A Boston woman is dealing with an unwelcome tenant on her front porch — a rat that has turned a baby stroller into a cozy winter hideaway.

The woman shared her ordeal Thursday on the r/Boston subreddit, explaining that she had left her stroller, complete with a muff, on her second-floor porch. When she checked on it later, she discovered a rat had moved in.

“I stupidly left our stroller with a muff out on the porch,” she wrote. “Today I found a big rat is nested in there. I can’t see clearly, but it seems it has chewed up the muff lining and is using the filling for a nest.”

The woman said she’s called a few pest control companies, but instead of offering immediate removal, they just tried to sell her a long-term bait boxing service. 

“…Which is fine, but I urgently need someone to just safely remove the rat and the nest so I can clean or dispose of the stroller if needed,” she wrote, adding that she couldn’t secure a next-day appointment and felt Monday was too far away.

Turning to Reddit for advice, the woman asked whether she should attempt to remove the rat herself, saying she was worried about being bitten or contracting a disease. “Which professional can I call?” she asked.

Redditors reacted with a mix of humor and practical advice. The top comment began, “Sounds like it’s their porch now,” before offering an elaborate plan involving a bucket trap and joking that the rat could then “go on to be a Michelin star chef at a French restaurant,” a nod to the 2007 film “Ratatouille.”

Others suggested she evict the rat by vigorously shaking the stroller or whacking it with a broom, while many urged her to cut her losses entirely and throw the stroller out.

“I honestly wouldn’t ever use it for a small child after a rat had been cribbed up there,” one commenter wrote.

Pest control experts generally advise against handling rats without professional help. According to Terminix, rodents can become aggressive and scratch when threatened and may carry diseases such as hantavirus and leptospirosis.

“When it comes to getting rid of a rat’s nest in the house, DIY treatments won’t cut it,” the company warns on its website.

Boston has been grappling with heightened rat activity in recent years, prompting a citywide rodent action plan known as BRAP. City officials urge residents to “see something, squeak something!” and report rodent activity to 311. Officials said response teams are typically dispatched within one to two days.

The Pittsburgh Pirates could use some bats, and the A’s are still looking to add some pitching this winter, so how likely is it that these clubs come together on a deal?

According to Colin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Pirates are still on the lookout for some help on the left side of the infield. Over at Roster Resource, their starters at short and third as listed as Nick Gonzales (82 wRC+ in 2025) and Jared Triolo (86).

While the A’s are having a little showdown of their own at third base this spring, they have a number of players in the mix. Perhaps they could move one of them in a deal with Pittsburgh in order to land a relief pitcher with some upside.

The proposed deal that we have in mind is the A’s sending third baseman Brett Harris, who may be starting as the third option at the hot corner this spring. Harris has a tremendous glove at third, and statistically it appears to be at least on par with the glove what Triolo provided last season.

In just 183 2/3 innings with the A’s in 2025, Harris put up a +5 DRS, and +2 in both OAA and FRV. Triolo, in roughly 80 extra innings finished with a +7 DRS and +4 in both OAA and FRV. Both players are solid defensively.

Triolo has had more experience in the big leagues, which does account for something, but if you’re the Pirates, do you consider making a change and taking a chance on a similar defender with more upside in the bat? Their current option hit .227 with a .311 OBP and an 86 wRC+ last season in 376 plate appearances. Harris could put together a double-digit home run season at the very least.

Harris played in just 32 games (84 plate appearances) and hit .274 with a .349 OBP and a 96 wRC+. While he certainly looked like an improved player over his initial stint in the big leagues with the A’s in 2024, there was also some luck involved in his improvement—mainly his .377 BABIP. The risk for the Pirates would be taking the chance on that bat being for real.

In exchange, the proposed piece that the Pirates would send back in 30-year-old Yohan Ramírez. The right-hander ranks in the 94th percentile in extension on top of sitting at 96.4 miles per hour with his heater, which is quite appealing. He also held a 5.40 ERA (3.80 FIP) last season, so he’s far from a finished product, and given his age, he’s a flier himself.

This is the type of pitcher that the A’s have had success with in recent seasons—guys that can collect strikeouts but also tend to issue free passes. In 2025 with the Pirates, he struck out 29% of the batters he faced and walked 10.3%.

There are two interesting tidbits in his profile that could cause a little worry. The first is that he’s bounced around quite a bit in recent seasons, including spending time with the Dodgers, Mets, Orioles and Red Sox in 2024. Those are all teams that love to pull extra value from guys, and if they all gave up on him, then that’s not the greatest track record.

All of those teams seemed to view him as a guy that could provide a few innings when their bullpens were gassed, which led to him having short stints with each club, totaling a 6.20 ERA (4.26 FIP) across 45 innings.

The other interesting piece here is that when he has been with the Pirates, in both 2025 and back in 2022, his velocity has ticked up considerably. In 2022, he also spent time with the Mariners, and he was sitting 94.2. But with Pittsburgh, that went up to 96.5. In 2024, he topped out at 95.3 mph with the O’s and Mets.

This past season he was back to 96.2 mph. Is there something special for him about pitching in Pittsburgh? Do their radar guns run a little hot? Is this more of a time of year situation that gets hammered out over longer stints (like with the Pirates)? It’s unclear.

But if he’s truly a 96-mile-per-hour reliever that the A’s could add to their ‘pen, then this trade may be worth some heavy consideration.

Of course, Ramírez is out of options which would make this a little tricky, and Harris has roughly double the amount of team control, so the value may have to be squared away by adding another piece or two to the ledger. But these two players, Harris and Ramírez, could do a lot of good for the opposite clubs.

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Hartford Police are investigating what led to a skirmish between protestors and possible federal employees during a protest outside a federal building on Thursday.  

The incident, captured on camera, occurred when protestors tried to prevent two vehicles from entering the Abraham A. Ribicoff building on Thursday evening.  

The vehicles, which Hartford officials believe were driven by federal employees, proceeded through the crowd.  

The mayor said a van struck one of the protestors in the process, and a separate person is captured on video smashing the back window of the van as it drove away.  

Separately, also captured on video, an unidentified person, whom the mayor says believes is affiliated with the federal government, is seen spraying pepper spray at the protestors.   

“We will be investigating what appears to be a hit and run incident with pepper spray being used on attendees of the vigil last night,” Mayor Arunan Arulampalam (D-Hartford) said during a press conference Friday at City Hall.  

Arulamapalam said Hartford police will investigate all aspects of the incident, including the driver who allegedly struck the protestor, the individual spraying what appeared to be pepper spray, and the individual who was seen smashing the window. 

They have not identified the driver, the person who was struck, the person who damaged the vehicle, or the person who was pepper-sprayed.

The event was one of many around the country that served as a vigil for Renee Good, the woman shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis on Wednesday, as well as a protest against ICE.  

“What we saw last night was a peaceful vigil in the city of Hartford turned violent,” said Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, who said around 200 people were in attendance in total.

Debra Cohen, of Wethersfield, said she was at the vigil when she and others learned there was a potential federal van parked behind the Ribicoff building, and they were concerned ICE had someone detained in the vehicle.  

The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to NBC Connecticut’s request for comment. The agency has not said publicly whether the people were ICE agents or employees with any DHS agency, or whether the van was involved in immigration enforcement activities.  

Cohen said she and others went from Main Street to the back side of the building and hoped to block the van from leaving. 

She says people, whom she also believed were federal law enforcement, were “yelling at us to get back. To get back, to get back. We stood our ground. and that’s when the pepper spray came out.” 

Cohen says that the individual then sprayed them from behind the gate.

“It wasn’t so much a taste as a burning that I’ve never felt before,” she said, describing the spray. “It was not only in my eyes, and I seriously couldn’t open my eyes or see anything. It was all on my face, on my lips, which was really, really bad.” 

Video also captured some protestors trying to stop a car in front of the van from leaving the Ribicoff parking lot.  

Both vehicles continue through the crowd, at which point police said the van struck one of the protestors.  

The protestor denied medical attention, according to the City.

Gov. Ned Lamont, (D-Connecticut), said Friday he wants to wait for the investigation before making judgement, but he was critical of some of the protestors.  

Lamont, speaking at a separate press conference at the Legislative Office Building, said protestors who obstruct law enforcement shift the focus.  

“ICE took an open window and shot somebody in the head and shot her dead, and she was an innocent mother of three,” he said. I don’t want anything to distract from that.”  

Lamont pointed to frequent comments from President Donald Trump claiming Democrats and liberal-leaning voters engage in violent protests around the country.  

“You’re doing just what President Trump says,” Lamont said. “There’s a demonstration here in Hartford, a couple of people do what they shouldn’t do. All of a sudden, that distracts. That’s just what he wants.” 

Rep. Vincent Candelora, (R-Minority Leader), said he wanted to hear Lamont us strong language to tell protestors never to obstruct law enforcement.  

“I think we need to draw a hard line on people stepping into traffic and trying to obstruct that traffic,” he said. “We saw what happened in Minnesota, and we don’t want that to happen in Connecticut.”  

Candelora also believes that both sides need to tone down their rhetoric, objecting to how Democrats have talked about ICE and to how Vice President J.D. Vance and others in the Trump administration characterized Good.  

“I don’t like the use of the word terrorist to describe the victim as much as I didn’t like that word used to describe ICE,” he said. “I think that word has been cheapened, and we should be dialing back that rhetoric.”  

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), also speaking at the press conference in the LOB, said he wants an independent review of Good’s death, suggesting a task force of local, state, and federal law enforcement officials.  

He also supported Hartford’s efforts to investigate the conduct of federal agents.  

“There are state laws that apply; state authorities are not without jurisdiction,” he said. “They have authority.”  

Blumenthal separately wants more information on how ICE trains new employees, noting the agency has been hiring at a rapid rate as Trump looks to deliver on his campaign promise of ramped-up deportations.  

Blumenthal is the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which released a report last month about the conduct of ICE agents.  

Specifically, the report details the claims of 22 U.S. citizens who claim they were assaulted, and some detained, by ICE agents.