Election fever swept Massachusetts on Super Tuesday, the city passed a change to the zoning code aimed at students in the area, a gunmen went on a shooting spree at Northern Illinois University, the saga of the Boston University Biolab continued and Gov. Deval Patrick’s casino proposal was not in the cards at the State House. Here is a retrospective of the biggest city, state and national stories from this past semester.
HARVARD STARTS
LADIES-ONLY GYM HOURS
Harvard University imposed women-only gym hours in response to petitions from the school’s Islamic Society and Women’s Center in January. To accommodate religious customs that make it difficult for Muslim women to work out in the presence of men, men are forbidden to enter the school’s Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center for six hours a week. The policy was met with criticism from both students and the public. “It is unfair to impose a stringent policy that inhibits [students] from using their own facility in order to further a useless policy that doesn’t have any real effect,” Harvard junior Nick Wells said in February.
NORTHERN ILLINOIS U. SHOOTER KILLS 5, SELF
A gunman clad in black opened fire in a Northern Illinois University lecture hall, killing five students and injuring 16 before shooting himself on February 14.
The shooter, a former NIU sociology student, came out from behind the stage at the front of an oceanography class and shot at students in the front row, witnesses said. While still onstage, the shooter turned the gun on himself.
“I never thought it would actually happen,” NIU sophomore Kirsten Jones said. “It just makes me think differently about the world.”
The NIU shooting came less than a year after the Virginia Tech campus shooting last April left 33 dead.
SUPER TUESDAY SEES
CLINTON, ROMNEY AS
VICTORS
Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Gov. Mitt Romney swept the Massachusetts primaries but of the 24 states that voted during February’s Super Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama won 13 states and Sen. John McCain won nine.
Clinton, along with Obama and McCain, stumped in the Bay State on the eve of Super Tuesday, the nickname for Feb. 5 when 24 states held their primaries or caucuses, to make last-minute appeals to Massachusetts voters.
Romney backed out of the race shortly after Super Tuesday and McCain emerged as the Republican Party leader. Since Super Tuesday, Clinton and Obama have remained neck-and-neck in racking up delegates.
‘LIMIT OF FOUR’ RULE CUTS STUDEN HOUSING OPTIONS
The City Council and the Zoning Commission unanimously approved a zoning amendment to make it illegal for more than four undergraduate students to live together.
Signed into law by Mayor Thomas Menino on March 13, living situations with more than four undergraduates are currently illegal. The amendment makes no provisions for how to enforce the “limit of four” law.
The brainchild of City Councilor Michael Ross, the apartment limit elicited a lawsuit filed earlier this month by four landlords and a Boston College sophomore.
“It’s going to hurt the economy,” Boston Realty Source leasing consultant Matt Zborezny said in March. “These properties are going to end up back on the market and no one’s going to want them.”
NO DICE ON CASINOS, BUT COLLEGE AND CIGARETTE TAXES CONSIDERED
Gov. Deval Patrick, faced with a financially strapped state budget, must look for other ways to close the $1.3 billion spending gap after his casinos proposal went bust in the House March 18.
“Without the casinos, there will be a major shortfall in the budget,” Rep. Martin Walsh, a Dorchester Democrat, said.
Lawmakers will have to raid the rainy day fund and slash program budgets to overcome the state deficit. House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi proposed a $1 cigarette pack tax in February, raising the total tax to $2.51 per pack.
This month, state lawmakers are investigating a property tax for colleges with endowments that exceed $1 billion, including Boston University, to raise money for public school programs like honors programs and college preparation courses.
The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe is pushing to get federal approval to build a $1 billion resort casino in Middleborough by next year, which would keep government regulation out of the gaming industry.
SHOOTINGS IN STUDENT-FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOODS
A man was killed in Allston in March and police responded to a second shooting the same morning near a Cambridge club frequented by young people.
A 25-year-old man had apparently been shot through a window near the intersection of Linden Street and Farrington Avenue, Boston police said. The man was found in a car’s rear passenger seat and was taken to Beth Israel Hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.
The shooting in near Central Square in Cambridge occurred in the Hi-Fi Pizza shop, located near the Middle East night club, where police arrested a man with a gun but did not find the reported victim of the shooting at the restaurant.
STRINGS-ATTACHED MONEY FUNDED BU RESEARCH
Boston University medical researchers received close to $4 million from Philip Morris for medical research over the past decade.
Philip Morris funded research conducted by the BU Cancer Research Center, the School of Medicine’s genetics and genomics department and the Pulmonary Center.
“By virtue of taking this money, BU is basically allowing itself to be used as a pawn in the marketing scheme that the tobacco companies are playing,” BU School of Public Health social and behavioral sciences associate department chairman Michael Siegel said.
Another BU researcher came under fire in April when he neglected to disclose that the UV Foundation, an organization backed by the tanning industry, funded his research that encouraged the use of tanning to combat vitamin D deficiencies.
