WBZ Evening News Update For Feb. 1

Nor’easter hits Massachusetts; Fenway Park opens as a mass vaccination site; Dennis White was sworn in as the new Boston Police commissioner; Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia announces his retirement.

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  • ‘The Walking Dead’ Has New Villains Thanks to Maggie Greene’s Return

    Eli Ade/AMCNegan better watch his back, because Maggie Greene is back in town. On Sunday night, The Walking Dead returned to close out its super-sized penultimate season with six more episodes—and kicked things off by giving Maggie a chance to explain what she and her son, Hershel, have been up to, and why it’s been so long since she touched base with Team Family. But the real question of this week has less to do with where Maggie’s been, and more to do with who the hell she’s managed to antagonize. It seems we’ve got a new villain on our hands, and they apparently have it out for her.It’s a rough week for Maggie: First, she comes face-to-face with Negan, who’s now at large in Alexandria after Carol sprung him from prison. Then, the onetime leader of Hilltop expressed her desire to return home there with her son and a group of survivors only to find out that the place has been reduced to a pile of rubble and bodies. And then, Maggie has to hear from Carol that Negan was actually with the Whisperers when they leveled Hilltop. “Alpha needed to die, and Negan was our best chance,” Carol explained. “We were gonna lose everything; Negan’s the reason we didn’t.”Maggie seems sympathetic, but she’s understandably not thrilled.But the group must press on—so Maggie, Daryl and Kelly head out for the settlement where Maggie’s been staying, along with her friends from the camp, Elijah and Cole. After a long day of walking (and murdering some walkers to take refuge in a storage container) Maggie reveals to Daryl that, like her old friends, she’s borne witness to a lot of tragedy over the past couple years.When Maggie first left Hilltop, she’d set out with a woman named Georgie, whose group helped nascent communities learn the farming and engineering skills required to make it in the apocalypse. “But it’d always go sideways,” she said. The group had been helping a community in Knoxville, Maggie continued, but when Georgie left to check out another community, things collapsed and she and Hershel ran. When Daryl asked what happened to the village Georgie had built, Maggie simply replied, “Not now.”“It’s actually good to say some of it out loud. Just can’t say all of it,” she said. “I almost came home after Knoxville; maybe I should have. Maybe I should have.” After the collapse, Maggie said, she brought Hershel to a place that used to belong to her grandmother on the coast—a place, she said, where she and Glenn had talked about visiting after her sister, Beth, died in Season 5. One night, she and Hershel stayed up late talking about his family. “He asked how his daddy died,” she said. “I knew he would; I knew it was coming. I told him that a bad man killed him. He wanted to know if that man got what he deserved. He wanted to know if that man was dead.”“The truth is I left home because I couldn’t have Negan taking up any more space in my head,” Maggie said. “And when I realized I didn’t want to bring Hershel back to that, the next morning we met a whole community of people who needed us as much as we needed them. And it felt like it was meant to be. But that’s over, too.”Daryl emphasized that things remain up in the air with regard to Negan—a thread that will certainly return later this season and, perhaps, beyond. Because the next morning, Maggie and the group arrive home—only to find it burned to the ground.Turns out, there’s a group called the Reapers hunting people down one by one in the woods now. We see several people Maggie had been staying with shot down before a man comes for Maggie—only to be surrounded by her group. But the man, dressed in military fatigues, refuses to answer any of Maggie’s questions. Instead, he tells her, “Pope marked you”—and then proceeds to blow himself up.There is no group called The Reapers in the Walking Dead comics; there isn’t even a group that seems particularly analogous, from what we’ve seen so far. It’s fascinating, given that we’re just on the verge of truly meeting the Commonwealth—another yet-unexplored community that appears to be the show’s endgame—that the show has now introduced another group to content with. They could be, as The Wrap posits, affiliated with the Civic Republic—villains of the spin-off World Beyond. But so far, it’s hard to guess at who these people are or what they really want.Lauren Cohan returned to Walking Dead during what would have originally been its season finale last year, after a brief trip to ABC for the now-defunct Whiskey Cavalier. Despite how long this series has floundered, both before and especially after her absence, Cohan’s presence feels like a refreshing return to form for the zombie drama—especially as it shuffles toward its final season. (She was always, and remains, one of the most emotive and compelling performers in the cast.) Nothing will ever fully atone for Glenn Rhee’s poorly executed, excruciatingly graphic death in Season 7. But it’s still somehow a little sentimental to see his son walk into Alexandria hand-in-hand with his mother. That said, however, in light of this week’s brief scare—which found Maggie racing through the woods looking for her son after finding the camp burned to the ground—I will say this: If Hershel dies, as so many children on this series have, we riot.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • Residents of an Indian slum thought they were getting vaccinated like everyone else but were unknowingly part of a clinical trial

    After a white van advertised COVID-19 vaccines to a central-Indian slum, many of its residents feel duped after finding out they were in a trial.

  • Prince Harry knew he and Meghan Markle had something 'pretty special' by their second date. Here's a complete timeline of their relationship.

    The couple's royal love story began in 2016 when they were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend.

  • Flautist turned pied piper for Belarusian revolt has 'no regrets' about choosing jail over exile

    One afternoon in early September, Maria Kolesnikova was grabbed off the street by the Belarusian KGB and taken to the border to be forcibly expelled. The professional musician-turned-protest leader, with her trademark red lipstick and cropped bleached hair, was put in a car with two of her associates who were told to drive to Ukraine and never come back. While the two men sat in the front terrified, Ms Kolesnikova, who became a face of Belarusian protests last summer, took out her passport, ripped it up and threw the pieces in the faces of KGB officers standing nearby. Moments later, she was out of the car and as dawn broke she walked across no-man’s land back into Belarus. She was immediately arrested and not seen in public since. In her first interview with an English-language media outlet from jail, Ms Kolesnikova told the Telegraph earlier this week that she has “absolutely no regrets” about choosing a certain imprisonment over an exile. “When so many people are in jail, I couldn’t just leave them, betray my convictions and flee against my own promises,” Ms Kolesnikova, whose pictures of showing a heart shape with her hands to riot police became an indelible symbol of the Belarusian protests, said in a written message. “I physically could not resist and getting rid of the passport made my deportation impossible... it has foiled the plan of the intelligence services. It involved 5 different departments and 40 people in total.”

  • ‘At least 22 killed’ after President Biden orders first military strike

    The attack was carried out on Iranian-backed militias

  • The 'WandaVision' mid-credits scene teased an unexpected showdown that shakes up where the show is headed

    Episode eight concluded with a scene that gave insight into Tyler Hayward's secret plan all along and teased what's to come on the Marvel series.

  • Oath Keeper charged in Capitol riot renounces militia group

    A member of the Oath Keepers militia group charged with plotting with other extremists in the attack on the U.S. Capitol disavowed the anti-government group in a court hearing Friday, telling the judge she is “appalled” by her fellow Oath Keepers and “humiliated” by her arrest. Jessica Watkins, one of nine members and associates of the far-right militia group charged with planning and coordinating with one another in the Jan. 6 siege, said she plans to cancel her Oath Keepers membership and has disbanded her local Ohio militia group. Judge Amit P. Mehta said Watkins was “not just a foot soldier” but actively involved in the planning and organizing of the attack and is too dangerous to be released.

  • 'Oath Keeper' Jessica Watkins denounced the extremist group but will stay in jail before her trial, judge says

    The ruling comes after Watkins requested pretrial release earlier this week due to safety concerns in jail related to her being transgender.

  • Ferrucci shifting from IndyCar to NASCAR with 5-race stint

    Santino Ferrucci spent four hours in the simulator Friday, picked up some Bojangles french fries and headed to the team shop for last-minute preparations for his NASCAR debut. Ferrucci is hitting a reset for the third time in his short career, moving from IndyCar to NASCAR for what he hopes will be a firm landing spot. Ferrucci is in the process of relocating to North Carolina — hence his new affinity for the Charlotte-based Bojangles chicken chain — and adjusting to stock cars after so many years driving in open-wheel series.

  • Dutch appeals court says coronavirus curfew was right move

    A Dutch appeals court said on Friday the government had been right to impose a night curfew in the fight against the coronavirus, overturning a lower court's order which had caused confusion over the measure last week. In a clear victory for the government, the appeals court said it had rightfully used emergency powers to install the curfew, the first in the Netherlands since World War Two, and had adequately proved that the measure was necessary to rein in the pandemic. The district court in The Hague last week had ruled that the government had failed to make clear why emergency powers were needed at this stage of the pandemic, siding with anti-lockdown activists who had brought the case.

  • House Passes Biden’s $1.9T Stimulus Plan—Without a Single GOP Vote in Favor

    Brendan Smialowski/AFP via GettyDemocrats are one big step closer to achieving their first major goal of the Joe Biden era. Early Saturday morning, the U.S. House approved a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill on a nearly party-line vote.The 219-212 vote allows the U.S. Senate to formally take up the legislation, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) intends to do immediately. But the party is under the gun: Many Democrats regard March 14—the day that extended unemployment benefits run out for millions—as a de facto deadline for getting the so-called American Rescue Plan on Biden’s desk.The legislation would replenish relief for the jobless by extending a weekly $400 check through August. It also fulfills a number of other promises Democrats campaigned on in 2020: $1,400 direct stimulus checks to supplement the $600 checks that went out in December, billions of dollars to hasten vaccine distribution, funds for schools, and aid for state and local governments. The House’s bill passed with an increase to the federal minimum wage—but the Senate’s procedural enforcer found that the proposal did not conform to the rules of fast-tracking a bill in the upper chamber. It effectively kills the prospects for a clean wage hike as part of the COVID legislation.Prior rounds of major COVID legislation passed the House with bipartisan support, but Friday’s vote all but confirmed Biden’s first relief effort will travel a starkly partisan path. The GOP, beset with infighting in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack and Donald Trump’s impeachment, have found cause for unity in opposing the relief plan, which they slammed as a bloated vehicle for liberal wish-list items. Democrats held out hope that at least a few Republicans would vote for the plan, but not a single GOP lawmaker backed the legislation, and its odds for picking up many Senate Republicans look dim.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • Trump lost because 'character counts.' That's why his CPAC speech won't change anything.

    The problem in 2020 was with the Republican candidate. That won't change in 2024 if Trump stays on top.

  • TikTokers tried to prove that snow in Texas was 'fake' as weather conspiracy theories ran wild online

    From "fake snow" to Bill Gates, conspiracy theories about the Texas storm are spreading. Right-wing pundits and politicians aren't helping.

  • Merkel won’t take AstraZeneca vaccine, says she's too old

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she won't take AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine because she is too old, a comment that comes as millions of Germans refuse to take the vaccine because they do not trust it.

  • At CPAC, Cruz and Hawley remain defiant about Capitol riot

    Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley appeared at CPAC Friday and gave their most extensive public remarks since Jan. 6, when both were seen by critics as having helped incite a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol.

  • 'Blame Trump' defense in Capitol riot looks like a long shot

    Facing damning evidence in the deadly Capitol siege last month — including social media posts flaunting their actions — rioters are arguing in court they were following then-President Donald Trump's instructions on Jan. 6. “This purported defense, if recognized, would undermine the rule of law because then, just like a king or a dictator, the president could dictate what’s illegal and what isn’t in this country," U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said recently in ordering pretrial detention of William Chrestman, a suspected member of the Kansas City-area chapter of the Proud Boys. Chrestman’s attorneys argued in court papers that Trump gave the mob “explicit permission and encouragement” to do what they did, providing those who obeyed him with “a viable defense against criminal liability.”

  • Captain Tom's family arrive at his funeral

    Moore's hearse departed his home on its way to Bedford Crematorium, followed by members of his family.Moore died on February 2 at Bedford Hospital. He had tested positive for COVID-19 on January 22 and was fighting pneumonia. Over the last five years, he had been receiving treatment for prostate and skin cancer.

  • Miami doesn’t host NASCAR championships anymore, but drivers would like to see them return

    Kevin Harvick is old enough to remember a time before NASCAR held all its championships in one place to end the season. He was there at Homestead-Miami Speedway for all 18 years the track hosted NASCAR Championship Weekend, from its first year in 2002 all the way through its final go-around in 2019.

  • Myanmar police launch most extensive crackdown; one woman shot and wounded

    The violence came after Myanmar's U.N. envoy, saying he was speaking for the ousted civilian government, urged the United Nations to use "any means necessary" to reverse the Feb. 1 coup. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and much of her party leadership, alleging fraud in a November election her party won in a landslide. The coup, which stalled Myanmar's progress toward democracy, has brought hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets and drawn condemnation from Western countries, with some imposing limited sanctions.