From Local School Committee To Speaker Of The House? Patch PM

MASSACHUSETTS — It's Friday, July 16. Here's what you should know this afternoon:

• Rep. Katherine Clark is on the shortlist to replace Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
• The Wall That Heals has "gorgeous snd somber" North Shore impact.
• Casinos without poker?

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

Today's Top Story

There's been some scuttlebutt this week about U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark's next steps — and they're a long way from the Melrose School Committee she started on.

The Melrose congresswoman has quickly risen through the ranks of national politics, so much so that she now occupies space on the shortlist of Democrats who may replace Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Axios reported Thursday.

Clark, who turns 58 this weekend, was elected assistant speaker after the November elections. She is behind only three Democrats in Congress — all of who are in their 80s.

There have been eight speakers from Massachusetts, most recently Tip O'Neill in 1987. None have been women, and certainly none started at the Melrose School Committee.

Read the full story

Like this article? Sign up for our newsletter and get it delivered every weekday. It's free!

A worthy read

Bob Fields stood at "The Wall That Heals" Vietnam War Memorial on the Lowlands Athletic Field softball diamond at 1:30 in the morning Friday with a former U.S. Army photographer from the North Shore who was going through pictures he said he had not looked at in years.

The Commander of the Nahant American Legion Post 215 said the photographer told a story or two about his time serving in Vietnam, then led him to the memorial where he found the names of five helicopter crew members whom he'd flown with who were killed in the war shortly after left to come back to America.

Just a few hours later, shortly after the sun came up over the beach along Nahant Road, Fields was back out at the memorial with another Vietnam veteran who grew emotional as he paid tribute at the powerful and captivating structure that arrived at the site Wednesday and will remain open 24 hours a day through Sunday at 2 p.m.

"He was clearly having a tough time," Fields told Patch. "That's why it's important that the wall is open 24 hours because a lot of times those men don't want to be around other people or talk about it while they are there.

"It's important to remember the history and the sacrifice that those men made."

Read the full story

Is A Casino Without Poker Still A Casino?

Encore Boston Harbor is not planning to bring back live poker to its $2.6 billion resort casino in Everett in the immediate future and if the game ever does return, the casino said Thursday evening, it will be a different experience.

On Thursday, the Mass. Gaming Commission discussed the deluge of complaints it has received since the state's two casinos — Encore Boston Harbor and MGM Springfield — resumed mostly normal operations in late May without reintroducing poker. The casinos have both said they will make decisions about the future of poker by the end of the year, but the Gaming Commission may press executives for answers sooner.

Read the full story

Bottoms up!

If you're a beer drinker in Massachusetts, you might've noticed the heavy presence of New England-style hazy IPAs. Every craft brewer from giant Boston Beer Co. (Sam Adams, Dogfish Head) to the brand new Sterling Street Brewery in Clinton has one or three available.

But Framingham's Exhibit 'A' — which brews its own Just A KittenNEIPA — is out with a new beer this month aiming to buck the NEIPA trend. The new Market Gap IPA is an American-style, a more piney, bitter brew compared NEIPA styles, which often carry the taste and consistency of orange juice.

Read the full story

Stealing from Jimmy Fund donations

The Boston Police Department is seeking the public's help in identifying the man accused of stealing Jimmy Fund donations from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's purple dinosaur on two different occasions.

Surveillance footage shows the man entering the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at 44 Binney Street in Boston, on July 5 and 9, emptying out the dinosaur used for cash donations, of all paper bills before fleeing on foot and entering the passenger side of an awaiting gray sedan, police said.

Read the full story