Massachusetts
Massachusetts Mail Carriers Bitten By Dogs Over 100 Times in 2023
Who let the dogs out?
The United States Postal Service says, “More than 5,800 postal employees were attacked by dogs last year,” an increase over 2022. The USPS says dog attacks are an “important public health issue.”
The Postal Service launched the Dog Bite Awareness Campaign in June to remind folks that, like dogs, letter carriers are people too, and their safety should be of the utmost concern.
The awareness campaign provides several tips for “protecting mail carriers while making their rounds.”
One tip advises, “If a carrier delivers mail or packages to your front door, place your dog in a separate room and close that door before opening the front door.” USPS says, “Some dogs burst through screen doors or plate-glass windows to attack visitors.”
Additional tips to keep the mail carrier from being mauled by your dog can be found on the USPS website.
Mailer carriers are trained to protect themselves from out-of-control dogs and they are taught to “stand their ground and protect their body by placing something between them and the dog – such as a mail satchel – and to use dog repellent if necessary.”
Massachusetts Mail Carriers Bitten By Dogs Over 100 Times In 2023
The top 10 states for dog attacks on postal workers in 2023 were California (727), Texas (411), Ohio (359), Pennsylvania (334), Illinois (316), New York (296), Florida (193), North Carolina (185), Michigan (183) and Missouri (180).
The Postal Service says Springfield had the most dog bites in Massachusetts in 2023 with five, Woburn with four, and Beverly, Milton, Shrewsbury and Webster with three each. Twenty other Massachusetts communities experienced two bites and another 55 locations each had one, for a total of 116 state-wide in 2023.
The USPS data did not indicate how many if any, dog attacks occurred in New Bedford, Fall River, Taunton or the surrounding towns. I guess no news is good news.
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Does your loyal pup’s breed make the list? Read on to see if you’ll be bragging to the neighbors about your dog’s intellectual prowess the next time you take your fur baby out for a walk. Don’t worry: Even if your dog’s breed doesn’t land on the list, that doesn’t mean he’s not a good boy–some traits simply can’t be measured.
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LOOK: Here are the pets banned in each state
Because the regulation of exotic animals is left to states, some organizations, including The Humane Society of the United States, advocate for federal, standardized legislation that would ban owning large cats, bears, primates, and large poisonous snakes as pets.
Read on to see which pets are banned in your home state, as well as across the nation.
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Massachusetts
Swimmer pulled from Houghton’s Pond after search
A teenager was pulled from a pond in Milton, Massachusetts, after he went missing while swimming Saturday night.
The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office said the teenaged male was taken to a Boston area hospital following the incident at Houghton’s Pond. It’s unclear how long the teen was under water, and there was no immediate word on his condition.
State police had said earlier that they responded to the pond shortly after 7 p.m. for a person who entered the water and didn’t resurface. State police divers, detectives, troopers, and the Milton Fire Department were all on scene involved in the search.
The DA’s office is conducting an investigation with state police that remains ongoing. Further information is not being released at this time.
This story will be updated when we learn more
Massachusetts
Mass. man charged with posing as teen, exposing himself to 12-, 13-year-old girls
A Massachusetts man is facing multiple charges for allegedly engaging in inappropriate communications and exposing himself to children.
Orate Kyle Graham, 20, of Bridgewater, was arrested this week on two counts of disseminating obscene material to a minor and one count of accosting or annoying another person.
Bridgewater police said they were made aware Tuesday of allegations involving interactions between several girls age 12 and 13 and an individual known to them only as “Jay.” The individual said he was 17 years old during conversations with the girls through FaceTime and in person.
Through an investigation, police identified “Jay” as Graham, and also found that he had regularly engaged in interactions with the minor victims. During those interactions, he allegedly exposed himself and asked the girls to expose themselves to him.
He was arrested Thursday and taken to the Plymouth County House of Correction, where he was held on $25,000 bail. The case remains under investigation by Bridgewater police and the Plymouth District Attorney’s Office.
Massachusetts
Fisherman reels in white shark off Massachusetts, then snags the hook from its toothy mouth
BILLERICA, Mass. (AP) — Elliot Sudal didn’t need a bigger boat, but he did need to find a way to get a hook out of a shark’s mouth.
Sudal, a veteran angler and boat captain, reeled in the nearly nine-foot shark — also commonly known as a great white shark or a great white — on June 7 on Nantucket. White sharks are a protected species in the U.S. and must be released immediately when accidentally caught.
That presents a nasty problem for a fisherman because the white shark is a formidable apex predator best known for the 1975 movie Jaws, in which Roy Scheider utters the famous line “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” upon seeing the big fish. Sudal, who caught the shark while fishing from shore, decided to use his encounter to demonstrate how to respond to such a situation.
Sudal posted a video of himself removing the hook to his social media accounts. In the video, Sudal climbs onto the back of the shark, secures the fish in the surf, and removes the hook from its mouth. By the end of the short video, the shark is back in the water.
White sharks typically have about 300 teeth arranged into five rows, so speed was key.
“Hooks out and back on her way in 15 seconds, not sure how to do it better,” Sudal wrote in an Instagram post that included a video of the shark release.
Sudal is no stranger to sharks, and has caught and tagged hundreds of them over the years. He said in a social media post that this month’s encounter with a white shark was the first time he has ever caught one of them in more than a decade of the work.
Sudal’s practices have sometimes attracted the attention of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, such as in 2017, when the agency investigated his handling of a smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species, in Florida. The agency said in 2018 that it sent Sudal a letter “informing him of the Endangered Species Act issues and the safe handling protocol for sawfish.”
White sharks are not listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, but are subject to special federal protections. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers them vulnerable globally.
Sightings of white sharks off New England have ticked up in recent years, and some scientists have pinned that to the greater availability of the seals that they prey on. Dangerous encounters between white sharks and humans are extremely rare, and only a few dozen fatal white shark bites on people have ever been recorded.
___
Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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