Friday Morning: The Politicization Of Parole

Published February 11, 2011

Good morning! What’s news on a cold Friday in the Hub:

We’re just getting word that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has left Cairo. Egyptians around the world — including here in Boston — were outraged, frustrated and disappointed in Mubarak’s non-resignation yesterday. WBUR’s Bianca Vazquez Toness interviewed local Egyptians watching the speech in Central Square.

Prisoners’ rights advocates are concerned about the sudden politicization of parole in Massachusetts. WBUR’s Bob Oakes talks with attorneys for inmates who were yanked from work programs and returned to prison, after an inmate on parole allegedly killed a Woburn police officer. On Thursday, WBUR spoke with advocates for victims’ rights who want to toughen parole laws.

The families of two men gunned down by James “Whitey” Bulger have lost millions of dollars, after a federal appeals court reversed a civil judgment against the government. The families had successfully sued the government for the 1982 murders and received $8.5 million, but the court yesterday ruled the suit was filed too late.

Boston police recovered the body of a 36-year-old man from Boston Harbor yesterday, near the Marine Industrial Park in South Boston, after a state trooper spotted it. The victim showed no obvious signs of injury, police said.

Researchers discovered the remains of a Nantucket whaling ship near Hawaii, 188 years after it went down. The captain was George Pollard Jr., a man with perhaps the worst luck in naval history. His plight at sea inspired Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick.”