Ashley Flowers started “Yoga for Good,” a donation-based class series in support of local nonprofits, in 2024. Since then, she’s raised $2,000 for nine organizations.Flowers said, “Experiencing that sense of joy and happiness and peacefulness that yoga brings, and knowing that you’re all coming together to do something good for yourselves and the world, I think, is really powerful.”Toad & Co hosts “Yoga for Good” in the back of their Portland clothing store. After class, they collect payment, which is a suggested $15 donation. However, attendees are encouraged to pay what they can. “I don’t ever want to turn someone away from yoga because money is an issue,” Flowers said. All proceeds go directly to the cause. The most recent class on April 10 was held in support of the Adaptive Outdoor Education Center. The AOEC is a nonprofit aimed at providing recreation programming for people with different abilities. Inclusivity is a priority in Flowers’ practice. “If you can breathe, you can do yoga,” she said. “Yoga is accessible to everyone.” The AOEC has been the beneficiary of five Yoga for Good classes. When asked about working with Flowers, the nonprofit’s program and development coordinator, Alessa Foley, said, “She always has such great messages as a part of being in the yoga class. It’s not just coming to yoga and stretching and breathing, but also what can you give back to the community, and how can we work together to support each other?”That’s what Flowers thinks yoga is all about. She said, “If you could help people to cultivate a sense of respect for themselves, then maybe you could have that sense of respect to bubble out into the world and heal the world.” When Flowers is not teaching at Toad & Co, you may find her leading goat yoga at Smiling Hill Farm, online classes, or workshops at other local farms. She feels operating without a brick-and-mortar studio is a good way to support her community by drawing people into local businesses. “I think healthy communities are well-connected communities,” she said. Flowers has already lined up the next five Yoga for Good classes, which will run through September. RSVPs can be made on her website. Fri. May 8 at 8 a.m. — Adaptive Outdoor Education CenterSat. June 13 at 9 a.m. — Dempsey CenterSat. July 11 at 11 a.m. — Impact HorseSat. August 8 at 9 a.m. — Dempsey Center Fri. Sept 11 at 8 a.m. — Sea Change Yoga

A once-obscure Democratic state senator from sleepy Ashland, unelected by most voters, has emerged as the most powerful public official in Massachusetts, topping even Gov. Maura Healey in clout and impact.

Senate Majority Leader Karen Spilka tells the governor, the House speaker and even the mayor of Boston what to do and right now stands as the biggest obstacle to transparency in the Legislature.

Most voters don’t know her and certainly never voted for her, yet Spilka, who represents the 2nd Middlesex/Norfolk District, controls the agenda in the state and how taxpayer money is spent.

Spilka was reelected without opposition in 2024, getting just 68,762 votes — a tiny fraction of the population of Massachusetts.

But she has managed to stay relatively scandal-free, unlike several of her Senate President predecessors who moved on.

While Spilka does not appear to have statewide ambitions, the position of Senate president has traditionally been a launching pad to lucrative lobbying careers.

And there really is no reason for Spilka to quit or run for governor, because she holds more power than any lobbyist or the current occupant of the Corner Office, Maura Healey.

When House lawmakers this week announced a breakthrough $4 million funding initiative to tackle Boston’s Mass and Cass drug issue, Spilka, who has feuded with Wu, was conspicuously absent, casting doubt about whether the funding will ever be approved.

Spilka and her fellow Democratic state senators stopped Wu’s commercial tax hike plan last year, angering the mayor and prompting her to challenge two senators who publicly blocked it. But Wu notably did not put up a challenger to Spilka.

The Ashland senator is also engaged in a very nasty public dispute with Auditor Diana DiZoglio over the voter-approved audit of the Legislature.

DiZoglio has compared Spilka to a monarch, saying she “rules and reigns over Massachusetts, just like a Queen.”

Spilka, with a straight face, retorted that the Legislature’s actions are of course democratic — a ridiculous assertion considering the way she runs the Senate.

She also denied not wanting the Legislature to face the voter-approved audit which DiZoglion is leading.

“We have really worked hard to increase transparency,” she said.

Spilka has often been in conflict with House Speaker Ron Mariano, and essentially nothing happens in the Legislature without Spilka’s approval. If Mariano were a Simpsons character, it would be Homer.

While staying away from scandal, Spilka is after all a creature of the Massachusetts Democratic hackerama, and has as bad a case of Trump derangement syndrome as any other liberal Democrat.

She raised eyebrows earlier this year by comparing President Donald Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown to the Holocaust.

“I’ve been open and honest that this moment, what is happening across our country, reminds me of what my family experienced in Poland in the 1930s leading up to World War II,” she said at the annual “Immigrant Day” celebration at the Statehouse.

“When people targeted my family with violence because they were Jewish. Like this government today, even targeting now because of people’s looks, their accents, the way they speak, and that is unacceptable.”

A tick-borne illness that can leave people severely allergic to meat and dairy is becoming a growing concern in New Hampshire, according to comments from a state public health official and federal health guidance.

Alpha-gal syndrome is becoming more frequent in New England as ticks move farther north, some say, due to climate change.

The illness is carried most commonly by the Lone Star tick.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly half a million people nationwide are affected by alpha-gal syndrome. The CDC says the condition differs from typical food allergies because symptoms are often delayed by two hours or more after exposure and can appear suddenly after years of eating meat without problems.

The CDC says the reaction is linked to alpha-gal, a molecule associated with mammalian meat and some mammalian-derived products. In people with the syndrome, symptoms can occur 2 to 10 hours after eating pork, beef, lamb, other mammalian meat, or products such as gelatin. The CDC also says symptoms can develop within two hours after intramuscular, intravenous, or subcutaneous administration of alpha-gal-containing vaccination or medication.

Symptoms listed by the CDC include abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and heartburn or indigestion. The agency also says people may experience hives, itching, swelling of the lips, tongue, throat, face or eyelids, shortness of breath, cough, wheezing, and acute hypotension. Anaphylaxis is also among the symptoms identified by the CDC.