Massachusetts
Residents forced to evacuate Massachusetts condo due to structural problems
CAMBRIDGE – Residents in Cambridge, Massachusetts have been forced to evacuate their condos after structural problems were discovered.
Families who’ve called the Riverview Condos home are finding themselves uprooting their lives and calling moving trucks without much notice.
“It’s been devastating, people who have lived here for nearly 50 years now have to move, many seniors live here,” said a resident who wanted to keep her privacy. “To see all of these people needing to leave their residence and not knowing where exactly they’re going has been extremely distressful for them and also for me just seeing the looks on their faces every morning with concern and anxiety and depression.”
Building deemed unsafe
It’s been prime real estate in Cambridge overlooking the Charles River since the 1960s, but city officials said the building is not safe because of structural issues that engineers discovered during a roof replacement construction project.
Now the management company, Thayer and Associates, said the building must be fortified, so residents and everything have to go. The company said for six decades, they didn’t know substandard concrete was used in the original construction of the building and that reinforcing steel (rebar) had been improperly placed within it.
“Until recently, no one had any reason to suspect the errors that occurred in the original construction. Rebar is by definition concealed by the concrete it is intended to reinforce, and the slabs were largely covered by flooring and other finishings,” said Candice Morse, president of the company, Cambridge-based Thayer & Associates.
Kristina Klamer came to pick up her 92-year-old grandma who’s lived in the building for about a decade.
“I’m very disappointed in the way things are being handled, it’s really upsetting,” said Klammer. “I just feel really sad for her that she has all of these possessions, all of these photo books and memories from her life and she has no place to put them. She just has to get rid of them. But to have to do this so soon with this deadline is really difficult.”
The property management group said they’re trying to help residents and have held informational meetings, but residents say they’re footing their moving bills on their own.
“Stressed out by the whole thing, it’s really a matter of not knowing or clear instructions,” said Linda who’s helping her friend move and taking her in. “It was very short notice, and a lot of the people are older, a lot of them are in their 80s and to all of a sudden be finding, like my friend she doesn’t have a place to go.”
Could be year before return
And some say it could be at a year before they can come back to their beloved homes.
“There’s a lot of mixed messages, I think people are just left with a lot of questions that are unanswered, so I think that’s where the frustration is because people don’t know what to do,” said one resident.
The big concern too is that a lot of rentals are challenging in the Cambridge area with the academic calendar.
Residents said they have about four weeks to move all their belongings out.
Massachusetts
Massachusetts orders DraftKings to pay $934K after it botched MLB parlay bets
A costly sportsbook screwup left DraftKings on the hook for nearly $1 million after Massachusetts regulators ordered the payouts tied to a botched MLB parlay scheme.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission voted 5-0 on Thursday to reject DraftKings’ bid to void $934,137 in payouts stemming from a series of correlated parlays placed during MLB’s 2025 American League Championship Series, according to Bookies.com.
A Massachusetts customer wagered $12,950 total across 27 multi-leg parlays on Toronto Blue Jays player Nathan Lukes, exploiting an internal DraftKings configuration error that allowed the bettor to stack multiple versions of the same bet into one wager.
DraftKings told regulators the bets should never have been accepted and argued the patron acted unethically by taking advantage of an obvious error.
Commissioners flatly rejected that argument.
The wagers were tied to DraftKings’ “Player to Record X+ Hits in Series” market during the seven-game ALCS between Toronto and Seattle.
Because of a misclassification inside DraftKings’ trading tools, Lukes was incorrectly labeled a “non-participant” rather than an active player.
That designation disabled safeguards designed to block bettors from parlaying correlated outcomes from the same market.
As a result, the bettor was able to combine multiple Lukes hit thresholds — including 5+, 6+, 7+ and 8+ hits — into single parlays, functionally creating an inflated wager on Lukes recording eight or more hits at dramatically enhanced odds.
The bettor also added unrelated, high-probability legs, including NFL moneyline bets, to further juice payouts.
Lukes ultimately appeared in all seven games and finished the series with nine hits, clearing every threshold.
Of the 27 parlays placed, 24 hit cleanly. Only three lost due to unrelated college football legs involving Clemson, Florida State and Miami.
During a heated exchange at Thursday’s commission meeting, DraftKings executive Paul Harrington accused the patron of fraud and unethical conduct.
Commissioners bristled. One of them, Eileen O’Brien, blasted DraftKings for casting aspersions on the bettor without evidence and said the situation did not meet the standard of an “obvious error.”
“An obvious error is a legal and factual impossibility,” O’Brien said. “This is an advantage that the patron took.”
She added that DraftKings’ internal failures — not the bettor’s conduct — created the situation.
“We need to seriously consider giving voice to the consumer and getting their half the story,” O’Brien said. “The compulsion to pay will in fact encourage compliance.”
Other commissioners echoed that view, emphasizing that it is the operator’s responsibility to ensure the integrity of its markets.
The commission noted that DraftKings acknowledged the root cause was internal — a configuration failure within its own trading tools — and not the result of a third-party odds provider or external data feed.
Upon discovering the error, DraftKings pulled the affected markets, left the wagers unsettled pending regulatory guidance and implemented corrective fixes.
The company said no other Massachusetts customers were impacted, though the same issue appeared in two other jurisdictions.
The Post has sought comment from DraftKings.
Massachusetts
Deadline nears for Massachusetts Health Connector enrollment
SPRINGFIELD — With just days left before the Dec. 23 deadline, state and local leaders are urging uninsured residents to enroll in health coverage through the Massachusetts Health Connector to ensure they’re protected in the new year. The cutoff applies to anyone who wants coverage starting Jan. 1.
The Health Connector — the state’s official health insurance marketplace — is the only place residents can access financial assistance and avoid misleading “junk” policies that often appear in online searches, according to a statement from the agency.
Officials say the enrollment period is especially critical for people without job-based insurance, gig workers, newcomers to the state and anyone seeking affordable, comprehensive health plans.
At a press conference Wednesday at Caring Health Center’s Tania M. Barber Learning Institute in Springfield, health leaders emphasized that most people who sign up through the Connector qualify for help paying premiums through its ConnectorCare program.
Audrey Morse Gasteier, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, said the state has spent nearly two decades committed to ensuring access to health care and offering the most affordable coverage possible for everyone.
”And despite the federal challenges, we continue to do everything we can to offer coverage to everyone who needs it. Now is the time for people who don’t have coverage to come in, apply, and find out what kind of plan for which they qualify,” she said.
Open enrollment also gives current members a chance to review their coverage, compare options and make changes.
Recent changes in federal policy have caused shifts in coverage and higher premiums for many Massachusetts residents, creating uncertainty and concern, said Cristina Huebner Torres, chief executive vice president and strategy and research officer at Caring Health Center.
“During times like these, trusted, local support becomes even more essential, and our Navigators have been on the very front lines, helping residents understand their options, maintain coverage, and navigate a complex and evolving system,” Huebner Torres said.
Massachusetts
Massachusetts woman charged with DUI after Simsbury crash
SIMSBURY, Conn. (WTNH) — A Massachusetts woman was arrested Wednesday and charged with DUI after a crash in Simsbury, according to police.
The crash happened at around 2:15 p.m. on Hartford Avenue and Elm Street. Police responded to reports that one of the operators of the vehicles was unconscious, later becoming conscious.
Upon arrival, police found that operator, who was identified as 39-year-old Allison Beu of Southwick, Massachusetts, outside of her vehicle and interacting with the other involved parties.
The two occupants in the other vehicle were not transported to the hospital.
Beu was charged with DUI and failure to drive in proper lane.
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