Category: Culture

A two-year-old boy was bitten and scratched by a raccoon at a popular Massachusetts playground Friday afternoon, prompting local police to warn families to remain alert.
The incident occurred at Wayland Town Beach in Wayland, a wooded community about 20 miles west of Boston. Grayson Cohen was playing on a jungle gym with his nanny when the animal lunged from behind the structure and attacked him.
The child’s father, Spencer Cohen, said the attack occurred so quickly that the nanny was initially unaware of the full extent of the interaction.
“It happened so fast,” Spencer Cohen told NBC10 Boston. “She didn't even know he was bitten until she got him in the car seat.”
When the nanny brought the toddler home, Cohen saw how severe the injury was and took his son to Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
open image in galleryThe boy’s mother, Megan Cohen, says her son’s injuries were far more severe than she initially expected (Spencer Cohen)“I got a text saying he had an ‘encounter’ with a racc..

A Democratic Senate candidate seemingly provoked the owners of the Boston Red Sox by airing a critical political advertisement during a baseball game this past week – which was taken off the air midway through the game.
Graham Platner, the Democrat hoping to replace Maine Senator Susan Collins, aired a somewhat trolling ad on May 22, accusing the Red Sox owners of destroying the team by allowing private equity firms to own portions of the team.
“Private equity has destroyed our favorite baseball team. Stripping them for parts,” Platner said in the 15-second ad, while promising to “reverse the private equity curse.”
“I’m Graham Platner, and I approve this message because I miss Mookie Betts,” he added, referring to the outfielder traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020.
But midway through the game, the New England Sports Network, which is also partly owned by the Red Sox, pulled the ad, Platner said in an X post Saturday.
open image in galleryDemocratic candidate Graham Platner accu..

After losing a primary challenge to a Donald Trump-backed candidate last week, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie is already preparing for a return to politics in 2028.
The Kentucky congressman has already filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission, which will allow him to continue fundraising for any potential campaigns before the next congressional elections.
“I haven’t made a final decision about which office to seek, if I run,” he said Monday.
In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Massie said he wasn’t ruling out “anything” for his political future.
“Look, I’ve spent the last five days on my farm with my grandkids, and my cattle, and my peach trees, and it’s a pretty nice life,” he said. “I don’t know if I want to screw that up again. I’ve been in Congress 14 years, fighting. Every hour that passes, I get decompressed a little bit more.”
open image in galleryRepublican Rep Thomas Massie is already eyeing a political comeback, days after losing a ..

Roughly 300 people locked up inside an immigration detention center in New Jersey are reportedly on hunger strike inside the facility, where detainees have alleged deteriorating and inhumane conditions and a dangerous lack of due process.
The strike follows similar actions in California, where at least 20 immigrants at the Desert View Annex in Adelanto have been on hunger strike for nearly a week to bring attention to allegations of unsafe drinking water and a lack of necessary medical care.
The actions join growing unrest inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers across the country, where immigrants, lawyers and members of Congress are demanding urgent attention to the growing numbers of people in sprawling, prison-like facilities where the vast majority of detainees haven’t been accused of a crime.
“We feel vulnerable and, in a way, kidnapped — detained without justification — not to mention that we are being tortured physically and psychologically due to the poor ..

Police in Nebraska were called to a convenience store after reports of gunfire — only to find a dog accidentally shot a person with a shotgun.
Officers with the Scottsbluff Police Department were called to Short Stop, a gas station and convenience store, after receiving a report that someone had been shot with a BB gun just after noon on Saturday, KNOP News 2 reported.
However, while on their way to the scene, police were informed that the incident actually involved a shotgun.
At the store, police found a truck with damage consistent with a shotgun blast to the passenger side door.
The driver of the truck had pulled into the parking lot to shop, but a dog in the back seat of their vehicle moved from one side of the car to the other — and managed to cause the loaded shotgun to discharge.
open image in galleryPolice in Nebraska were called to a report of a shooting, only to find that a dog accidentally triggered a loaded shotgun (Google Maps)The shotgun fired off into the passenger ..

A former Wesleyan University soccer player who was found not guilty by reason of insanity after brutally killing his younger brother in a gruesome attack has died in an apparent suicide inside his prison cell, according to reports.
Matthew Hertgen, 31, was found dead in his cell at the Mercer County Jail in New Jersey on May 8, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to NJ.com. An official cause of death has not been released, and an autopsy report is pending.
The death came less than two months after a Mercer County judge ruled Hertgen was not criminally responsible for the February 2025 killing of his 26-year-old brother, Joseph Hertgen, at the brothers’ Princeton apartment.
Investigators said Hertgen stabbed and beat his younger brother to death with knives and golf clubs before mutilating the body, ripping out one of Joseph’s eyeballs and eating it. He also set their cat on fire during the attack.
Hertgen then called 911 to report a body inside the home, opened the door for..

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used his West Point commencement address to criticize former leaders, accusing them of turning the armed forces into a “woke Princeton” and weakening the American spirit through DEI policies.
In the rain on Saturday at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York, Hegseth told graduating cadets that past leadership and reforms had weakened the military, accusing previous officials of turning the academy into what he described as a misguided academic environment.
“We saw woke and weak leaders trying to make West Point look like woke Princeton, which happens to be my long-lost and lost alma mater,” Hegseth said.
“They tried to introduce diversity and inclusion studies. They hire professors who advocated for anti-American ideologies right here in these halls, but no more,” he said to a muted response from the crowd, arguing that West Point is “special” and “above politics.”
“The single dumbest phrase in military history was peddled in our army only a few short yea..

Unexploded drone removed from high-rise apartment in Ukraine after Russia strikeVolodymyr Zelensky said that Russia is preparing a strike against ​Ukraine using a hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile.
Citing intelligence from Ukraine, the US and Europe, Zelensky’s warning came a day after Vladimir Putin ordered his military to prepare options for retaliation against Ukraine for a drone strike on a student dorm in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, which Ukraine's denied responsibility for.
Zelensky said in an X post that did not mention the ​drone ⁠attack: “We are seeing signs ⁠of preparation for a combined ​strike ⁠on Ukrainian territory, including Kyiv, involving various types of weaponry. The specified intermediate-range weapons could be used in such a strike.”
Russia has already attacked ‌Ukraine twice with the Oreshnik, a missile which Vladimir Putin has boasted is impossible to intercept because of its reported velocity ‌of more than 10 times the spee..

A bipartisan group of senators is pushing back on delays by the Department of Defense in sending $600 million in security aid to Ukraine and other allies in eastern Europe, dispatching a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday that calls for the funding to be disbursed.
Friction has grown between Congress and the Trump administration in recent weeks as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle push for updates on what has happened with $400 million in Ukraine and $200 million more for defense programs in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The money was allocated by Congress last year.
Even Republican lawmakers have aired their frustration as President Donald Trump's administration disengages with Ukraine and other European allies.
“Ukraine has persistently and bravely repelled a four-year Russian onslaught, but its military needs and deserves continued American support,” said Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley in the joint letter.
Republican Sens…

One year after Floyd Mayweather Jr. claimed he had “100 percent” trust in business advisor and convicted felon Jona Rechnitz, the champion prizefighter is suing him for allegedly stealing at least $175 million – the proceeds from sales of real estate, jewelry, and a Gulfstream G-IV private jet.
In a complaint filed Thursday evening in Manhattan County Supreme Court, Mayweather claims Rechnitz, a New York City real estate developer who in 2016 was brought up on federal bribery charges and later sentenced to five months in prison and five months of house arrest, fleeced him amid a “multi-year fraudulent scheme” carried out with the help of two associates.
“As they say, the gloves are off,” Mayweather’s attorney Leo Jacobs told The Independent. “The complaint speaks for itself.”
The lawsuit follows news of a court ruling ordering Mayweather to pay nearly $1 million in back child support, plus $33,000 a month, to a dancer at his Las Vegas strip club with whom he fathered a four-year-old da..