Pete Frates's family reports Frates died today from ALS. He was 34.

Remarkably, Pete never complained about his illness. Instead, he saw it as an opportunity to give hope to other patients and their families. In his lifetime, he was determined to change the trajectory of a disease that had no treatment or cure. As a result, through his determination - along with his faithful supporters, Team Frate Train - he championed the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. In August of 2014, the historic movement pioneered social media...

Last Thursday, Tufts University announced it would remove the Sackler name everywhere it appears on its campuses, because of the family's ties to the opioid crisis.

The next day, the president of Harvard, who was previously the president of Tufts, said nope, doing what Tufts did would be "inappropriate."

Michelle Juralewicz reports:

Found this blast from Kenmore Square past at my parents' house.

They closed in December, 2001, a victim of Kenmore's BUification.

Our own art/film/politics provocateur Rod Webber showed up in Miami Beach today, where he took advantage of the blank white wall where the duct-taped banana used to be until somebody ate it and wrote "Epstien didn't kill himself" in red lipstick and yes, he misspelled it even after trying unsuccessfully last month to register as Epstein Didn't Kill Himself Webber for the 2020 ballot in New Hampshire. And then he was escorted out of the joint.

Clay Harper videoed a brand-new and already busted water fountain spewing water tonight on the little plaza next to the new entrance to the Forest Hills T station across the Arborway from the station. Read more.

Roving UHub photographer Mary Ellen spotted a pied-billed grebe at Jamaica Pond yesterday.

You can tell a grebe (you just can't tell it much) because they're a bit smaller and not as black as the coots that frequent the pond this time of year.

Also at Jamaica Pond today, Stephen Baird photographed a bald eagle soaring overhead.

Eileen Murphy reports a squirrel that would seem to be more than amply ready for winter keeps coming up to her South Boston window demanding more peanuts.

Msmariamad took in the Nova Scotia Christmas tree on the Common.

Copyright Msmariamad. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Steve Klise watched the sunset from the South Boston side of the channel:

Damn, Boston, winter evenings look good on you.