Some MA Cities Won't Follow State Reopening Timeline: Patch PM

MASSACHUSETTS — It's Wednesday, April 28. Here's what you should know this afternoon:

• Not all Massachusetts cities and towns will stick to the timeline Gov. Charlie Baker laid out this week for lifting business restrictions and easing mask mandates.
• Worcester this week will memorialize victims of COVID-19 by planting trees at a local park.
• The Framingham mayoral race appears to have begun with a former City Councilor jumping into the field.

Scroll down for more on those and other stories Patch has been covering in Massachusetts today.

Today's Top Story

Tuesday's announcement that the state plans to lift all business restrictions by Aug. 1 was seen as good news, but not all Massachusetts cities and towns will stick to the timeline Gov. Charlie Baker laid out to fully lift restrictions by Aug. 1.

Acting Mayor Kim Janey said Boston will trail Gov. Charlie Baker's statewide timeline by three weeks in most cases. Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone has also held back in following the state's schedule throughout the reopening process.

And Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll said the Witch City will take an "extremely cautious and thoughtful" approach to the final phases of reopening as well. She told Patch the city will talk with Board of Health members and local experts over the next several days to determine whether to make any adjustments to the schedule in Salem.

"We're encouraged by the positive trends in the public health data and the increasing numbers of vaccinated residents," Driscoll said. "Nevertheless, as a community that has a large visitor population, we want to be extremely cautious and thoughtful in our approach to reopening."

Other cities and towns are likely to implement their own twists to the reopening schedule as local conditions warrant.

Related story: Dunkin' Plans To Reopen Most Store Dining Rooms By Summer

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Wednesday's Other Top Stories

Candidate for Framingham mayor: Former City Council member Charlie Sisitsky filed paperwork on Wednesday to run for the seat. Mayor Yvonne Spicer is up for reelection to her second term in 2021, but she hasn't formally announced that she'll run again.

Arbor Day in Worcester: The April 30 holiday will feature a tree planting ceremony at Elm Park in honor of healthcare and frontline workers, and the more than 400 city residents who have died so far in the coronavirus pandemic.

Hopkinton man killed in crash: The 61-year-old was driving in the southbound lanes of I-495 on Tuesday afternoon when he lost control of his car and rolled down an embankment, according to state police.

Home invasion shooting: Police in southern Worcester County were on the hunt Wednesday for a gunman who shot another man inside a Dudley home. The victim was shot in the chest, but was recovering at a hospital in Worcester.

Learn more about getting a COVID-19 vaccine in Massachusetts at Patch's information hub.

They Said It

"To state the obvious: A woman should be able to ride a public bus without fear of kidnap and sexual assault. Women, just like all people, have the right to not be harassed, violated, harmed, or objectified. As I have said, fathers need to start speaking to their sons, and men need to tell their brothers, friends and colleagues about a new vision of masculinity where men are working to end violence against women and girls. The allegations outlined in this case are deeply disturbing."

• Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins on a MBTA bus driver accused of sexually assaulting a passenger after preventing her from getting off his bus.

Only In Massachusetts: Why Do Bostonians Drop Their Rs?

Only In Massachusetts is an occasional series where Patch tries to find answers to questions about life in Massachusetts. Have a question about the Bay State that needs answering? Send it to dave.copeland@patch.com.

"Non-rhotic" is the word linguists use to describe dialects where the R is not pronounced. In other words, non-rhotic is the fancy pants way of saying "Boston accent." And people in eastern Massachusetts, as well as parts of New Hampshire and Maine, have been dropping their Rs since around the time Harvard (or Hahvahd) was founded in 1636.

"In the evolution of R-less pronunciation, Boston led the English-speaking world," Richard Bailey of the University of Michigan writes in 2012's "Speaking American: A History of English in the United States." Dropping Rs was a feature of the language in rustic Britain, Bailey writes, and the more settlers that came to Massachusetts from southeastern England, the fewer Rs were enunciated.

Read the article.