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Dozens of animals from the Central Vermont Humane Society took a flight down to Bedford Wednesday night where they were welcomed by the MSPCA after unprecedented flooding throughout the state led to an emergency evacuation.
The CVHS, an animal shelter near Barre and Montpelier, was contacted by the Bissell Pet Foundation as flooding reached historic levels throughout the state early last week. Bissell offered to aid in evacuating the pets.
“My first response was, ‘No, we’re gonna be fine.’ You know, if there’s some flooding in the area, our shelter is at a high enough level,” Erika Holm, a co-executive director at CVHS said. “Then as things became apparent on Monday that it was really at crisis levels and only getting worse, I reached out and said, ‘You know, we probably could use help.’”
While the CVHS didn’t sustain any damages to its building, the community’s focus was shifting to rebuilding after the flooding, meaning fewer adoptions in the coming weeks. Emergency efforts such as this aren’t unusual amidst natural disasters, Holms said.
The CVHS will remain open by appointment only for the near future.
Some animals stayed behind in the Vermont shelter as a flight either wasn’t an option due to size or worries of emotional distress. A chinchilla, nine dogs, and 11 cats were a few of the many animals on the Bissell sponsored flight to Massachusetts.
“We already had a routine transport running from Louisiana to Connecticut. So all we needed to do was call our flight partner and ask them to skip over to Vermont and pick up the pets and bring them to our animal incident management partner which is MSPCA,” Kim Alboum, director of shelter outreach and policy development for Bissell, said.
The animals being transported had been in the shelter before the flooding began, meaning there was no risk of accidentally sending missing pets across state lines. The animals will be dispersed between the MSPCA’s shelters in Boston, Methuen, Salem, and Cape Cod.
“Our mission is to help shelters all over the country and we do that through this program, where it’s really shelters helping shelters,” Alboum said.
All new animals finished the 48-hour quarantine period Friday night to ensure they are safe for adoption.
From July 10-July 16, the MSPCA is hosting a “Go Big AND Go Home” event where adoption fees for large dogs ages 1 year and up will be waived. The event hopes to “find homes for as many dogs as possible,” according to the MSPCA website.
As of May 26, MSPCA shelters were at 90% capacity overall. Despite this, Director of Operations at MSPCA’s Cape Cod shelter, Colleen Evans said the shelters were prepared to take in the few furry friends from Vermont.
“When emergencies happen, that’s what we’re there for.”
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Hardly had Kelly Ayotte, the new governor of New Hampshire unloaded on Massachusetts over its immigration policy, than another illegal immigrant was charged with rape in the Bay State.
Originally Published:
Suspended Massachusetts State Police Trooper Michael Proctor’s Trial Board disciplinary proceedings will go on to a second day.
Proctor’s trouble publicly began when he testified during the murder trial of Karen Read last summer. During a tense examination by the prosecution and even more intense cross examination, Proctor admitted to inappropriate private texts that he made as the case officer investigating Read.
“She’s a whack job (expletive),” Proctor read from compilations of text messages he sent to friends as he looked at Read’s phone. The last word was a derogatory term for women that he at first tried to spell out before Judge Beverly Cannone told him to read it the way he wrote it.
“Yes she’s a babe. Weird Fall River accent, though. No (butt),” he continued under oath on June 10, 2024.
He also texted them “no nudes so far” as an update on the search through her phone. He also testified that he told his sister that he hoped that Read would kill herself.
On Wednesday, Proctor sat through a full day of trial board proceedings at MSP general headquarters in Framingham. When that concluded in the late afternoon, the board decided to continue for a second day on Feb. 10. Neither Wednesday’s proceeding nor the second day is open to the public.
Proctor was relieved of duty on July 1 of last year, which was the day the Read trial concluded in mistrial. He was suspended without pay a week later. The State Police finished its internal affairs investigation last week and convened the trial board to determine the next step in the disciplinary process.
The trial board makes disciplinary recommendations to the superintendent, who determines the final outcome.
“A State Police Trial Board shall hear cases regarding violations of Rules, Regulations, Policies, Procedures, Orders, or Directives,” states the Department’s Rules and Regulations.
“In the event that the Trial Board finds guilt by a preponderance of the evidence on one or more of the charges, the Trial Board shall consider the evidence presented by the Department prosecutor pertaining to the accused member’s prior offenses/disciplinary history, and shall make recommendations for administrative action,” the rules and regulations state.
Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision causing the death of O’Keefe, a 16-year Boston Police officer when he died at age 46 on Jan. 29, 2022. Read’s second trial is scheduled to begin April 16.
Originally Published:
Tech startups based in Massachusetts finished 2024 with a buzz of activity in venture capital fundraising.
In the fourth quarter, 191 startups raised a total of $4.1 billion, 20 percent more than startups raised in the same period a year earlier, according to a report from research firm Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association. For the full year, local startups raised $15.7 billion, about the same as in 2023.
The stability ended two years of sharp declines from the peak of startup fundraising in 2021. Slowing e-commerce sales, volatility in tech stock prices, and higher interest rates combined to slam the brakes on startup VC activity over the past three years. The 2024 total is less half the $34.7 billion Massachusetts startups raised in 2021.
But local startup investors have expressed optimism that VC backing will continue to pick up in 2025.
The fourth quarter’s activity was led by battery maker Form Energy’s $455 million deal and biotech obesity drugmaker Kailera Therapeutics’ $400 million deal, both in October, and MIT spinoff Liquid AI’s $250 million deal last month. Two more biotech VC deals in October rounded out the top five. Seaport Therapeutics, working on new antidepressants, raised $226 million and Alpha-9 Oncology, developing new treatments for cancer patients, raised $175 million.
Massachusetts ranked third in the country in VC activity in the quarter. Startups based in California raised $49.9 billion and New York-based companies raised $5.3 billion.
Venture capital firms, however, had an even harder time raising money in 2024 compared to earlier years. Massachusetts firms raised $5.9 billion, down 7 percent from 2023 and the lowest total since 2018. That mirrored the national trend, as VC firms across the country raised $76.1 billion, down 22 percent from 2023 and the lowest since 2019.
Only one Massachusetts-based VC firm raised more than $1 billion in 2024, a more common occurrence in prior years, according to the report: Flagship Pioneering in Cambridge raised $2.6 billion in July for its eighth investment fund plus another $1 billion for smaller funds. The firm, founded by biotech entrepreneur Noubar Afeyan, helps develop scientific research for startups in addition to providing funding.
The next largest deals were Cambridge-based Atlas Ventures’ $450 million biotech-focused fund announced last month and Engine Ventures $400 million fund investing in climate tech startups announced in June.
The decline comes as VC firms have had trouble getting a return on their investments, because so few startups have been able to go public. Just six biotech companies based in Massachusetts and no tech companies went public last year.
Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.
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