BOSTON—The Massachusetts State Police will participate in a federal program that automatically checks the immigration status of those who are arrested, the state's top state public safety official announced Friday. In a statement, Public Safety Secretary Mary Beth Heffernan said the state will formally join a program called Secure Communities after months of deliberating by state officials. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement program allows arrestees' fingerprint information to be checked against FBI criminal history records and biometrics-based immigration records kept by the Department of Homeland Security. But the program has drawn fire from some Massachusetts-based immigrant advocacy groups who say it discourages legal and illegal immigrants from cooperating with police. Read more

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Scientists reported Thursday the strongest evidence yet that a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 2,000 people in Haiti can be traced to South Asia. Read more

Down with Selection, Long Live Election: A sign at a Dec. 5 protest in Port-au-Prince. Photo by Bri Kouri Nowel Gaye“Have you chosen me a good government, Blan?”-sarcastic question posed by a Haitian voter to a foreign election monitor at a polling station in Port-Au-Prince. While $26 million was spent on Haiti’s November 28 elections, a great deal more is at stake for international business. Over $9 billion in reconstruction contracts will be up for grabs, and the government selected could possibly have influence on the foreign dominated Haiti Interim Reconstruction Committee (HIRC), which is tasked with determining the path of Haiti’s development. Read more

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A popular singer vowed to legally challenge election results that narrowly ousted him from Haiti's presidential race, while his supporters barricaded streets and set fires in violence that threatened the fragile stability that f Read more

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) _ Haitians entered election day hoping for the best. Within hours, ballot boxes were ripped to pieces, protesters were on the streets and nearly every presidential hopeful was united against the government. Add it to Haiti's list: Already reeling from a catastrophic earthquake, one of the world's poorest economies, storms, a deadly cholera epidemic and unrest over U.N. peacekeepers, the Caribbean nation could now be on the edge of full-on political turmoil. The chaos in Sunday's voting united most of the top presidential candidates against the president's heir apparent - Jude Celestin, head of the state-run construction company and beneficiary of a well-financed campaign. Read more

Nearly 23,000 Massachusetts residents – legal immigrants who have been in the country for fewer than five years – are scheduled to lose their health insurance before the New Year, and lawmakers are keeping silent about whether they’ll intervene. House Speaker Robert DeLeo has declined repeated requests for comment on the matter, and Sen. Richard Moore, co-chair of the Health Care Financing Committee, also declined comment Tuesday. Read more

Cholera Prevention: A sound-truck spreads the word about dangers of cholera earlier this month. Image courtesy of Let Haiti Live(Port-au-Prince)— No one was surprised to hear that Haiti is confronting an epidemic of cholera, because to date, neither the government nor the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been successfully executing programs to help the population in Haiti. The cholera epidemic is a clear sign of failure and evidence of the way the United Nations system and NGOs function – or rather don’t function. It was already well known that the Government of Haiti lacks adequate resources and has more interest in holding elections than in the lives of the people, but now we are beginning to see the stark contradiction between the mission statements of the international humanitarian community and their actions. Read more

Martelly campaigns in BostonWe know him best as “Sweet Micky”, a talented musician whose wild stage antics brought an element of shock to Haitian entertainment. In the late 1980s, he started out as any one of a number of notable Haitian talents and went simply by his name, Michel Martelly. Michel’s career began with the success of early releases with fun titles like, “Woule, Woule”, “Anba Rad La”, “The Sweetest” etc. However, real fame and international success came with the creation of a sub-identity “Sweet Micky”. It was the wild and uninhibited Micky that became a household name among Haitians. Sweet Micky’s irreverent style, controversial albums and frequent feuds with rival bands, made Michel Martelly wealthy and famous. Martelly came into the Haitian music industry during turbulent times. In the early 1990s, the Island was in political free-fall after the ouster of the Duvalier regime. The populace had democratically elected a progressive yet controversial former priest, Jean Bertrand Aristide and within a year he was exiled by Haiti’s military. Haiti’s popular music Konpa, was struggling as a new generation preferred the sound of Zouk, which had its origins in Guadeloupe and Martinique. Michel Martelly’s act was one among a new generation of artists that met the challenge of Zouk by using technology to reduce the man-power it took to man live Konpa shows and moved its sound into the new digital format. Read more

PORT-AU-PRINCE — The first portion of U.S. reconstruction money for Haiti is on its way more than seven months after it was promised to help the country rebuild from the Jan. 12 earthquake. Read more