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Axios
6 hours ago
- Axios
Brockton lawmaker wants to make South Shore bar pizza the state's official slice
A Brockton lawmaker wants to tell the world about the South Shore's homegrown pizza, but he'll start with the rest of the state. Why it matters: Massachusetts doesn't have a designated pizza style like New York, Chicago and Detroit, despite being the birthplace of some unique varieties. Bar pizza, the distinct thin-crust pan pizza from Brockton and surrounding areas, has exploded in popularity over the last decade. State of play: State Sen. Michael Brady (D-Brockton) wants to name South Shore bar pizza the official pizza variety of Massachusetts. The legislation he filed is the first attempt to establish a state pizza designation. Between the lines: If it passes, it'll be a win for the South Shore and for oily-carb lovers everywhere. If the bill fails, it'll be because parochial pizza pride led to a food fight at the State House. What makes it a bar pizza: There are variations on the form (looking at you, Town Spa), but most bar pies are single-serving, 10-inch thin-crust pan pizzas with cheese scattered all the way to the pan's lip so it creates a burned "lace" around the crust. There's limited crushed tomato sauce under a bed of cheddar, or a cheddar mixture. The crust is buttery in the middle and crisp on the edges. Most traditional toppings are available, but you're likely to see more chorizo and linguica and less pepperoni the closer you get to the South Coast. Dig in: Old-school bar-pie lovers will tell you the real secret is in the seasoned pans, which build flavor over time. Used pizza pans become a hot commodity if they ever come up for sale. What they're saying: "I think it'll help businesses, and especially the places that I represent," Brady told Axios. "Hopefully, by getting some publicity about this, it might bring more business to the Commonwealth and revenue to the Commonwealth." Legally speaking, Brady's bill defines bar pizza as 10-inch thin crust with edge-to-edge cheese coverage. The legislation faces no apparent organized opposition, and Brady reports some positive local media response and public reception across the state. The intrigue: The bill will have to capture the attention of Democratic leaders to be adopted. One hurdle could be Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, the chairman of the all-powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Michlewitz hails from Boston's North End, a hot spot for traditional Italian and New York-style slices. Flashback: Bar pizza started popping up around Brockton-area taverns nearly 90 years ago and was popularized by the Cape Cod Café in 1939.
Boston Globe
6 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Today in History: Tuskegee Syphilis Study exposed
In 1946, the United States detonated an atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the first underwater test of the device. In 1956, the Italian liner SS Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm off the New England coast late at night and began sinking; 51 people — 46 from the Andrea Doria, five from the Stockholm — were killed. In 1960, a Woolworth's store in Greensboro, North Carolina, that had been the scene of nearly six months of sit-in protests against its whites-only lunch counter dropped its segregation policy. In 1972, the notorious Tuskegee syphilis experiment came to light as The Associated Press reported that for the previous four decades, the US Public Health Service, in conjunction with the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, had been allowing poor, rural Black male patients with syphilis to go without treatment, even allowing more than 100 of them to die, as a way of studying the disease. Advertisement In 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the first 'test tube baby,' was born in Oldham, England; she'd been conceived through the technique of in vitro fertilization. In 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein signed a declaration at the White House ending their countries' 46-year-old formal state of war. Advertisement In 2000, a New York-bound Air France Concorde crashed outside Paris shortly after takeoff, killing all 109 people on board and four people on the ground; it was the first-ever crash of the supersonic jet. In 2010, the online whistleblower Wikileaks posted some 90,000 leaked US military records that amounted to a blow-by-blow account of the Afghanistan war, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings as well as covert operations against Taliban figures. In 2019, President Trump had a second phone call with the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which he solicited Zelenskyy's help in gathering potentially damaging information about former Vice President Joe Biden; that night, a staff member at the White House Office of Management and Budget signed a document that officially put military aid for Ukraine on hold. In 2022, on a visit to Canada, Pope Francis issued a historic apology for the Catholic Church's cooperation with the country's 'catastrophic' policy of Indigenous residential schools, saying the forced assimilation of Native peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed families, and marginalized generations. Today's Birthdays: Folk-pop singer-musician Bruce Woodley is 83. Rock musician Jim McCarty is 82. Reggae singer Rita Marley is 79. Musician Verdine White is 74. Model-actor Iman is 70. Rock musician Thurston Moore is 67. Celebrity chef/TV personality Geoffrey Zakarian is 66. Actor Matt LeBlanc is 58. Actor Wendy Raquel Robinson is 58. Actor David Denman is 52. Actor Jay R. Ferguson is 51. Actor James Lafferty is 40. Actor Meg Donnelly is 25.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
CK Hutchison ports deal deadline likely to be extended as US-China tensions weigh, sources say
By Clare Jim, Scott Murdoch and Davide Barbuscia HONG KONG (Reuters) -CK Hutchison's plan to sell most of its $22.8 billion ports business is unlikely to be finalised anytime soon, with political brinkmanship set to continue, and sources saying that a Sunday deadline for exclusive talks was likely to be extended. The Hong Kong conglomerate's plan to sell the business, which would include two ports along the strategically important Panama Canal, to a consortium led by BlackRock and Italian billionaire Gianluigi Aponte's family-run shipping company MSC, has become politicised amid an escalating China-U.S. trade war. Negotiations for the deal, which covers 43 ports in 23 countries, are on an exclusive basis between CK Hutchison, controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, and the consortium for 145 days until Sunday, as per the terms announced in March. The deal talks, however, are unlikely to collapse if the two parties do not ink a pact by Sunday, with three people close to the ports-to-telecoms conglomerate saying the parties could extend the deadline to continue exclusive negotiations. The first part of the deal - definitive documentation to sell two port operations near the Panama Canal - was also not signed by an April 2 deadline set in the sales announcement. The people declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. BlackRock declined to comment. CK Hutchison and MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, which CK Hutchison said in May was the main investor in the consortium, did not respond to requests for comment. U.S. President Donald Trump hailed the deal as "reclaiming" the Panama Canal, after his administration previously called for the removal of what it said was Chinese ownership of the ports near the canal. But in April, China's top market regulator said that it was paying close attention to CK Hutchison's planned sale and that parties to the deal should not try to avoid an antitrust review. Beijing's stance on the planned deal was made public after pro-China media launched a stinging criticism, saying China had significant national interests in the transaction and it would be a betrayal of the country. "I think at this moment it's not very optimistic that they can directly sell the ports to the consortium," said Jackson Chan, global fixed income senior manager at FSMOne Hong Kong, which has clients holding CK Hutchison bonds. "The market has already digested the news, even if it announces next week that it won't sell anymore, I don't think it'll be a shock because the market understands it wouldn't have a large impact on its operations." DEAL RISKS CK Hutchison shares, which jumped 33% the following two days after the deal was announced in early March, erased all of the gains by mid-April. But since then it regained lost ground along with the rise in the broader Hong Kong market index. The outlook for the deal has been clouded further in recent days, with a separate source telling Reuters that Chinese ports operator China Cosco Shipping Corp (COSCO) was also looking to join the consortium to buy the ports business. COSCO is requesting veto rights or equivalent power in the entity that will take over 43 ports from CK Hutchison, Bloomberg News reported this week, citing people familiar with the matter. COSCO did not respond to a request for comment. The existing consortium would likely allow COSCO into the deal, said Cathy Seifert, an analyst at CFRA Research. "The bigger risk to the deal being consummated, in my opinion, is likely the Trump administration, which is likely to block a deal that would include China," said the New Jersey-based analyst who tracks BlackRock. Ballingal Investment Advisors strategist David Blennerhassett, who publishes on the independent online research platform Smartkarma, said the addition of COSCO in the consortium was likely to enrage Trump. "Trump, who has a handful of issues already on his plate, would be incandescent," he said. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
