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Fire away: Biden says Ukraine can launch US missiles against targets in Russia

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Fire away: Biden says Ukraine can launch US missiles against targets in Russia


In the span of 24 hours, the war raging for more than two years in Ukraine has intensified significantly.

After a massive barrage of drone and rocket attacks struck their territory overnight into Sunday, and as missiles continued to fall the following evening, U.S. President Joe Biden authorized Ukrainian armed forces to use American weaponry against targets deep into Russia, according to sources reported by the Associated Press.

The Biden Administration’s change in policy comes after what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as a “massive combined attack” that “targeted all regions of Ukraine,” killing several people and leaving parts of the country without power.

“This morning began with one of the largest Russian strikes on Ukraine. 210 missiles and drones, including aeroballistic and hypersonic missiles, as well as dozens of Shahed drones, were launched. All of them targeted civilian infrastructure — critical facilities like power plants and transformers,” Zelenskyy shared via social media.

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“This evening, a Russian missile hit a nine-story residential building. There are confirmed fatalities, including children. Many people are wounded. Emergency services are on the scene, doing everything to save lives. But what is still missing — and desperately needed — is the principled reaction of the world to this evil,” he said.

Biden’s decision, attributed by the Associated Press to “a U.S. official and three people familiar with the matter,” would represent a stark change in the U.S. stance on Ukrainian use of American arms in Russian territory, which before had been restricted to short range use and mostly aimed at retaking occupied parts of Ukraine.

It also comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin has engaged the aid of North Korea in his unlawful war of territorial expansion, and reportedly deployed tens of thousands those troops against Ukraine’s northern defenses.

“The entire world needs them not to turn a blind eye to Russia’s continued terror. Only when the world reacts decisively can the situation change. Russia has involved North Korea in its war—and the reaction has been weak. Russia has continued its terror for nearly 1,000 days—and the world’s decisions are still delayed,” Zelenskyy said Sunday.

According to reporting, Ukraine will be allowed to fire the U.S. made MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), a vehicle mounted weapons system capable of firing missiles close to 200 miles, at targets inside of Russia. That’s not enough to threaten Putin in Moscow, but more than enough range for Ukraine to defend their northern border now that North Korean troops are apparently amassing near Kursk.

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Russia has been attacking its fellow former Soviet state for a decade, since 2014 when Putin illegally annexed Crimea. The conflict, which continued in a pair of separatist regions during the following eight years, exploded into full-scale war in February of 2022, when the Russian military further invaded the country on three fronts.

Moscow apparently had planned for just days of military actions, but Russian forces have mostly been stalled in their advances by Ukrainian troops and civilian volunteers armed and trained by a global coalition of nations. According to the U.N., the war has displaced more than 10 million Ukrainian civilians and left half again as many in need of humanitarian assistance.

According to a “confidential” Ukrainian estimate of war dead reported by the Wall Street Journal in mid-September, more than 1 million people have died as a result of the war.

In the years that have followed Russia’s invasion of their democratic neighbor, according to the Department of Defense the U.S. has “committed approximately $56.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine through both presidential drawdown authority and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in September that use of U.S. long range precision weapons against Russia would be considered an escalation akin to an attack by all of NATO.

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“If this decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, and European countries, in the war in Ukraine,” Putin said.

The U.S. policy shift comes as Biden closes out a trip to South America for a climate summit and bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, when the outgoing president apparently called for China to put more pressure on North Korea to stay out of the conflict in Europe.

National Security Advisory Jake Sullivan said that Biden used the meeting to reiterate “his grave concern over the fact that the (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) has deployed a significant number of troops to western Russia to participate in the battle against Ukraine, in the war against Ukraine.”

“President Biden really underscored his view that this is a deeply dangerous development, both in the European view, the introduction of a foreign army, and on the Korean Peninsula, with deepening cooperation between Russia and the DPRK likely to enhance the possibility of provocative behavior by the DPRK,” Sullivan said.

Zelenskyy, during a radio interview on Friday, told his people that the war will “end faster with the policy of this team that will now lead the White House,” referring to the reelection of former President Donald Trump.

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The Ukrainian Air Force’s F-16 fighter jets fly over a Patriot Air and Missile Defense System in an undisclosed location in Ukraine earlier this year. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)



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Boston, MA

First Alert: Mix of snow and rain today, then looking ahead to warmer weather

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First Alert: Mix of snow and rain today, then looking ahead to warmer weather


Today is a First Alert weather day. A system to our south is pushing mix of snow and rain into southern New England through this evening and tonight. 

For us here in Greater Boston, expect snow to continue spreading over our area through the afternoon/evening commute. In fact, parts our area could see up to 1 to 2 inches of snow accumulation before the sleet and rain move in.

Much of Greater Boston will likely see snow amounts on the lower end. Higher snow amounts are expected toward southern New Hampshire and along and north of outer Route 2. Also, some ice accumulations are possible, up to a tenth of an inch, creating a thin glaze here and there.

Dozens of schools in Connecticut and Massachusetts have already announced early dismissals as a result of the storm.

While this system won’t cripple our area, conditions could still create a mess on the roads during the evening commute through tonight. Be careful while driving. A Winter Weather Advisory remains in effect for parts of our area through early Wednesday morning. High temperatures will be in the mid to upper 30s today. Overnight lows will drop into the low 30s.

We’ll wake up to patchy fog Wednesday morning before the sun returns. High temperatures will be in the upper 40s. We’ll stay in the 40s on Thursday with increasing clouds. But by late Thursday night into Friday, wet weather returns. Some snow could mix with the rain into Friday morning. Highs will be in the upper 30s Friday.

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Warmer weather is expected this weekend. Highs will be in the 50s Saturday and possibly near 60 on Sunday.



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Boston police officials dominate the list of highest-paid city workers in 2025 – The Boston Globe

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Boston police officials dominate the list of highest-paid city workers in 2025 – The Boston Globe


That was more than what every other city department spent on overtime combined, though it was a slight drop from the $103 million the police department spent on overtime in 2024.

High overtime spending inside the police department has long been controversial and a source of frustration for police-reform advocates. Last year’s nine-figure total comes as Mayor Michelle Wu warns of a challenging budget season to come for the city, which is grappling with inflation and the possibility of more federal funding cuts.

In a December letter, Wu told the city council that she instructed city department heads to find ways to cut 2 percent of their budgets in the next fiscal year. She also imposed a delay on new hires. Boston Public Schools Superintendent Mary Skipper has also proposed cutting somewhere between 300 and 400 positions next fiscal year due to budget constraints.

Overall, the city spent about $2.5 billion on employee salaries in 2025, up around 1.5 percent from $2.4 billion in 2024. The city employs roughly 21,000 workers, according to a public dashboard.

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In a statement, Emma Pettit, a spokesperson for Wu’s office, attributed the payroll increase to raises, and in some cases, employees receiving retroactive pay, that were part of contracts the city negotiated with its various labor unions.

“We’re grateful to our city employees for their hard work to hold Boston to the highest standard for delivering city services,” Pettit said.

When Wu won her first mayoral race in November 2021, all of the city’s 44 union contracts had expired. Since then, Wu’s office has negotiated new agreements with all of them, and last year, agreed to a one-year contract extension with the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, the city’s largest police union.

But as the city heads back to the bargaining table to negotiate extensions or new contracts with others, city leaders should keep cost at the forefront of those conversations, said Steve Poftak, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a business-backed budget watchdog group.

“As budgets tighten, I’m hopeful that it increases the scrutiny on these collective bargaining agreements,” Poftak said.

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The top earner on the city’s payroll last year was Boston Police Captain Timothy Connolly. In addition to his $194,000 base salary, Connolly took home nearly $230,000 in overtime, about $26,000 in undefined “other pay,” and roughly $49,000 as part of a higher-education bonus, for a total of $498,145 in compensation.

Skipper, as BPS superintendent, was the 55th-highest earner among city workers, coming behind 54 members of the police department. She made a total of $378,000 in 2025.

Nearly 300 city employees made more than $300,000 last year. In contrast, Wu made $207,000, though her salary increased to $250,000 this year. More than 1,700 city employees made more than the mayor in 2025.

Larry Calderone, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, argued that the high overtime costs in the police department are, in part, a result of understaffing.

The department is short roughly 400 rank-and-file police officers, Calderone said, meaning the department has to pay its staff to work overtime and fill vacant shifts. The average salary for an officer in the BPPA is roughly $195,000, Calderone said.

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With several large events approaching, including a Boston-based fan fest around this summer’s World Cup matches and the return of a fleet of tall ships to Boston Harbor, Calderone said most of the members of his union are likely to be working the maximum allowable 90 hours a week.

“We just don’t have the bodies on the street,” he said.

The Boston Police Department and the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation — the union that represents the department’s sergeants, captains, and lieutenants — did not immediately return requests for comment Monday.

Jamarhl Crawford, an activist and former member of the Boston Police Reform Task Force, said while high spending on overtime is not new for the police department, it’s a pressing problem the city should tackle.

The police and fire departments are “essential components of the city and society in general … [and] folks should be getting a fair wage. But it also has to be within fiscal responsibility,” Crawford said.

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“In another 10 years,” he continued, “with pensions and everything else, this type of thing can bankrupt the city.”


Niki Griswold can be reached at niki.griswold@globe.com. Follow her @nikigriswold. Yoohyun Jung can be reached at y.jung@globe.com.





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Red Sox rotation contender strikes out four in dominant outing

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Red Sox rotation contender strikes out four in dominant outing


FORT MYERS, Fla. — Johan Oviedo’s first outing of the spring last week didn’t go great, as the right-hander walked three over 1 2/3 innings in a performance manager Alex Cora described as “erratic.”

His second outing on Monday went much better.



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