjar@bu.edu","content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["Harvard will pay $53 million to settle multiple lawsuits filed by families of those whose body parts may have been stolen from the medical school's morgue, the school announced in a <a href=\"https:\/\/hms.harvard.edu\/about-hms\/office-dean\/messages\/anatomical-gift-program-update\">letter to the community<\/a> on Monday.","<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"promo\"><\/span>","The <a href=\"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/Harvard-settlement-memorandum.pdf\">settlement<\/a> also includes a pledge by Harvard Medical School to hold a live webinar with the families to \"provide a statement\" confirming that the thefts by the school's former morgue manager, Cedric Lodge, were \"morally reprehensible and inconsistent with the standards that Harvard University and HMS expect for the treatment of anatomical donors and their loved ones.\" The letter, signed by HMS deans George Daley and Bernard Chang, said the school would also create a scholarship fund for medical students \"in appreciation and in honor of all our anatomical donors.\"","A Suffolk Superior Court judge on Tuesday granted preliminary approval of the settlement. A final approval settlement is scheduled for December.","A Harvard Medical School spokesperson said they would not be granting interviews and provided no additional comment.","The settlement agreement was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecrimson.com\/article\/2026\/8\/19\/hms-morgue-settlement\/\">first reported<\/a> by the Harvard Crimson.","Lodge, a longtime employee of Harvard Medical School, began stealing body parts from donors in the morgue in 2018, according to federal prosecutors. The scandal became public in June 2023 when Lodge and his wife were indicted for\u00a0selling the body parts to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2024\/06\/13\/harvard-medical-anatomy-human-remains-network\">collectors and traders across the country<\/a><strong>.<\/strong>","The Lodges eventually pleaded guilty to charges of interstate transport of stolen goods \u2014 the goods being skin, brains and hearts removed from donors who had intended for their bodies to be studied by medical students. In December, Cedric Lodge was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2025\/12\/16\/harvard-medical-school-morgue-cedric-lodge-sentencing\">sentenced<\/a> to eight years in prison, while Denise Lodge was sentenced to a year and a day.","<span data-index=\"2\" data-type=\"keyfigures\"><\/span>","A slew of lawsuits followed Lodge's indictment. The suits were initially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2024\/06\/13\/harvard-medical-school-morgue-cedric-lodge\">thrown out<\/a> by a Suffolk Superior Court judge who agreed with Harvard that a state law governing body and organ donation protected it from any legal claims. The school insisted it had acted in \"good faith\" and wasn't aware of Lodge's activities, which went on for years.","But last fall, the state's highest court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2025\/10\/06\/harvard-morgue-sjc-decision-suit\">revived<\/a> the families' lawsuits. The Supreme Judicial Court wrote in\u00a0its\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/10\/p13688.pdf\">opinion<\/a> that Harvard exhibited \"extraordinary failure\" in supervising Lodge.","An attorney for some of the plaintiffs, Shannon Pennock of Morgan &amp; Morgan, said in a statement Tuesday that the SJC decision made history.","\"As a result, anatomical gift programs will no longer be assured blanket immunity to these kinds of lawsuits,\" she said. \"We are confident that anatomical gift programs across the state will be stronger because of them.\"","As part of the settlement agreement, a third-party administrator will notify potential class members and distribute settlement funds, which could take several months.","Harvard estimated there are 438 donors who left the morgue between 2018 and March 2023, when Lodge is accused of his crimes, according to court documents.","After Lodge was indicted, Harvard named an outside panel to review the anatomical gift program and make recommendations. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2023\/12\/07\/report-on-harvards-morgue-finds-lack-of-oversight-and-no-policy-on-handling-of-human-bodies\">panel found<\/a> the school lacked formal policies and had little oversight of the morgue's day-to-day workings.","Notably, the panel was not\u00a0tasked\u00a0with determining how Lodge may have carried out the thefts. Harvard released a summary of the findings, but withheld the full report from the public.","The settlement requires Harvard to tell the donor families what kind of improvements have been made to the anatomical gift program."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/podcasts\/lastseen","title":"Postmortem: The stolen bodies of Harvard","prefix":"Podcast:"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2024\/06\/13\/harvard-medical-anatomy-human-remains-network","title":"Harvard, the human remains trade, and collectors who fuel the market","prefix":""},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2025\/10\/06\/harvard-morgue-sjc-decision-suit","title":"'Extraordinary failure': SJC says lawsuits against Harvard over morgue thefts can move forward","prefix":""},{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2025\/12\/16\/harvard-medical-school-morgue-cedric-lodge-sentencing","title":"Former Harvard Medical School morgue manager sentenced to 8 years in prison for stolen bodies plot","prefix":""}],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"","broadcastDate":"","broadcastTime":"","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":null,"volume":3,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":null,"taxonomy":[{"id":73,"type":"category","name":"News","description":"","slug":"news","series":false,"global":false,"count":79266,"hide":false,"primary":true},{"id":64,"type":"category","name":"Crime & Justice","description":"","slug":"crime-justice","series":false,"global":false,"count":13391,"hide":false,"primary":false}],"audio":[],"embedMeta":{"embed-1":{"id":1,"parentID":1093371,"type":"promo","attributes":{"type":"podcast","source":"lastseen"},"body":"","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"promo\"><\/span>"},"embed-2":{"id":2,"parentID":1093371,"type":"keyfigures","attributes":null,"body":"<h3>Explore more on this story:<\/h3><ul> \t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2024\/06\/13\/harvard-medical-anatomy-human-remains-network\">Harvard, the human remains trade, and collectors who fuel the market<\/a><\/li> \t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2024\/06\/13\/medical-education-anatomy-history\">The dark history of medical education<\/a><\/li> \t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2024\/05\/14\/harvard-morgue-body-donation-tips\">5 things to know before donating your body to science<\/a><\/li> \t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/podcasts\/lastseen\">Listen to the Last Seen podcast: Postmortem - The Stolen Bodies of Harvard<\/a><\/li> \t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2024\/05\/24\/harvard-morgue-scandal-postmortem-podcast-ally-jarmanning-newsletter\">A behind-the-scenes look at the making of WBUR's 'Postmortem'<\/a><\/li><\/ul>","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"2\" data-type=\"keyfigures\"><\/span>"}},"images":[{"type":"featured","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01.jpg","width":3000,"height":2001,"title":"Harvard Medical School in 2024. 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(Jesse Costa\/WBUR)","index":0,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01-400x267.jpg","width":400,"height":267},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01-1000x667.jpg","width":1000,"height":667},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01-1920x1281.jpg","width":1920,"height":1281},"superbreakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01-2560x1708.jpg","width":2560,"height":1708},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01-1536x1025.jpg","width":1536,"height":1025},"2048x2048":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01-2048x1366.jpg","width":2048,"height":1366},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/11\/0315_harvard-mediical-school01.jpg","width":3000,"height":2001}}}]},{"guid":"0d56870b-6ce2-42fd-be40-aac9ce0ed188","id":1110705,"channel":"On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti","fullChannel":null,"channelType":"program","channelID":33,"program":"On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti","channelURL":"\/radio\/programs\/onpoint","wordpressSlug":"brainwaves-are-you-in-there-consciousness","wordpressID":1110705,"source":"onpoint","headline":"Brainwaves: Are you in there?","subhead":null,"newsSection":null,"publishDate":"2026-08-18 16:00:04","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/onpoint\/2026\/08\/18\/brainwaves-are-you-in-there-consciousness","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-18&slug=brainwaves-are-you-in-there-consciousness&sources=onpoint","externalURL":"","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/4glz4Hg","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"Consciousness is how we are able to feel, dream and imagine. And yet -- scientists haven't figured out how consciousness definitively works. What we know, what we don\u2019t and what that tells us about our brains.","bylines":[{"name":"Paige Sutherland","nameLastFirst":"Sutherland, Paige","slug":"paige-sutherland","wordpressID":504843,"title":"Senior Producer, On Point","type":"newsroom","channels":["onpoint"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2019\/08\/Paige-Sutherland-new-hs-600x600.jpg","photo":{"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2019\/08\/Paige-Sutherland-new-hs.jpg","width":1562,"height":1562,"title":"Paige-Sutherland-new-hs","caption":"Paige Sutherland","description":"Paige Sutherland ","alttext":"Paige Sutherland","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2019\/08\/Paige-Sutherland-new-hs-400x400.jpg","width":400,"height":400},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2019\/08\/Paige-Sutherland-new-hs-1000x1000.jpg","width":1000,"height":1000},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2019\/08\/Paige-Sutherland-new-hs-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2019\/08\/Paige-Sutherland-new-hs-768x768.jpg","width":768,"height":768},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2019\/08\/Paige-Sutherland-new-hs-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2019\/08\/Paige-Sutherland-new-hs-1536x1536.jpg","width":1536,"height":1536},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2019\/08\/Paige-Sutherland-new-hs.jpg","width":1562,"height":1562}}},"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/paige-sutherland","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/paige-sutherland","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Paige Sutherland is a senior producer for On Point.","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":"pfsuth@bu.edu","content":null,"embedMeta":null},{"name":"Meghna Chakrabarti","nameLastFirst":"Chakrabarti, Meghna","slug":"meghna-chakrabarti","wordpressID":720,"title":"Host, On Point","type":"newsroom","channels":["onpoint"],"thumbnail":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/linderpix-WBUR-OnPoint-6815-web-600x600.jpg","photo":{"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/linderpix-WBUR-OnPoint-6815-web.jpg","width":999,"height":666,"title":"linderpix-WBUR-OnPoint-6815-web","caption":"(Liz Linder for WBUR)","description":"(Liz Linder for WBUR)","alttext":"(Liz Linder for WBUR)","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/linderpix-WBUR-OnPoint-6815-web-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/linderpix-WBUR-OnPoint-6815-web-400x267.jpg","width":400,"height":267},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/linderpix-WBUR-OnPoint-6815-web-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/linderpix-WBUR-OnPoint-6815-web-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2016\/06\/linderpix-WBUR-OnPoint-6815-web.jpg","width":999,"height":666}}},"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/meghna-chakrabarti","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/meghna-chakrabarti","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Meghna Chakrabarti is the host of On Point.","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":"meghnac@bu.edu","content":null,"embedMeta":null},{"name":"Tim Skoog","nameLastFirst":"Skoog, Tim","slug":"tim-skoog","wordpressID":577335,"title":"Sound Designer and Producer, On Point","type":"staff","channels":["onpoint"],"thumbnail":null,"photo":null,"relativeURL":"\/inside\/staff\/tim-skoog","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/people\/tim-skoog","organization":"wbur","shortBio":"Tim Skoog is a sound designer and producer for On Point. ","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":null,"content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["<em>This is the second episode in <\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/tag\/brainwaves-on-point\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">'Brainwaves: Mysteries of the human brain<\/a><\/em><em>.'<\/em>","<em>This rebroadcast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/onpoint\/2026\/02\/10\/brainwaves-how-consciousness-works-brain\">originally aired<\/a> on February 10, 2026.<\/em>","Consciousness is how we are able to feel, dream and imagine. And yet &mdash; scientists haven't figured out how consciousness definitively works. What we know, what we don\u2019t and what that tells us about our brains.","<h3>Guests<\/h3>","<strong>Christof Koch<\/strong>, neuroscientist and leading expert on consciousness. He is a \u201cmeritorious investigator\u2019 at The Allen Institute, where he\u2019s investigating at the cellular level how cortex and related brain-structures give rise to behavior and consciousness. Author of several books, including \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Then-Am-Myself-World-Consciousness\/dp\/1541602803\">Then I am myself the world: What consciousness is and how to expand it<\/a>.\"","<h3>Also Featured<\/h3>","<strong>Martin Pistorius,<\/strong> after a brain illness, spent 13 years in a state of covert consciousness where he was unable to move or communicate.","<strong>Anil Seth,<\/strong> a professor of neuroscience at the University of Sussex in England.","____","<em>The version of our broadcast available at the top of this page and via podcast apps is a condensed version of the full show. You can listen to the full, unedited broadcast here:<\/em>","<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"audio\"><\/span>","____","<h3>Transcript<\/h3>","<strong>Part I<\/strong>","<em>MARTIN PISTORIUS: A vibrant mind hidden in plain sight. On the outside, I looked empty. Yet on the inside, I was very much alive.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: I am Meghna Chakrabarti, and this is episode two of our special series Brainwaves.","<em>PISTORIUS:<\/em> <em>I thought a lot about life, about death, about love, about the future. And I felt deeply.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: But nobody else knew it. Nobody at all knew that Martin Pistorius was experiencing those surging waves of human emotions.","Absolutely no one at all. Because for 13 years, everyone around Martin saw only an unconscious body on a bed, first, a boy, then a man cut off from all human experience. Showing no signs of motion or awareness or consciousness whatsoever.","Just stillness.","<em>PISTORIUS:<\/em> <em>That disconnect between who I was inside and how I was seen outside was devastating. <\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: Martin is from South Africa. He speaks through a text to speech machine now. It's the only way he could tell us the story of what befall him back when he was just 12 years old.","<em>PISTORIUS: I had a typical childhood for a boy growing up in the 1980s, riding our bikes with my friends around the neighborhood, building things.<\/em>","<em>Whether that was spaceships out of Lego, forts or simple electrical circuits. Life was good. It had always been this way. How was I to know that would be the day my life would never be the same again?<\/em>","<em>At first, it seemed like nothing serious, just the flu. But over the days and weeks that followed, things got worse. I became weaker. I started sleeping more and more. Walking became painful, then difficult, then eventually impossible. I lost my ability to speak. I lost control of my movements. And little by little, I slipped away.<\/em>","<em>At first, the doctors did not really know what was wrong with me. They ran many tests, they tried different treatments. There were a lot of theories, but very few answers. I was treated for things like tuberculosis of the brain and cryptococcal meningitis. But nothing ever fully explained what was happening to me, and nothing stopped the decline.<\/em>","<em>And eventually they were told that there was nothing more that could be done. My parents were advised to take me home and let the illness run its course. In other words, they were being told to prepare for my death. <\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: Martin was in a coma, the shell of a boy's body with no consciousness inside.","<em>PISTORIUS: For the first few years, I do not remember anything at all. There are no memories from that time.<\/em>","<em>No awareness, no sense of what was happening around me. <\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: That nothingness would last for four years.","<em>PISTORIUS: Then gradually my mind started to knit itself back together, slowly in a fragmented way, almost like fog lifting. There were small flickers of awareness. Then more and more, I was about 16 years old then. I often describe it like an image coming into focus.<\/em>","<em>At first, everything was gray and blurry. Then little by little the details and colors returned. I started becoming aware of sounds, then voices. Over time, I became aware that I had thoughts again, memories, a sense of myself.<\/em>","<em>Once I became conscious again, I experienced the world as a silent, invisible observer. I often describe it as feeling like a ghost. I could see and hear what was happening around me, but I could not interact with it in any meaningful way. I could not respond. I could not ask questions. I could not let anyone know that I was there.<\/em>","<span data-index=\"2\" data-type=\"pullquote\"><\/span>","<em>I was present, but unreachable.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: To those on the outside, Martin was still in a coma, but inside his mind things began to bloom.","<em>PISTORIUS: My inner world became very important to me and a way to cope with my reality. I spent a lot of time in my own head thinking, remembering, imagining. I created stories. I replayed conversations. I imagined myself doing ordinary things or simply choosing where I wanted to go and who I wanted to be with.<\/em>","<em>In many ways, my imagination became my freedom.<\/em>","<em>I was in this state for many years, more than a decade. Life then was all about coping with a situation that often felt unbearable. At one point, my mother turned to me and through tears said, you must die. She did not know that I could understand her. For her, it was as if her son had died when I was 12.<\/em>","<em>She had been watching her child disappear for years. I could sense how broken she was. I could feel the pain within her. Even though I was suffering, I did not hate her. I loved her. I felt compassion because I understood she was not wishing me harm. She was wishing an end to unbearable pain, both mine and hers.<\/em>","<em>That compassion came naturally. It was not a decision I made. It was simply there. Even in the darkest times when I was really having a tough time, something inside me would make me want to carry on, to keep fighting. And I guess even though I couldn't really see how this would ever end or change, there was a sense of hope.<\/em>","<em>It was small, but it was there. Also, small acts, things that perhaps people didn't even realize, like a random stranger smiling at me would spark something inside of me to keep going.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: Martin was able to move his eyes a little. But eye movement in coma patients is often involuntary and not necessarily indicative of consciousness.","So Martin kept going, long enough for someone to actually see him.","<em>PISTORIUS: A caregiver named Verna noticed me. She paid attention to small things, the way I looked at people. The way I reacted to certain words or situations. Over time, she began to realize that I did understand what was being said around me. Verna spoke to my parents about having me assessed. In July 2001, I was taken for an assessment to the specialist communication center.<\/em>","<em>During that assessment, therapists could see that my eyes consistently moved to the correct pictures when they asked me to identify objects. That was the first clear evidence that I understood. It is difficult to put into words. I felt an enormous sense of relief. After so many years of being unseen, I was finally being recognized.<\/em>","<em>It felt like someone had opened a small window in a room I had been locked inside for years. Once people realized I was conscious, the focus shifted from there is nothing we can do, to how can we help him communicate? That shift changed everything. Over time, my hand control and upper body strength have also improved.<\/em>","<em>I can do much more now than I could back then, and I am deeply grateful for what I have regained. It is not always easy, but even with those challenges, I am deeply grateful for the life I now live.<\/em>","<em>Based on what I have experienced, I would say that consciousness cannot be reliably judged from the outside. A person who appears unresponsive may still be fully aware, because you never know what is going on inside them.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: Martin Pistorius just turned 50 years old in December. Something he says he'd never thought would happen. He's now an author, an accessibility specialist, and a web developer. He's also married and is a father of a 7-year-old son. Christof Koch joins us now. He's a neuroscientist and leading expert on consciousness.","Christof Koch, welcome to On Point.","CHRISTOF KOCH: Thank you, Meghna.","CHAKRABARTI: Now, what do you hear in Martin's story that particularly stands out to you?","KOCH: Amazing story of human resilience, right? Just imagine yourself being this, in this situation for many years, where you are locked in like a stranded astronaut in space and nobody knows that there's anyone home.","And of course, this situation may also well, and we know does occur in thousands of patients today that are in a vegetative state. But we now know that a quarter of these people in a vegetative state that from the outside look behaviorally unresponsive, are actually conscious, feel like something, and maybe they're like Martin.","Some of them, many of them will not have memories of these episodes. Some of them will do, but we, it's very difficult right now. Given our limited technology to reach them, to enable them to communicate with us and even to tell us that they're there.","CHAKRABARTI: Wow. The way Martin described consciousness as a slow flickering back of his awareness was so beautiful to me, but also made me wonder, is there a definitive line in which we can say on one side of it, a person is conscious, on the other side, they are not.","KOCH: So consciousness by itself is all or none. Either you're conscious of something or you're not. However, it may also be very dim. Remember when you fly halfway around the world you have trouble sleeping. Finally, you fall asleep and you wake up in the middle. You, at that point, you may not even know who you are.","You may not even know where you are, but there's already some flickering of awareness. In that sense, it's all or none. But then of course there's also higher arousal and lower arousal, so it's a complicated matter.","<strong>Part II<\/strong>","CHAKRABARTI: What is consciousness in human beings?","KOCH: Any experience seeing, dreaming, dreading, imagining, fearing, seeing, all of that, boredom, with all different conscious experience, when it feels like something, and sometimes you're conscious of yourself, but not always. You could just have an agonizing toothache,\u00a0and your entire content of consciousness is filled with that God-awful pain.","That's consciousness.","CHAKRABARTI: So it's anything that we experience and knowing and we know we're experiencing it.","KOCH: No, that's self-consciousness. That's in you and I. Little baby doesn't know, it doesn't have a sense of self, it doesn't know it's me experiencing hunger, right? It just has hunger.","Same thing in animals. My dog, much as I love dog, I don't think dogs know that they're dogs. They're just pain and pleasure and fear and anger and all of those things that we also have.","CHAKRABARTI: So they don't have to know.\u00a0Okay. In that case, would plants be conscious?","KOCH: That's an ongoing question. Most people think, certainly, most neurobiologists think no, because we think you need a brain, but we don't know.","CHAKRABARTI: Yeah, because I'm thinking, if, like in the dog example, if a dog is just, it's experiencing things right? Fear, hunger, pain, et cetera. I don't know if plants experience fear, but they do respond. For example --","KOCH: They do respond. But as in the case of Martin Pistorius shows, you can have patients that respond, in a reflex like manner, a spinal cord reflex, although they are not conscious.","So one has to decouple, when you're sleeping, you wake up inside your sleeping brain and you have experiences, we call those dreams. You don't respond. When you are sitting on the meditation cushion. You're immobile. You have conscious experience. When you're tripping on a high dose of psychedelic, you can lie supine on the ground and you can visit heaven and hell.","So there are many cases when you people don't respond yet they're still conscious. And there are many cases where people do respond, but they're not conscious or not conscious yet.","CHAKRABARTI: I still find this so baffling.","KOCH: It is. It is, Meghna.","CHAKRABARTI: And forgive me, because you can be aware of something and you're conscious, but you don't have to be cognitively thinking of it.","But if you are experiencing something that makes you conscious, if you are asleep, let's talk about sleep for a moment, because it makes intuitive sense to me. If when you're dreaming, you may be conscious, but what about in the non-dream states of sleep? Are you conscious then?","KOCH: It's a very good question.","So most people think no, but if you do wake up people, so let's say you put EEG electrodes on them. You wake 'em up when they're in a period of deep sleep, non-REM sleep. Sometimes they have, and you ask them, did anything go through your mind just before you wake up? You wake up, many times, they say nothing, but sometimes they say, yeah, I had a feeling of pain, or I saw a face of my daughter.","So it's not known. And the other things you can dissociate memory from, and again, this is highly relevant to Martin's case. You can dissociate memory from consciousness. Have you ever, if you've ever been extremely drunk, okay, your friends will, you go to a party, you get drunk, you dance, and you do all sorts of stuff.","You, at that moment, you're clearly conscious, you can talk, et cetera, but the next day you have no memories of it. If you get your colonoscopy operation, they inject you with propofol, they give you propofol. You're not typically unconscious, you just don't remember. Depending on the dose, you can be at a state where you can still respond to commands that the doctor tells you, move over or move your cheek, et cetera.","But you may not have memory. So again, consciousness is different from behavior, is different from memory, although they all closely associated.","CHAKRABARTI: It sounds like it's almost multifaceted or can quickly metamorphose into different forms of consciousness.","KOCH: Of course. And then in addition, we humans, adult humans, we have this thing we call self-consciousness.","Which is the high point of consciousness. I can, you and I, we know who we are. We know what we had for breakfast. We know we're going to die one day. And on all of those things, that is a late-stage\u00a0evolutionary elaboration that only, as I said, some people have.","Patients may not have it. A late stage dementia patient may not know anything at all about themselves anymore. Babies don't have it and most animals probably don't have this highly developed sense of self.","CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Can we go back to infants then? Because you said, I just want to clarify. Infants you say are conscious, even though they do not have that sense of self.","KOCH: Correct.","CHAKRABARTI: They're conscious in the way that other animals may be.","KOCH: Correct.","CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So that's interesting. It doesn't require that. When then, would you say, or is there a collectively agreed upon moment in the community of scientists that study this where consciousness first emerges in a human being.","KOCH: It's not clear. So people have asked this question, for example, a second stage trimester fetus, it's only at that point when you have the axons that when particular brain structures develop, like the thalamus and the cortex, that you even have, if you want, the hardware to be conscious.","So it's a first term trimester fetus probably doesn't feel like anything. Or if it feels like something, it's very difficult to ascertain, and it's a gradual thing. Some people argue that the massive surge of noradrenaline that you get as the fetus exits through the birth canal of her mom, and cries, because the fetus has to breathe for the first time, is now a baby.","That may be the moment when they first begin to be conscious and then it develops, even the sense of self develops. Maybe, it coincides, age three, four, or five when children start having a sense of self and then they develop what we call a theory of mind, where they realize other people, also ourselves, and other people also have intentions and desires, et cetera.","And so it develops, and even, if you're 18-year-old, you're not fully developed yet to truly understand, to truly take someone else's point of view. To have to develop empathy. All those things develop slowly as a brain develops.","CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so I'm only smiling right now because I'm thinking how challenging must it be to be a scientist in this field.","When there isn't even any agreed upon baseline for what consciousness is or when it first is established in human beings, don't you need some kind of baseline from which to advance your research?","KOCH: So I think most people would agree. Consciousness is the feeling of when you're in love, right?","Or when you see, or that voice, this is how I first about it. Where does that voice inside my head? I have a voice inside my head. Where does that voice come from? Not everyone has it, but most people have it. Where does that voice come from? And it's not clear. It's not clear how physics, ultimately, our brain is a piece of furniture of the universe.","<span data-index=\"3\" data-type=\"pullquote\"><\/span>","Like any other piece of furniture, quarks and like viruses and like trees. It's all the same sort of physical matter, although the brain is the most complex piece of highly active matter. And where is that point where this piece of active matter can hear a voice or can love or can hate?","That's unclear. But where we have made a lot of progress since 40 years is trying to locate which bits and pieces of the brain are involved. And also contrary to what Martin said at the end of his beautiful comments, we are now in a position where we can begin to detect in these patients that are otherwise impossible to reach, whether or not they're conscious.","So that's a big advance.","CHAKRABARTI: Okay. You can detect it by obviously examining brain activity.","KOCH: By detecting. So this is a technique that's been pioneered by a team in Milan and Professor Marcello Massimini and an American-Italian scientist, Giulio Tononi in Madison, where you essentially, you probe the brain, you essentially knock the brain, in this case, using magnetic pulses.","And then you're listening to the echo using EEG. And this technique where you perturb the brain and listen, you knock the brain and listen. This can very reliable tell whether the patient, in normal, for instance, in normal people, are they in a deep sleep or are they awake? Are they in a REM sleep or are they, let's say, under ketamine or under some other psychedelic where they are not responsive but they're conscious.","And also in many of these patients, it can reliable detect the difference between being conscious, being there, but that's really all we're trying to detect. Is the patient there, is there someone in home? So that can now begun, happens. There's another technique developed by a neurologist here at Columbia, Jan Claassen, where you ask the patient, although they lie there, they don't respond.","They may have their eyes open, but they don't respond. You ask them, imagine squeezing your fist very hard and then letting go and then squeezing your fist very hard and letting go. And now if you put them in a brain scan or EEG, you can sometimes see the rise and fall of their brain activity.","So in other words, although they can speak, they can move, they can't move the eyes, they can reliably, voluntarily on command change their brain state. So that tells us, yes, there's someone home.","CHAKRABARTI: Oh wow. Okay. Take me back a little bit. Christof, when we say there's reliable brain activity, does that mean that there are specific areas of the brain that are, for lack of a better term, in charge of consciousness, or does it --","KOCH: Yes.","CHAKRABARTI: Oh yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead, please.","KOCH: Yeah, so the brain is a, as I said, it's the most complex, active matter anywhere we found so far. It's very complicated. It's highly differentiated. We know now it consists, this is stuff we've done at the Allen Institute.","There are 5,000 different types of, so there roughly 2\u00a0billion cells in the brain of probably 5,000 different types. So it's amazingly stunningly complex, and not every part contributes equally. We know this, certain parts of your cortex, the outermost layer that's more highly developed in us, in humans.","There's some parts that are involved in vision. There are other parts that if you lose them, you can't speak anymore. There are other parts where you feel where you have where you don't have a sense of self anymore. Or conversely, if you have seizures in that part of the brain you have weird distortion of the sense of cells.","So we know that specific regions, neighborhoods of, in particular the cerebral cortex, seem to underlie specific visual, let's say, visual behaviors or auditory behaviors. But not only behaviors, also the experience of it. So yes, it seems to be that cortex is the one that mediates most of our consciousness in the sense of seeing, hearing, touching, wanting, the feeling of volition, the feeling of wanting the sense of self.","Those all appear to be, arise or are strongly correlated with the cerebral cortex.","CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so the cerebral cortex, which is why, I was reading a paper that you had in Nature, the journal Nature or an essay essentially. And you talked about defining neural correlates of consciousness, right?","... And so is that what you're talking about now with these parts, the cerebral cortex, for example?","KOCH: Yeah. So this is a program that Francis Crick, the molecular biologist.","CHAKRABARTI: Yes. And Nobel Prize winner.","KOCH: Yeah. In the late '80s, early '90s that now many people are engaged in where independent of your philosophical attitude to consciousness.","Okay. Independent whether you're materialist or dualist or panpsychist, we can all agree it's the brain, not the heart. As most people thought for most of human history, it's the heart. Because that's visible, palpable, moving. The brain is just this passive goo, right? But we now know it's a brain.","We know it's not the spinal cord. We know it's incidentally, it's not even your cerebellum. So most of your neurons Meghna, are in this little brain at the back of the brain called the cerebellum. You can remove if you lose that due to stroke or gunshot or tumor, when the surgeon removes it. You may became a toxic, you look like you're drunk.","You have difficulty speaking, but you do not lose consciousness. So we know that certain parts of the brain are much more critically involved in others. And yeah, this is\u00a0 trying to chase down these correlates of consciousness. Think of them as a footprint of consciousness in the brain.","CHAKRABARTI: What's interesting with the spinal cord and cerebellum examples is that you can lose function, say in the spinal cord, right? That's the source of paralysis for many millions of people. But it has no impact on their consciousness. And similarly for other parts of the human brain, right?","You can lose those functions, but you remain conscious. So that, I guess that means that consciousness really has specific locations in the brain. But does that conversely mean that, let's talk about the eyes for a moment. People can actually have functioning eyes and maybe functioning optic nerve that is delivering information to the brain, but still not be conscious, right?","KOCH: That's correct.","CHAKRABARTI: I'm asking that because it's like that means that these two, the two things aren't always connected in terms of processing input and experiencing it.","KOCH: Exactly. As I said, it's very complicated and you can dissociate some of these cases. We know this from animal experiments, and we know this in patient. Now, it's different if you ask a patient, can you move? You ask patient right now, please move your eyes to the left, to the right. Up, down, and they can follow that as in a typical locked in patient. Then we take that as evidence, even though the patient can speak that they are fully conscious.","In fact, there's a famous book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, where a French person who had this tiny stroke in his brainstem, he became locked in, dictated an entire book, just using his eyes. Which is pretty amazing. And he was fully conscious, conscious enough that he could, he wrote this beautiful, evocative memoir from inside, this locked in brain.","CHAKRABARTI: Wow. Okay. So I'm looking at this paper again, and it says that so far as, as long, as much as you can tell, or science can tell, almost all conscious experiences are originating in the posterior cortex or the back of the head, brain, right? Not in the prefrontal cortex.","KOCH: Yes. Now that's my position.","In fact, you may recall, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/onpoint\/2023\/07\/12\/a-25-year-old-bet-on-human-consciousness-gets-settled\">you had me on with the philosophy of Chalmers two years ago, in summer of '23<\/a>. So that's still being debated. Is it only the back of the brain, or is it the back of the brain and the front of the brain? Most people, of course, argue, think rightfully so, that the front of the brain that's maximally expanded in us compared to great apes and monkeys is the seed of human intelligence, right?","But once again, intelligence is different from consciousness. There's nothing particularly intelligence, Meghna, if you have a god-awful toothache, that fills your entire consciousness with just pain, right? There's nothing particularly intelligent about it. If you open your eyes and you see it's a conscious sensation, but again, that doesn't have to be intelligence.","Although intelligence and consciousness are related, they're still distinct phenomena. Which is particularly relevant as we come to speak about artificial intelligence versus artificial consciousness.","<strong>Part III<\/strong>","CHAKRABARTI: You had talked about the question of consciousness and AI.","We actually did want to hit on that very specifically. Because there are already, some of those models already are so advanced that we've known or heard of people falling in love with them, wanting to marry their AI chatbots. They're that sort of socially convincing that they seem to be conscious, but are they?","<em>ANIL SETH: They are clearly intelligent, so it's very natural for us to imbue these systems with consciousness too, especially when they start talking about consciousness. And many language models do, because they're trained on a lot of data in which people talk about consciousness. So it's no surprise that they talk about it.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: Anil Seth is a professor of neuroscience at the University of Sussex in England, and Christof\u00a0said earlier, Professor Seth also says that people should not confuse AI intelligence with consciousness.","<em>SETH: Intelligence is about doing things. It's not really surprising that artificial systems like computers can be intelligent because computers are very good at doing things.<\/em>","<em>That's what an algorithm is. It's a mathematical recipe for doing stuff, consciousness, on the other hand, is different. It's fundamentally about being, it's about feeling, it's having an experience of redness or of pain, taste of ice cream or the sound of children's laughter.<\/em>","<em>But just because you can do stuff doesn't mean that you feel anything.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: Professor Seth says that really what we're seeing now with AI is a computational simulacrum of human consciousness.","<em>SETH: When we simulate a brain, we are just generating a very useful computational model of the brain, which is helpful for us in understanding the kind of thing it is.<\/em>","<em>Just as a computational simulation of the weather is very helpful in understanding the weather. When we simulate a rainstorm, it doesn't get wet and windy inside the simulation of a rainstorm. We know it's just a simulation, but a simulation will only give rise to consciousness if consciousness just is a matter of computation.<\/em>","<em>If it isn't, then all we'll have is a model of it, a simulation of it, and not the thing itself.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: Not only does Professor Seth think that AI is not conscious now, he argues that it's unlikely to gain conscious ever in the future for as long as the physical hardware that AI relies on is nothing like the organic matter that makes up the human brain.","<em>SETH: Built into the foundations of computers as we have them, these silicon digital computers, is this sharp separation between hardware and software, between what the computer is and what it does. This is why they're useful. They can run many different programs and you run the same program on different computers, it does the same thing, but in a brain, there is no sharp separation between what we might call the mindware.<\/em>","<em>And the wetware, it's very difficult. It's probably impossible in real brains to separate what they do from what they are. And because of this way that brains are all mixed up and they don't allow this clean separation of mindware and wetware<strong>,<\/strong> that makes the idea that all our biology is just there to implement an algorithm, that makes this very unlikely.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: So when you're talking about the brain, Professor Seth says, you also cannot ignore the fact that the brain is a living organism.","<em>SETH: They take in energy and they reproduce their own components. Now, every cell reproduces itself over time from energy through metabolism. Computers don't do that, and they don't produce themselves.<\/em>","<em>They take in everything from an external world, like a factory and produce some output. And that self-producing aspect of biology, I think there's some pretty strong reasons to connect processes like this to consciousness. Computation is just not the only option for what might breathe fire into the equations of experience.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: Bottom line, since experts do not definitively know how consciousness works, but what Professor Seth does say is that even if AI were to experience consciousness, it would never be the same as human consciousness because AI just isn't human.","<em>SETH: The idea of the brain as a computer is a very powerful metaphor.<\/em>","<em>In fact, it's what's driven a lot of the AI that we have. We talk about AI as neural networks often, and these metaphorical abstractions of the real biology of the brain. But we usually get into trouble when we confuse a metaphor with the thing itself when we mistake the map for the territory.<\/em>","CHAKRABARTI: That's Anil Seth, professor of Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. Christof, I have to say that the wetware and hardware or mindware analogy that the professor used there to me is the most convincing explanation so far about why AI is not conscious right now, because we can ask that same NVIDIA chip to do something else entirely, whereas we can't really do that with the human brain.","What do you think about that?","KOCH: I totally agree with them that the LLMs are not conscious. They imitate our intelligence, but that has nothing to do with our consciousness, with our conscious mind.","CHAKRABARTI: It's interesting though because this also makes me want to argue.","I want to be the devil's advocate here because you know very well the figure of Thomas Nagel, right? Who basically said that for a conscious organism to be conscious is to just simply be, to be, have the experience of being that organism. Yes? I wonder, the idea is what is it to be a bat?","Only bats know. We humans can't actually know, can't we apply the same thing to AI though? Like we don't actually know what it is to be an AI system. So how do we know for sure it's not consciousness in a way, all unique to AI.","KOCH: We don't know for sure. It's an inference. It's an inference based on our best understanding of what consciousness is.","Look, we have something we call the, in the perception box, which describes my sense of reality, which is created by my brain, which is my conscious experience of the world. Okay? And I don't even know exactly your perception box. You have different genes; you have a different up upbringing and so you might experience things differently.","You might misinterpret me or you might misinterpret other people. So we each live in our own reality. We assume it's a very powerful assumption that all of us are conscious and using similar mechanism. We assume we infer that other creatures like dogs and cats and all the other creatures that populate our homes are also conscious, but it's in the final analysis. It's always an inference to the best explanation. And so we infer that today, although I'm not a hundred percent sure, that computers are not conscious.","CHAKRABARTI: You're not a hundred percent sure --","KOCH: They don't feel anything. They do not feel well.","But you have to realize as a scientist or as a philosopher, you are not a hundred percent sure of almost anything. The only thing, Meghna, that you are really sure of is that you are conscious. This is the Cartesian insight. The only thing I know for absolutely sure, I feel like something right now.","Not when I'm deeply asleep, not when I'm anesthetized.","CHAKRABARTI: Okay. I'm gonna mention the movie The Matrix, but in all seriousness. Because that is a phenomenal movie that raises so many questions about consciousness. What if we were in a matrix and our experiences of being are actually the source of like artificial inputs to my brain that I'm not in control of it.","KOCH: \u200aLogically. Yeah, logically it's plausible, but in both cases, Neo always knows that he exists. He might be, and Ren\u00e9 Descartes has explicitly pointed out this. He said there might be an evil deceiver. That deceive me about the way the world appears, about his perception box.","But the fact is that you experience something, that cannot be denied. That is a central insight from which any research about consciousness has to start. That you are, I'm right now conscious, and this has to be explained, why a piece of matter can have consciousness. Because it's not in the foundational equation of quantum mechanics of relativity.","It's not in the theory of evolution. Why is it that that matter can love and hate? That's really the fundamental question.","<span data-index=\"4\" data-type=\"pullquote\"><\/span>","CHAKRABARTI: I think this is what's so exciting about where the work that you and others are doing right now is, right, because you talked about new ways in which we've been able, you've been able to measure certain activities, say in the posterior cortex.","I was reading about new technologies that are allowing for different ways to do that sort of selective excitation of the brain. And finding out what the responses are. So we could make a lot of progress in understanding.","KOCH: We will.","CHAKRABARTI: Okay. We will make a lot of progress in understanding consciousness, but let me ask you this, you are one of the most eloquent proponents of the theory that we can basically embed the experience of consciousness in the biological and mechanical operations of the brain.","What do you say to people who just fundamentally disagree with that premise to begin with, that they say, Christof, you're just chasing rainbows because consciousness cannot be so reduced down to physical matter.","KOCH: Look, that's a metaphysical question, right? Is it not reducible at all?","Maybe, some people have a certain ... history that fundamentally the everything physical, including the brain is a manifestation of something, the mind is a manifestation of the mental, call it the cosmic mind. Call it mind at large. Those are metaphysical questions, right?","But the empirical question is, it's, once again, we can go back to Martin and you come into the ICU because you had a bad car accident or a stroke or cardiac arrest. Now the question is, are you conscious or not? And can we test that? And now we are at a stage where 40 years ago we weren't, and that we can now say, yes, this patient is conscious and no, that patient is not conscious, that is progress.","Will we ultimately understand the secret of the universe and how it relates to consciousness. That, I don't know. But we are making progress. We're understanding which bits and pieces of the brain are involved, when do they first start, what happens in late-stage dementia, which other creatures are conscious.","Those are all questions that we have partial answers, and we will have full answers.","CHAKRABARTI: But I certainly, I don't hear you dismissing the metaphysical aspect of this, right? Because I think some of the most exciting aspects of this research is it's right there on the border between the metaphysical and matter, right?","KOCH: Entirely. In fact, I'm also the chief scientist of this Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. We are organizing now a workshop with scholars, philosophers, neuroscientists, people who do psychedelics around the question of mystical experience. So many people throughout history have had what people, in hindsight, called mystical experience at different names, transformative experience, non-dual experience. This includes near death experiences.","This also includes psychedelic experiences where the person who has this experience feels at one, they lose their sense of self. They become one with the universe. That's how it feels, and some of them, it can profoundly change the life, the attitude, the habits of this person who has this.","And many people argue that what happens during this experience, that they access an ultimate reality, that it's all mental, that it's all phenomenal. And so yes, I think the border is ... between doing neuroscience and we, with the question of consciousness, we have to, we are confronted with these metaphysical existential question, what is real?","What is the fundamental nature of reality?","CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. Oh, and that question couldn't be more important than it is these days. But Christof,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>let me ask you, we talked about some of the places in the brain that might be critical to our experience of consciousness, but is there yet a sort of dominant theory of how consciousness works?","KOCH: No, I would say there are at least two strong contenders. One is this integrated theory of consciousness of Julie Chen. The other one is global workspace theory. ... And there are also other theories. So in terms of theoretical understanding, we, at least, again, we've made progress.","We are now in a position where we have scientific theory, not just philosophical schools of thought, like materialism, idealism. But where we have precise theories that try to account what consciousness is. So there's again, there's a lot of progress. We don't have final answers. That's why I lost my bet against the philosopher David Chalmers because we don't know yet, 25 years after we started this bet.","But we are making progress. We are making a lot of progress, and it's very exciting times.","CHAKRABARTI: We have just a few seconds left here. You've been doing this for several decades now, Christof. I wonder how it's changed your understanding of your own sense of consciousness.","KOCH: It has, particular since I've also had one of these experiences that transformed me, that have transformed me and fundamentally changed my attitude to the metaphysics of what is reality?","CHAKRABARTI: What was that experience?","KOCH: Yeah, I prefer not to talk about it. It was one of these transformative experience where everything afterwards has changed. Where you are at your fundamentally attitude to what is real and what is reality and what is constituted by reality changes. And this has lots of other side effects.","For example, you lose your sense of your fear of death and other psychological benefits."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":{"tag":"brainwaves-on-point","name":"Brainwaves: The mysteries of the human brain","desc":""},"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"full","broadcastDate":"2026-08-18 11:00:00","broadcastTime":"11:00:00","itunesEpType":"full","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"Brainwaves: Are you in there?","itunesSummary":"Consciousness is how we are able to feel, dream and imagine. And yet -- scientists haven't figured out how consciousness definitively works. 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And yet -- scientists haven't figured out how consciousness definitively works. What we know, what we don\u2019t and what that tells us about our brains.","megaphoneID":"959b41d2-97f8-11f1-a699-3736ac79efa1","megaphoneURL":"https:\/\/traffic.megaphone.fm\/BUR1977358884.mp3","articleAPIURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?id=1110705&org=wbur","audioAPIURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/audio\/152679","org":"wbur","orgKey":null,"audioMeta":{"extension":"mp3","sizeInBytes":34264115,"url":"https:\/\/traffic.megaphone.fm\/BUR1977358884.mp3"}}],"embedMeta":{"embed-1":{"id":1,"parentID":1110705,"type":"audio","attributes":{"url":"2026\/02\/onpoint_0210_brainwaves-how-consciousness-works-brain-full-broadcast","title":"On Point Full Broadcast","source":"onpoint","date":"2026-02-10","slug":"brainwaves-how-consciousness-works-brain-full-broadcast"},"body":"","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"audio\"><\/span>"},"embed-2":{"id":2,"parentID":1110705,"type":"pullquote","attributes":{"author":"Martin Pistorius"},"body":"I could see and hear what was happening around me, but I could not interact with it in any meaningful way. ... I could not let anyone know that I was there.","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"2\" data-type=\"pullquote\"><\/span>"},"embed-3":{"id":3,"parentID":1110705,"type":"pullquote","attributes":{"author":"Christof Koch"},"body":"Our brain is a piece of furniture of the universe.","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"3\" data-type=\"pullquote\"><\/span>"},"embed-4":{"id":4,"parentID":1110705,"type":"pullquote","attributes":{"author":"Christof Koch"},"body":"Why is it that that matter can love and hate? That's really the fundamental question.","placeholder":"<span data-index=\"4\" data-type=\"pullquote\"><\/span>"}},"images":[{"type":"featured","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861.jpg","width":2121,"height":1414,"title":"Mental health","caption":"(Dusan Stankovic\/Getty Images)","description":"","alttext":"(Dusan Stankovic\/Getty Images)","index":0,"bgPosition":null,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-400x267.jpg","width":400,"height":267},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-1000x667.jpg","width":1000,"height":667},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-1920x1280.jpg","width":1920,"height":1280},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-1536x1024.jpg","width":1536,"height":1024},"2048x2048":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-2048x1365.jpg","width":2048,"height":1365},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861.jpg","width":2121,"height":1414}}},{"type":"standard","bgPosition":null,"url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861.jpg","width":2121,"height":1414,"title":"Mental health","caption":"(Dusan Stankovic\/Getty Images)","description":"","alttext":"(Dusan Stankovic\/Getty Images)","index":0,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-400x267.jpg","width":400,"height":267},"large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-1000x667.jpg","width":1000,"height":667},"thumbnail":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-200x200.jpg","width":200,"height":200},"medium_large":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512},"square":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-600x600.jpg","width":600,"height":600},"breakout":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-1920x1280.jpg","width":1920,"height":1280},"1536x1536":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-1536x1024.jpg","width":1536,"height":1024},"2048x2048":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861-2048x1365.jpg","width":2048,"height":1365},"full":{"file":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-1416435861.jpg","width":2121,"height":1414}}},{"type":"episode-artwork","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/02\/Untitled-design-2026-02-10T152323.740.jpg","width":3000,"height":3000,"title":"Untitled design - 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And when he talks about it with a complete stranger, things go from tragic\u2026 to magic!","Our story is called \u201cCrocus-Pocus.\u201d You\u2019ll find versions of this tale from the southern Italian island of Sicily: the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.","Voices in this episode include Amanda Warren and Jacob Laval.","Grown-ups, you can see Amanda Warren in a bevy of movies and television shows, including \u201cThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,\u201d \u201cRoman J. Israel,\u201d \u201cThe Burial,\u201d \u201cThe Leftovers,\u201d \u201cEast New York,\u201d \u201cDickinson,\u201d and \u201cThe Night Agent,\u201d now in its second season on Netflix.","Jacob Laval has appeared in such TV shows and movies as \u201cSesame Street,\u201d \u201cJohn Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch,\u201d \u201cThe Plot Against America\u201d and \u201c8 Bit Christmas.\u201d His newest film, \u201cThe Unbreakable Boy,\u201d is in theaters now. And fun fact: this is Jacob\u2019s second appearance on our podcast! You can find his first episode, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/circleround\/2022\/02\/15\/porcupines-plan\">Porcupine\u2019s Plan<\/a>,\u201d wherever you listen to <em>Circle Round.<\/em>","This episode was adapted for <em>Circle Round<\/em> by Rebecca Sheir. It was edited by Dean Russell. Original music and sound design is by Eric Shimelonis. Our artist is Sabina Hahn.","<hr \/>","<span data-index=\"1\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>","<strong>GROWN-UPS! <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/03\/crocusPocusBW.jpg\">PRINT THIS<\/a> so everyone can color while listening. We\u2019re also keeping an album so please share your picture on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/circleroundpodcast\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.instagram.com\/circleroundpodcast\">Instagram<\/a>, and tag it with #CircleRoundPodcast. To access all the coloring pages for past episodes click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wbur.org\/circleround\/coloring-pages\">HERE.<\/a> Our resident artist is Sabina Hahn and you can learn more about her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sabinahahn.com\/\">HERE.<\/a>","<hr \/>","<strong>Now it\u2019s your turn!<\/strong>","What are some small ways you can show kindness to others? Brainstorm a short or long list, then find some paper and draw a picture of a flower garden. Inside each flower, write the words \u201cI can\u2026\u201d followed by an act of kindness from your list.","Show your Kindness Garden to someone you have fun with. And if you\u2019d like, show it to us! Ask a grown-up to snap a photo of you and your garden and email it to <a href=\"mailto:circlerond@wbur.org\">circleround@wbur.org<\/a>. With your permission, we may feature you in \u201cThe Lion\u2019s Roar,\u201d the monthly newsletter of the <a href=\"https:\/\/wbur.supportingcast.fm\/circle-round-club\">Circle Round Club<\/a>!","<hr \/>","<strong>Musical Spotlight: Mandolin<\/strong>","<span data-index=\"2\" data-type=\"caption\"><\/span>","Though the mandolin is classified as a member of the lute family, it\u2019s tuned like a violin. A high-pitched descendant of the ancient<em> oud<\/em> (which we featured in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/circleround\/2018\/07\/24\/the-unwelcome-guest-circle-round\">The Unwelcome Guest<\/a>,\u201d \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/circleround\/2020\/04\/28\/the-sultans-figs\">The Sultan\u2019s Figs<\/a>,\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/circleround\/2021\/04\/06\/the-fire-within-circle-round\"> \u201cThe Fire Within<\/a>,\u201d \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/circleround\/2024\/08\/06\/the-spotted-goat\">The Spotted Goat<\/a>\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/circleround\/2024\/08\/20\/laughing-crying\">Laughing and Crying<\/a>\u201d), the mandolin evolved in Italy sometime in the 1500s and 1600s.","As with the <em>oud<\/em>, the mandolin has a hollow wooden body, and you use a pick to pluck strings on the fingerboard. You\u2019ll hear the mandolin in all sorts of music, including bluegrass, blues, classical, country, folk, jazz and rock. You can also hear Eric playing the mandolin in such episodes as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/circleround\/2018\/03\/20\/the-hat-the-horn-and-the-purse-circle-round\">The Hat, The Horn, and the Purse<\/a>,\u201d \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/circleround\/2021\/01\/12\/the-head-and-the-heart-circle-round\">The Head and the Heart<\/a>\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/circleround\/2023\/06\/27\/buried-treasure\">Buried Treasure<\/a>.\u201d","<hr \/>","<strong>Story Transcript:<\/strong>","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Have you ever seen the little cup-shaped flower known as the <em>crocus<\/em>?","Most crocuses originally come from Asia and North Africa. But there\u2019s one type of crocus \u2013 the pale purple \u201clong-flowered crocus\u201d \u2013 that comes from <em>Europe<\/em>. More specifically, from the Italian island of Sicily. And according to legend, it was all thanks to a young grape grower named Nicola.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> (YAWN!) Time to wake up and get to work in the vineyard!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> The vineyard had been in Nicola\u2019s family for generations. He recently inherited it from his parents: a pair of hardworking grape growers who taught Nicola everything they knew before they passed away.","Now that they were gone, the vineyard was Nicola\u2019s responsibility. And though he was still rather young, he was determined to keep the family business thriving. So day after day, he woke up early, went to bed late, and spent every hour in between tending the vineyard.","But then\u2026 in the middle of summer\u2026 everything went <em>wrong.<\/em>","First, heavy clouds rolled in and stretched across the sky like a thick, grey blanket.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> Good grief! The grapes need six hours of sun a day to ripen properly! These cloudy skies won\u2019t do at all!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> But the cloudy skies just got cloudier\u2026 growing thicker, and greyer, before unleashing a non stop torrent of rain.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> Good gracious! If the grapes get too much water, they\u2019ll swell\u2026 then split\u2026 then rot! This rain is definitely not helping things!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> The rain eventually subsided. But Nicola\u2019s troubles didn\u2019t. Because then the vineyard was infested by caterpillars!","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> Good golly! Those pesky parasites are nibbling up the vines and fruits! Come harvest time, I\u2019ll hardly have a harvest at all!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> As it turns out, Nicola was right. Come autumn, when it was time to pick the grapes, there were barely any grapes to pick!","<strong>NICOLA: <\/strong>Good gravy! I\u2019ve been walking up and down these rows of vines for hours. And while I\u2019ve managed to pick <em>some<\/em> sweet purple grapes, the whole crop barely fills one basket!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Still, Nicola was on his own now. And just like his parents before him, he knew he must make a living.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> \u2026or do my <em>bes<\/em>t to make a living! I\u2019ll take this basket of grapes to the marketplace and see what I can sell.","<strong>NARRATOR: <\/strong>The marketplace was buzzing with shoppers shopping and vendors vending when Nicola arrived. Weaving his way through the crowd, he passed the olive grower, whose kiosk was bursting with plump, shiny olives. He saw the nut seller, whose stall was filled with glossy brown almonds and chestnuts. The orchardist had plenty of apples, the beekeeper had plenty of honey. Every vendor seemed to have had a bountiful harvest that year.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> \u2026Except for ME! (beat) Still\u2026 I\u2019ve GOT to sell this basket of grapes. Otherwise, it\u2019ll be a long, hungry winter.","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Nicola held up his basket and did his best to drum up business.","<strong>NICOLA: <\/strong>(calling out, vendor-style) Grapes for sale! Plump, ripe grapes for sale! Their number may be small, but their flavor is mighty!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Unfortunately, the shoppers paid him no mind. They just bustled past, their arms loaded with boxes and bags of other vendors\u2019 wares.","<strong>NICOLA: <\/strong>Good grief! Nobody wants to buy my grapes! (sigh) I wanted to make my parents proud. But even though I love the family vineyard, maybe I\u2019m too young to grow grapes on my own. Maybe I should just throw in the towel and quit.","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Nicola hung his head and turned to leave. But just then \u2013","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> Oh! I\u2019m so sorry!","<strong>NARRATOR: <\/strong>Nicola looked up and realized he had bumped into an old woman.","<strong>WOMAN: (old voice)<\/strong> That\u2019s alright, young man. No need to apologize. You seem like you\u2019re distracted. Like your head is in the clouds!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> The woman\u2019s long hair was white as sugar and her weathered face was criss-crossed with wrinkles. Her hunched back was curved like a question mark, and her ragged dress was patched and torn.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> Actually, my head IS in the clouds. But they\u2019re not the pretty white puffy clouds. They\u2019re the heavy grey stormy ones.","<strong>WOMAN: (old voice) <\/strong>Oh\u2026? Tell me more!","<strong>NICOLA: <\/strong>Well\u2026 after I lost my parents this year, I inherited their vineyard. And the summer was <em>brutal <\/em>on the harvest. I worked my tail off, but all I have to show for it is this measly basket of grapes!","<strong>WOMAN: (old voice) <\/strong>I\u2019m awfully sorry to hear that, young man. And I\u2019m awfully sorry about your parents. (beat) I don\u2019t wish to add to your troubles\u2026 but I\u2019ve fallen on hard times, and haven\u2019t a penny to feed myself. I\u2019ve been wandering around this marketplace asking for help, but everyone has either ignored me or turned me away. So I wonder\u2026 might you spare some of your<em> grapes?\u00a0<\/em>","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Nicola looked down at his basket. With so few grapes to sell, he couldn\u2019t afford to give any away! But when he looked up at the old woman, he felt his heart soften.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> You are more than welcome to eat some of my grapes, madam. As many as you\u2019d like!","<strong>WOMAN: (old voice) <\/strong>Are you certain? Don\u2019t you need to <em>sell<\/em> these grapes? So you can make a living?","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Nicola shrugged.","<strong>NICOLA: <\/strong>I guess I\u2019d rather make someone\u2019s<em> day<\/em> \u2013 by helping them in their time of need. So please. Help yourself!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> The woman\u2019s face crinkled into a grin. She reached a weathered hand into the basket, plucked out a bunch of purple grapes, and began to eat.","<strong>WOMAN: (old voice)<\/strong> (ad-lib eating, chewing and reax, such as:) Mmm! Oh! So tasty!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Nicola watched the woman devour the grapes. And with every piece of fruit she ate, something began\u2026 to happen. Something so surprising\u2026 so unexpected\u2026 and so utterly <em>impossible<\/em> that Nicola could hardly believe his eyes!","What do you think happened as the old woman ate the grapes?","We\u2019ll find out, after a quick break.","<strong>[BREAK]<\/strong>","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Welcome back to Circle Round. I\u2019m Rebecca Sheir. Today our story is called \u201cCrocus-Pocus.\u201d","Before the break, a young grape grower named Nicola inherited his parents\u2019 vineyard. During his first season in charge, everything went wrong, and come harvest time, all he had to sell at the marketplace was one basket of grapes\u2026 which he generously offered to a poor old woman.","And as she devoured the fruit, do you know what happened?","Her long white hair grew dark\u2026 her curved back grew straight\u2026 and the patches and tears in her dress disappeared.","Before Nicola knew it, standing tall and radiant before him was a young woman, her hair as black as midnight, her beautiful gown dripping with lace.","<strong>WOMAN: (younger voice)<\/strong> Nicola! By giving your very last grapes to a soul in need, you have proven that you are a truly compassionate and generous young man.","<strong>NARRATOR: <\/strong>Nicola fought to find his voice.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> (awed, humble) I - I was just doing the right thing, ma\u2019am! It\u2019s what my parents would have done. (beat) But wait! How did you know my name?","<strong>WOMAN: (younger voice)<\/strong> That matters not, Nicola. But now that YOU\u2019VE done something for ME\u2026 <em>I<\/em> wish to do something for YOU.","<strong>NARRATOR: <\/strong>The woman motioned toward the basket of grapes. Somehow, it was every bit as full as it was before, as if no fruit had been eaten.","<strong>WOMAN: (younger voice) <\/strong>Go back to your vineyard, Nicola. Then take the grapes in this basket and plant them in the ground. After that\u2026 enjoy your reward!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> With that, there was a flash of light\u2026and the woman was gone.","<strong>NICOLA<\/strong>: Great heavens! That was WILD!","<strong>NARRATOR<\/strong>: Nicola glanced around the marketplace. He assumed a crowd would come scurrying over, peppering him with questions about the miraculous event that just took place. But everyone continued about their business, as if nothing out-of-the-ordinary had occurred.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> Okay\u2026 so the woman said I should take my grapes and plant them. (beat) But let\u2019s get real. One of the first things my parents taught me is that you can\u2019t grow a grapevine from a whole grape! You snip a <em>cutting<\/em> from an <em>existing vine<\/em>, then you plant <em>that.<\/em> (beat) Planting a grape and expecting results is preposterous. \u2026But then, so is meeting an old woman who magically transforms into a young woman before vanishing into thin air!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Nicola took his basket and returned to his vineyard. Then, very carefully, he planted each purple grape in the ground.","The next morning, when he woke up and came outside, his jaw dropped so low he nearly tripped over it.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> Goodness gracious! For every purple grape I planted yesterday, there now grows\u2026 a purple <em>flower<\/em>!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> It was true! Sprouting up all over the field was the little cup-shaped flower known as the <em>crocus. <\/em>Nicola knelt down to get a closer view.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> Look at that! The <em>stigma<\/em> of each flower \u2013 the sticky part in the middle that collects pollen \u2013 is bright RED! And it <em>smells <\/em>so <em>sweet<\/em>!","<strong>NARRATOR: <\/strong>He dipped his nose inside a flower and took a whiff. The stigma brushed against his lips, and suddenly his mouth was bursting with a remarkable flavor.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> Mmmm! It tastes <em>sweet<\/em>\u2026like honey! And <em>fresh<\/em>\u2026 like flowers and newly-mown hay! I\u2019ll bet that if I picked a whole bunch of stigmas, and let them dry, I could sell a pretty amazing <em>spice<\/em>!","<strong>NARRATOR: <\/strong>Nicola got to work picking crocuses and drying their stigmas. After a few days, he returned to the marketplace.","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Once again, he passed the olive grower, the nut seller, the orchardist and beekeeper. Only this time, he was bearing more than a basket of grapes. He was carrying dozens of tiny bottles, each one filled with his brand new spice.","<strong>NICOLA: <\/strong>(calling out, vendor-style) Spice for sale! Exotic spice for sale! Sweeter and fresher than anything you\u2019ve ever tasted!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> Within moments, Nicola was surrounded by a gaggle of curious customers. Just one sniff of the spice, and all of them reached into their purses and wallets and began showering Nicola with coins.","<strong>NICOLA:<\/strong> Thank you for your purchase, sir! Pleasure doing business with you, ma\u2019am! Hope you enjoy the spice, miss!","<strong>NARRATOR:<\/strong> By day\u2019s end, Nicola was out of bottles\u2026 and flush with coins. Because as it turns out, the crocuses he had grown were <em>long-flowered<\/em> crocuses, the species that produces <em>saffron<\/em>: a highly-prized spice that\u2019s become famous for its use in foods, drinks, medicines, and dyes.","But saffron isn\u2019t just legendary for its uses. It\u2019s legendary for its <em>price<\/em>! Saffron is <em>the most expensive spice<\/em> in the world! So as you can imagine, our young Nicola suddenly found himself set for life.","Still, he continued working hard, growing his purple crocuses and purple grapes, and he never knew want again. Which just goes to show you: amazing things can happen when you let compassion, kindness, and generosity take root inside your heart\u2026 and bloom."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"","broadcastDate":"","broadcastTime":"","itunesEpType":"full","itunesEpNum":"58","itunesSeason":"9","itunesTitle":"Summer Camp: Crocus-Pocus","itunesSummary":"Welcome back to Circle Round Summer Camp! 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When the full-time hosts are off air, Peter steps in to cover the day\u2019s most important stories.","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"website":null,"email":null,"content":null,"embedMeta":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["<em>Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/hereandnow\/2026\/02\/19\/red-squirrel-endangered\">here<\/a> for the original audio and to read more.<\/em>","The Mt. Graham red squirrel is one of the most endangered species in North America. About 230 of them remain in the wild, and as the name suggests, they only live on one mountaintop in Southern Arizona.","<em>Here &amp; Now<\/em>\u2019s <strong>Peter O\u2019Dowd<\/strong> took us to this ecological wonder back in February, where climate change is threatening the future of the forests and the animals that live there. We revisit his reporting."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"segment","broadcastDate":"2026-08-18 13:20:00","broadcastTime":"13:20:00","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":null,"volume":3,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":"1787074497","taxonomy":[{"id":5906,"type":"tag","name":"WBUR App National","description":"","slug":"wbur-app-national","series":false,"global":true,"count":13520,"hide":true,"primary":true},{"id":67,"type":"category","name":"Environment","description":"","slug":"environment","series":false,"global":false,"count":8771,"hide":false,"primary":true}],"audio":[{"id":152771,"createdAt":"2026-08-18T17:34:57.000000Z","updatedAt":"2026-08-18T18:57:42.000000Z","fileName":"hereandnow_0818_mt-graham-red-squirrel","playCount":0,"airDate":"2026-08-18","source":"hereandnow","wordpressTitle":"This squirrel only lives on one mountain. 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Graham red squirrels remain in the wild.","megaphoneID":"2203a4a4-9b2b-11f1-b503-cf066d44ee03","megaphoneURL":"https:\/\/traffic.megaphone.fm\/BUR8348309327.mp3","articleAPIURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?id=1111371&org=wbur","audioAPIURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/audio\/152771","org":"wbur","orgKey":null,"audioMeta":{"extension":"mp3","sizeInBytes":9833983,"url":"https:\/\/traffic.megaphone.fm\/BUR8348309327.mp3"}}],"embedMeta":null,"images":[]},{"guid":"d38bd0b9-5ed2-4035-a262-bfbbe7168c8e","id":1111413,"channel":"WBUR News","fullChannel":null,"channelType":"section","channelID":3,"program":null,"channelURL":"\/news","wordpressSlug":"whistleblower-political-pressure-lack-of-evidence-antisemitism-universities-colleges","wordpressID":1111413,"source":"news","headline":"Whistleblower alleges political pressure, lack of evidence in antisemitism probes targeting schools","subhead":null,"newsSection":null,"publishDate":"2026-08-18 11:58:50","updatedDate":"","relativeURL":"\/news\/2026\/08\/18\/whistleblower-political-pressure-lack-of-evidence-antisemitism-universities-colleges","apiURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?date=2026-08-18&slug=whistleblower-political-pressure-lack-of-evidence-antisemitism-universities-colleges&sources=news","externalURL":"","shortLink":"https:\/\/wbur.fm\/4qr6EAn","miniExcerpt":"","excerpt":"The complaint alleges that the investigations into some of the nation's\u00a0most prestigious academic institutions\u00a0were designed to strong-arm the schools into cutting deals for political purposes.","bylines":[{"name":"Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer, The Associated Press","slug":null,"wordpressID":null,"content":null,"apiURL":null,"relativeURL":null,"organization":"wbur","embedMeta":null,"shortBio":"","bluesky":null,"facebook":null,"title":"","type":null,"channels":null,"photo":null,"website":null,"email":null,"nameLastFirst":null,"thumbnail":null}],"nprID":null,"nprTranscriptID":null,"nprURL":null,"dateline":"","superTitle":null,"superTitleURL":null,"content":["A Trump administration task force\u00a0created to combat antisemitism\u00a0pushed for settlements with Ivy League universities despite government investigations that were rushed and incomplete or that failed to establish legal violations by the schools, a former Justice Department lawyer alleged in a whistleblower disclosure obtained by The Associated Press.","The complaint alleges that the investigations into some of the nation's\u00a0most prestigious academic institutions\u00a0were designed to strong-arm the schools into cutting deals for political purposes. Outcomes of the investigations were \"predetermined, without regard to the evidence\" in a \u201cpolitically mandated effort\u201d to extract money from schools through settlement demands and funding freezes under the pretext of rooting out antisemitism, the complaint alleges.","The work of the multi-agency task force, launched by the Justice Department under\u00a0then-Attorney General Pam Bondi\u00a0in February 2025, was \u201cmarked by extraordinary procedural irregularities, predetermined outcomes without factual or legal support\u201d and disregard for the law and Constitution, lawyers for the former government attorney wrote in seeking watchdog investigations into their client's complaints.","The complaint taps into a broader public discussion about the administration's efforts to confront allegations of antisemitism at colleges, a problem that\u00a0received renewed attention\u00a0during campus protests over Israel's war in Gaza that some Jewish students said made them feel unsafe. President Donald Trump returned to the White House with a goal of rooting out antisemitism that he said had gone unchecked during the Biden administration, but critics have called his government's response heavy-handed and said it infringed on free speech rights and coerced concessions from public institutions.","<h3>A key House Democrat is publicizing the whistleblower's allegations<\/h3>","Lawyers for the former Justice Department attorney, identified as Haley Van Erem, filed the disclosure Tuesday with the inspectors general at the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services and the Office of Special Counsel.","Van Erem spent nearly a decade working in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division before being assigned to help with the task force last year.","She left the Justice Department in May 2025 because she was \"unwilling to be made vulnerable to further participation in politically motivated investigations unsupported by facts and contrary to law,\" according to the complaint, which also accuses the task force of having targeted Muslim professors.","Spokespeople for the Justice Department and Health and Human Services Department did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment Tuesday.","Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote separately to Harmeet Dhillon, who as the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has been a public face of the department's efforts to counter antisemitism. In his letter, he said antisemitism at colleges and medical schools is a real problem that needs to be investigated.","\u201cBut,\u201d he told Dhillon, \u201cyour 'investigation\u2019 into antisemitism was fake, a pre-baked frame-up operation thoroughly political in nature.\u201d","Raskin wrote that \u201cthe whole project was designed to harass professors and administrators at major universities, to curtail their freedom of speech and academic freedom, and to strip targeted institutions of hundreds of millions of dollars in grants that they had already been awarded on the merits of their applications.\u201d","<h3>Scrutiny over the handling of investigations into elite schools<\/h3>","The whistleblower complaint deals chiefly with investigations into three Ivy League universities: Brown, Harvard and Columbia.","It alleges that in the case of Brown, the investigative team did not find evidence to support a violation of Title VI, the section of the Civil Rights Act that bars discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs that receive federal funding, but that \u201cleadership refused to permit a notice of no violation and instead sought some form of settlement or resolution despite acknowledging the absence of a legal basis for doing so.\u201d","Investigators did find evidence of discrimination at Columbia, the complaint says, but the investigation was done on an accelerated timetable before adequate factual development and legal review were completed and relied on allegations that \u201cwere unsupported, based on news reports or litigation filings, or that implicated protected First Amendment activity.\"","Columbia University\u00a0agreed to pay the government $200 million as part of an agreement restoring access to federal funding.\u00a0Brown University\u00a0separately agreed to pay $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development organizations to end the three federal investigations involving allegations of antisemitism and racial bias in admissions, with no findings of wrongdoing.","In the investigation into Harvard, Trump administration officials discussed \u201cextraordinary funding freezes and sweeping proposed settlement terms\u201d before an investigation had been completed that could establish Title VI violations. Sean Keveney, then-HHS acting general counsel, said he believed Harvard would settle because they were \u201cover a barrel,\u201d according to the complaint.","A\u00a0federal judge last year\u00a0ordered the Trump administration to reverse its cuts of more than $2.6 billion in\u00a0research funding\u00a0for the university, saying the government \u201cused antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country\u2019s premier universities.\u201d And\u00a0a different judge last week\u00a0dismissed\u00a0a Trump administration lawsuit\u00a0that accused Harvard University of turning a blind eye to harassment of Jewish students."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.wbur.org\/news\/2026\/08\/13\/judge-dismisses-trump-lawsuit-alleging-antisemitism-harvard","title":"Judge dismisses Trump administration lawsuit alleging antisemitism at Harvard University","prefix":""}],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"","broadcastDate":"","broadcastTime":"","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":null,"volume":3,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":null,"taxonomy":[{"id":61,"type":"category","name":"Boston","description":"","slug":"boston","series":false,"global":false,"count":63147,"hide":false,"primary":true},{"id":73,"type":"category","name":"News","description":"","slug":"news","series":false,"global":false,"count":79266,"hide":false,"primary":false},{"id":66,"type":"category","name":"Education","description":"","slug":"education","series":false,"global":false,"count":7570,"hide":false,"primary":false},{"id":64,"type":"category","name":"Crime & Justice","description":"","slug":"crime-justice","series":false,"global":false,"count":13391,"hide":false,"primary":false}],"audio":[],"embedMeta":null,"images":[{"type":"featured","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2025\/06\/0513_harvard02-1.jpg","width":3000,"height":2000,"title":"Students walk through Harvard Yard. 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Back in June, someone soiled themselves at a Noah Kahan concert and then tried to pretend nothing had happened.","Across the world, people in general admission sections on the floor of live music events are proudly wearing and using adult diapers so they don\u2019t have to give up their spots close to the stage. Some people are even recording an entire concert or livestreaming it as a way to gain followers and clout.","With 2026 being a year when a number of hugely popular artists are going on tour \u2014 Ariana Grande, Noah Kahan, Olivia Rodrigo and Bad Bunny, to name a few \u2014 we check in with<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/author\/andy-greene\/\"><strong> Andy Greene<\/strong><\/a>, senior writer at Rolling Stone, on how concert etiquette has devolved and what concertgoers can do to enjoy their next concert without ruining it for the people around them."],"enhanced":false,"seriesMeta":null,"iframeHero":null,"postType":"post","isBreaking":false,"isDeveloping":false,"relatedLinks":[],"relatedLinksLabel":"Related:","broadcastType":"segment","broadcastDate":"2026-08-18 13:40:00","broadcastTime":"13:40:00","itunesEpType":"","itunesEpNum":0,"itunesSeason":0,"itunesTitle":"","itunesSummary":"","itunesExplicit":false,"socialTease":null,"volume":3,"enableRecirculation":true,"suppressAudio":false,"hideArchiveMsg":false,"disableAds":"enabled","audioDatetime":"1787075921","taxonomy":[{"id":5906,"type":"tag","name":"WBUR App National","description":"","slug":"wbur-app-national","series":false,"global":true,"count":13520,"hide":true,"primary":true},{"id":5614,"type":"tag","name":"Here & Now: Editors' Picks","description":"","slug":"here-and-now-editors-picks","series":false,"global":false,"count":5745,"hide":false,"primary":false},{"id":70,"type":"category","name":"Life","description":"","slug":"life","series":false,"global":false,"count":11907,"hide":false,"primary":true}],"audio":[{"id":152773,"createdAt":"2026-08-18T17:58:41.000000Z","updatedAt":"2026-08-18T18:57:45.000000Z","fileName":"hereandnow_0818_concert-etiquette","playCount":0,"airDate":"2026-08-18","source":"hereandnow","wordpressTitle":"How to attend concerts without becoming the most-hated person in your section","wordpressSlug":"concert-etiquette","status":"available","subType":"primary","audioLength":566,"nprCDNFilename":null,"description":"Concert etiquette: Is there any saving it?","megaphoneID":"72e66ff2-9b2e-11f1-938a-2b03479d56ba","megaphoneURL":"https:\/\/traffic.megaphone.fm\/BUR6833152553.mp3","articleAPIURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/stories?id=1111375&org=wbur","audioAPIURL":"https:\/\/api.wbur.org\/audio\/152773","org":"wbur","orgKey":null,"audioMeta":{"extension":"mp3","sizeInBytes":9057833,"url":"https:\/\/traffic.megaphone.fm\/BUR6833152553.mp3"}}],"embedMeta":null,"images":[{"type":"featured","url":"https:\/\/media.wbur.org\/wp\/2026\/08\/AP25178758805001-1.jpg","width":3000,"height":2001,"title":"The crowd watches Olivia Rodrigo performing at British Summer Time Hyde Park, in London, on Friday, June 27, 2025. 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