The Daily Free Press
Year xliii. Volume lxxxiv. Issue XXIX
GO FOR GOLD Private group petitions for Hub to host the 2024 Olympics, page 3.
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Monday, March 18, 2013 The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University
CHOW DOWN
MUSE staffers’ hot spots for restaurant week, page 5.
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HIS HOUSE
WEATHER
Parker earns win in final game at Agganis Arena, page 8.
Today: Mostly cloudy/High 36 Tonight: Snow/Low 31 Tomorrow: 41/27 Data Courtesy of weather.com
On heavy day of travel, trains face problems Court of appeals By Kyle Plantz Daily Free Press Staff
As many students and residents were coming home from spring vacations Sunday, major transportation issues caused significant delays on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Green line and on Amtrak trains traveling from New York City to Boston. The B line from Kenmore Square Station to Boston College closed Sunday due to wire problems, said Joe Pesaturo, spokesperson for the MBTA, in an email. “[The] cause is under investigation,” he said. “The wire problems emerged near BC and Kenmore Stations.” Alternate bus services were provided for transportation between Kenmore and BC according to the MBTA website. Some residents said the lines for the buses were long and it took them some time to get to their destination. “Because of the congestion of all the shuttle buses, it makes it harder for me to get to the bus I need to get on to get home. It is a royal inconvenience,” said Avery Ballotta, a resident of Allston. Ballotta said the St. Patrick’s Day parade and influx of people in the area made the bus situation worse. “The majority of the population is wasted today so this is incredibly inconvenient, confusing and crazy,” he said. Melodie Pharms, a receptionist from Boston, said the wait for the buses was extremely crowded and the MBTA was not running
removes judge from Bulger case By Kyle Plantz Daily Free Press Staff
CHRISTIANA MECCA/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
A passenger asks for directions at the Kenmore Bus Shelter Sunday. Shuttle buses were running from Kenmore Square to Boston College due to the B Line of the Green Line being shut down due to an electrical issue.
enough buses. “I usually take the E Line, but I had to take the B line to see some friends, but now I can’t,” she said. “It is usually pretty quick catching the train, now it’s a really long wait in the cold. They try to run a lot of buses, but they don’t send them to capacity or they are all too full.” The B Line resumed operation by about 10 p.m., Pesaturo said in an email. While locals struggled to get to their destinations in Boston, some students were inconvenienced while trying to return to the city.
Amtrak eventually restored service on the Northeast Corridor between New York and Boston after a freight train derailed in New Haven, Conn. early Sunday morning, causing departures to be delayed for several hours, according to an Amtrak service alert. A number of students said the derailment changed their travel plans immensely. “I saw on the board that my 9:40 a.m. train from Stamford was canceled,” said Coner Corbett, 21, a Brighton resident and student at the
Train, see page 2
Local Fire, Police departments utilize social media By Jenna Lavin Daily Free Press Staff
Public service agencies in and around Boston are expanding their channels of communication through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, to give breaking news to the public and media outlets. The Boston Police Department Instagram account, for example, although it only boasts five pictures, features photos of Mace, a K-9 police dog in training and a photo of BPD Superintendent William Gross at a crime scene with the hashtags “Homicide” and “TwoArrest.” “We have incorporated the use of technology and social media to communicate with the public because we understand that people get their news and information from various sources,” said Dan Riviello, director of communications and media at the Cambridge Police Department. Rivello said the police department has ex-
panded their reach to people by being more involved on various social media websites. “Our residents can continue to find important information via traditional media, but those who wish to access information in other ways can choose to visit our website, sign up to receive email and text alerts and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube and Instagram,” he said. The Brookline Police Department has implemented a new automated, real-time crime tweet system to inform people of incidents that police are responding to when they happen. Lt. Philip Harrington, head of community service and training of Brookline PD, said it is important to expand content to new sources people use to stay informed. “It’s a good way of getting information out rapidly,” Harrington said. Steve MacDonald, spokesman for Boston Fire Department, said social media networks are useful tools to give people a better under-
standing of what is happening in the area. “When Twitter came out, [the Boston Fire Department] saw it as an opportunity to get some basic brief info out quickly that was accurate and coming from a reliable source,” MacDonald said. “ It just grew and grew … every town in every city in the world has a fire department. There’s a whole group of people who follow Fire Departments no matter what. MacDonald said images are an important part of the fire department’s Twitter communications with the public. “Photos can tell a story that maybe the words didn’t,” he said. “Instead of me describing [something], I would put up a picture.” The fire department also has a Facebook page, where it posts detailed descriptions of incidents, safety information and pictures, MacDonald said. Harrington said the Brookline PD’s use of social media has received positive responses
Media, see page 4
U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper was randomly selected Friday to preside over the trial indicting alleged former mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger after Judge Richard Stearns was ordered off the case by a federal appeals court in response to requests by Bulger’s lawyers that Stearns could not remain impartial during the trial. Stearns was ordered off the case Thursday because he was a top-ranking prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in the 1980s — the same time Bulger claims he had been granted FBI immunity for all of his crimes. “With great respect for the trial judge, we nonetheless grant the petition, because it is clear that a reasonable person would question the capacity for impartiality of any judicial officer with the judge’s particular background in the federal prosecutorial apparatus in Boston during the period covered by the accusations,” said former Supreme Court Justice David Souter in the ruling. Bulger claims Jeremiah O’Sullivan, another federal prosecutor, verbally promised him that he would not be prosecuted for any of his crimes committed, including murder. Bulger is charged with federal racketeering and 19 murders he allegedly committed during the 1970s and 1980s. O’Sullivan was head of the New England Organized Crime Strike Force at the same time Stearns was chief of the U.S. Attorney’s criminal division, and O’Sullivan shared information with people in Stearns’s office. “The Strike Force, to be sure, was distinct from the Office of the United States Attorney where Judge Stearns was a supervisor, and was a competitor organization within the Justice Department, reporting directly to the Attorney General,” Souter said in the ruling. “But there is reason to believe that there was no impermeable barrier insulating information known to one office from being shared with the other.” Souter said there is no reason to believe that Stearns would not be impartial, but that his removal is still warranted. “In sum, despite our respect for Judge Stearns and our belief in his sincerity, we are nonetheless bound to conclude that it is clear that a reasonable person might question the judge’s ability to preserve impartiality through
Bulger, see page 2
BU breaks from national trend of unfilled math education positions By Kristen Gloss Daily Free Press Staff
Although higher education institutions across the U.S. continue to struggle to fill openings in mathematics education, according to a survey of colleges and universities, Boston University has not experienced such problems, officials said. Mary Elizabeth Matthews, a doctoral student studying math education, said the need for mathematics teachers to educate students on how to teach has increased, which contributes to a significant number of unfilled positions. “If we do not adequately prepare teachers to have an in-depth knowledge of their material as well as how to teach it, we cannot expect their students to posses the knowledge or skills they will need in their lives or various careers,” Matthews said. Researchers surveyed more than 100 colleges and universities where job searches for tenure-track math education positions were posted and found of the 70 percent of institutions that began searching for employees in the
fall 2012 semester, about 25 percent had filled the positions by December or January. University of Missouri professor of math education Robert Reys, co-author of the study, which will be published in the April 2013 American Mathematical Society “Notices” issue, said in an email that he analyzed the job market for positions in both higher education departments of math and in the schools of education. “When people complete a doctorate in mathematics education, they have many different job options,” Reys said. “… and many of these options pay more than institutions of higher education. BU Mathematics and Statistics Chair Tasso Kaper said this national trend is not reflected in BU’s math department. “In the past decade, the quality of the faculty that [BU’s] Department of Mathematics and Statistics has been able to recruit has increased,” Kaper said. “All of our openings in
Math, see page 2
GRAPHIC BY MICHELLE JAY/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
According to a recent study by Inside Higher Ed, more than half of the job opportunities are in the median salary range.