Public weighing in on Blue Hill Ave. redesign
City officials say they are moving forward with plans for an ambitious redesign of one of the city’s, and the Commonwealth’s, most persistently dangerous roadways: the three-mile stretch of Blue Hill Avenue connecting Mattapan to Dorchester’s Grove Hall.

Lawsuit takes aim at redistricting map
Three of the four councilors who voted against the map —Ed Flynn, Erin Murphy and Frank Baker — filed affidavits in support of the lawsuit. Also signing on as plaintiffs are former City Councilor Maureen Feeney; Shirley Shillingford, who heads the Caribbean Carnival Association of Boston; and retired social worker Rita Dixon.

BPS won’t commit to masking policy
FamCOSa members were heartened in early November when the New England Journal of Medicine published a research paper that found that BPS officials’ decision to keep masking policies in place in 2021 led to infection rates lower than in surrounding communities such as Cambridge and Newton that made masking optional.

Worrell wants to bring resources to district
Christopher Worrell was elected Nov. 8 to represent the 5th Suffolk District in the Massachusetts Legislature. The child of Jamaican and Bajan parents, Worrell was born and raised in Dorchester and graduated from Bunker Hill Community College. His brother, Brian Worrell, was elected in 2021 to represent Dorchester-based District 4 on the City Council.

Wu convenes task force on youth violence
With rising incidents of juvenile crime, including a spate of youth-involved shootings and firearms arrests, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has announced the creation of a new city task force aimed at preventing youth violence and addressing the trauma of victimized individuals, families and communities.

Stop Putin’s land grab
Since ancient times, a major provocation for war was persistent dispute over property lines. Land was the precious commodity of every nation. Those in control of the land determined who could farm, hunt and mine, or even cross the land to reach other areas.

Humanity’s Nile Valley roots
From Thanksgiving until Christmas is considered to be the “family period.” Families gather to greet one another on Thanksgiving, then they shop during the following month to buy gifts for one another. Retailers hope that the spirit of family will be strong enough to motivate strong sales.

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Tree lighting
Mayor Michelle Wu attends the tree lighting at Meetinghouse Hill..

Why mass shootings won’t get tough gun control
A clearly perturbed and perplexed President Biden demanded that Congress take action to toughen gun controls. Biden made the demand after yet another round of what has now become near ritual in America. That is mass shootings. This go-round, the carnage was at a nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and at a Walmart in Virginia.

IN THE NEWS
Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston (BGCB) has named Alisa R. Drayton as the new executive director of the Yawkey Club of Roxbury. Drayton replaces Andrea Swain, who led the Club for 21 years before being promoted to vice president of development operations at BGCB.

Boston to weigh teenagers voting in local elections
The measure comes before the council as the issue of lowered voting age gains national steam, mostly through the efforts of progressive Democrats. The Council, which has become increasingly left-leaning in recent years, is likely to pass the measure this week.

U.S. soccer thrives with international players
29, could have represented several countries, including his parents’ birth country of Ghana, Italy (where his family emigrated) and England, where he joined Arsenal’s academy at age 9. Luckily, he chose to play for the United States, where he was born in 2002 in New.

MBTA may be planning more rail shutdowns
The MBTA is planning to double the amount of shuttle bus service in the next five years at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, with the possibility of another complete rail line shutdown in the works — and a transit advocate thinks the Red Line could be next to be taken offline.

Schooling the system
elli Morgan is on a mission to break down exclusionary and racist practices in cultural institutions once and for all. Morgan is a professor of the practice and the inaugural director of curatorial studies at Tufts University, where she’s pioneering the Anti-Racist Curatorial Practice certificate program.

‘X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X’
“X” was composed by Anthony Davis, with a libretto written by his cousin Thulani Davis and story by his brother Christopher. Thulani Davis, renowned for her scholarship and writing, won a Grammy for her essay that accompanied the Aretha Franklin boxed set, “Queen of Soul — The Atlantic Recordings.

Cirque du Soleil gets festive with first-ever holiday show
Cirque du Soleil gets into the festive spirit this year with “’Twas the Night Before… ,” the company’s first-ever holiday show, playing at the Boch Center Wang Theatre through Dec. 11. The performance will have all the fantastical and acrobatic wonders of a typical Cirque du Soleil show but with a family-friendly narrative anchoring the show.