"I felt like I was in a 'Seinfeld' episode. Where is my car?" said Dawn Hook after leaving a car rental location in Boston. "You check in early on your phone, and you walk in, and she says there are no cars. Like none."

Dawn and her husband Bill came for the foliage in Vermont. She says employees at her rental location told them the recent nor'easter is to blame. Too many people with canceled flights and train rides rented cars and took them home but did not return.

"You can't get them at the airport either. She said people are canceling reservations and going to the airport and there are no cars," explains Hook.

WBZ-TV talked to another person who left the same car rental location, and they said they reserved a car but were told they were third in line for a vehicle. When they said, "We have a reservation," they told us the employees answered, "Everybody does."

WBZ-TV decided to test the rental landscape by trying to rent a car using numerous companies in the Boston area, as well as Logan Airport and Worcester Regional Airport. Every place came back with no cars available.

Massport says it is seeing an increased demand for rental cars at Logan, saying it's typical with fall foliage and the upcoming Head of the Charles. 

Massport encourages travelers to plan ahead like the Hooks did. They eventually got a car. "We waited an hour. That's not bad," said Hook.

Melanie Tinoco was accused of shoplifting at Target in Boston last Thursday. That incident led to Boston Police arresting her and taking her to the station to be fingerprinted. Her family says when she was released, immigration agents were waiting outside.

Martin Gurfinkiel said the hardest thing was telling his wife's children their mother was not coming home.

Tinoco came to the United States from Ecuador, seeking asylum. Gurfinkiel says the 29-year-old is a mom to a 7- and an 11-year-old. One of the children is living with autism, and Gurfinkiel said, "He's so worried."

Gurfinkiel says he is an Uber driver and was picking up an order for delivery at Target in Boston. His wife was shopping in the store.

"They just came to us saying, why we are not paying for the things?" Gurfinkiel said. "That's not the situation. We never left. We were just walking to get a shopping cart. And they told me, OK, let's go to this room. And suddenly they called the police. The police told me that they were gonna take her to the D4 Boston Police Station to just know who she is, like, fingerprints and everything."

"She was screaming a lot"

Gurfinkiel says what happened at Target was a misunderstanding. Boston Police arrested Tinoco for shoplifting. After several hours at the station, she was released and ICE agents were waiting outside the door.

"They never show any ID, no warrant, no nothing. They just forced her, put the handcuff, and just put her inside the car. She was screaming a lot," Gurfinkiel said.

Attorney Jason Thomas represents Tinoco.

"I'm uncertain why ICE would have arrested her. She has an asylum application pending, she has valid work authorization, and she already has a hearing date to go in front of an immigration judge in 2027. She's already in the process," Thomas told the WBZ-TV I-Team.

Attorney says ICE detainment was misunderstanding

The I-Team has learned that despite state laws or city policies limiting local police communication with ICE, fingerprints taken during an arrest are sent to an FBI database that is accessible to other federal law enforcement agencies - including ICE.

Attorney Todd Pomerleau also represents Tinoco.

"She was part of a lawful immigration process that's being ignored and for whatever reason she seems to have been detained at Target due to possible misunderstandings and language barriers," Pomerleau said.

Tinoco's family is concerned about her health. She doesn't have her medication and they say her wrists were injured by agents when she was arrested. Her husband is now caring for the children alone while their mother is locked up at the ICE facility in Burlington.

"It's hard, because the kids all the time, they're asking, 'Where's my mom?'" Gurfinkiel said. "I just want her to come home."

Boston Police response

Tinoco's lawyers filed a petition in federal court seeking her immediate release. The I-Team reached out to Target, but the company referred us to Boston Police. ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

A Boston Police Department spokesperson said Tinoco was arrested, booked and released on bail.

"The Boston Police Department is firmly committed to the city's Trust Act. An individual's immigration status is not a factor whether we are working with a victim, witness or a suspect, we do not even ask about it. It is very important to be clear on this issue, trust with the community is critical to our serving the City of Boston in the best ways possible," police said.

WBZ-TV has learned an 86-year-old woman was found dead inside her unit at Golden Pond Assisted Living Facility on Wednesday morning, Sept. 30.

A police report from the incident explains that the woman was obviously deceased and reads, "The apartment was extremely hot with the thermostat indicating that the room temperature was 99 degrees Fahrenheit."

The resident had lived at Golden Pond for just seven weeks when she died, according to the police report.

The police spoke with the facilities manager for Golden Pond who, according to the police report, "stated that the building had been switched from A/C to heat the previous day. He stated that none of the other rooms in the building were experiencing heat issues, but that it was possible that [she] could have attempted to use the 'cool' setting on her thermostat, which would have continued to blow warm air into the room."

Death at Golden Pond Assisted Living Facility

Employees who spoke with WBZ on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation have indicated otherwise.

"It was so hot you couldn't breathe," one employee said about the woman's room.

Employees claim that many rooms in the unit were experiencing soaring hot temperatures following the switchover to heat that week.

"[The heat] hit everyone in the face as you entered, you couldn't even – you had to keep going in and out of the apartment, it was so hot," an employee said.

Employees said they had to spend several days bringing residents to common areas for access to fans and air conditioners among what they believe to be a broken HVAC system.

"We had to move people to common areas, leave the door open and move them to common areas where we had more of the portable ACs and the fans going," they said.

Room temperatures were "unusually high"

Hopkinton Police Chief Scott van Raalten said his officers noted the extreme temperatures on Oct. 1, the day after the death was discovered, when they responded to Golden Pond for a medical call.

"We also returned on Oct. 1, 2026, for a medical call," van Raalten wrote to WBZ. "During this visit, an officer observed that the temperatures in the rooms and building were unusually high. This officer recalled the death investigation on Sept. 30, 2026, and noted that the HVAC system had not been repaired. As a result, the officer informed town and state officials to initiate further investigations regarding patient care."

The Middlesex District Attorney's Office and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner have confirmed to WBZ that they are investigating the incident, though an autopsy has not been completed.

"She was not expected to die," the anonymous employees told WBZ. "She was on a 2-hour shopping spree at Walmart that day. She went to activities that day. She's 86 – I mean, she has a heart condition, but it was an unanticipated death," they said.

WBZ has made efforts to reach out to the woman's family. According to the police report, her son told authorities that she "got confused easily" and "may have inadvertently turned the heat on too high in the apartment."

WBZ has reached out to the director of Golden Pond, as well as the facility's owners, but has not received a reply as of this writing. WBZ has also reached out to the state's Executive Office for Aging & Independence for more information.

At the Boston AI Week Summit in the Seaport, there were a lot of people excited about AI, including leaders, investors and entrepreneurs.

It was the second such summit and it was put together by Judah Phillips. Phillips has been in the tech industry for a long time and believes AI will be a force for good and wanted to get like-minded people together in one place.

Phillips, of course, has seen the headlines. Lately, none of them have been good.

"I think it's going to enable peace and prosperity. I'm not a doomer," Phillips said with a smile that never seems to leave his face. "I don't think that AI is going to destroy the economy, I don't think it's going to destroy the world. I think it's going to help to create a newer economy, transform the way we're working, transform jobs."

Despite Gallup poll numbers that show Gen Z is becoming less excited about AI as time goes on, a young man named Michael Bien said there will be reason to be excited about artificial intelligence in the near future. Bien is a graduate student at Harvard University and the CEO of his own startup. He's working to use AI technology to create the chips needed for AI technology.

Bien says right now most people are using AI for text-based learning, but soon it will lead to development of physical devices to help our lives.

"For example, if AI can just make a meal for me from the beginning, from scratch. I don't even speak a word. But it just knows what my daily schedule looks like," Bien said.

But even with all that enthusiasm hanging over the hallways and meeting rooms of this summit, there were also people sounding the alarm about where AI is in this very moment.

Mike Grandinetti, an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, was one of the featured speakers. He is a tech and entrepreneurial leader who has traveled the world speaking to business leaders who have talked about how AI has increased productivity. But Grandinetti says safeguards need to be put in place immediately.

"I don't see, you know, the Terminator showing up on our doorstep anytime soon," Grandinetti said. "But I think we're going to see a lot more cyberattacks which, you know, can really do damage. It could bring down utility companies, water companies. A 13-year-old kid with the wrong intention can do some serious damage today."

When asked about leaders of AI companies who are seeking help, saying they built something they can't control, Grandinetti said, "it's scary."

"It is scary. I mean, I think you'd have to be irrational not to be troubled by that," Grandinetti said.

Interestingly, some at the summit wondered about the motivation of the largest AI companies and their doomsday predictions. Phillips, the founder of the Boston AI Summit said, "I often ask myself who is making money off this?"

The critics wonder are they hoping for strict government regulations that will crush competition? Are they looking for money from the government?

Carol Myers from Scale It Up Ventures had an interesting theory. 

"There are definitely people who feel that some of this is about making the technology seem so powerful that everybody wants to use it," Myers said. "But I think they're also learning that when they do that, then it makes people afraid to use it, so they might have to start to walk a little bit more of a fine line."

If you have a question you'd like us to look into, please email questioneverything@cbsboston.com.

That's causing some towns' ballots to extend to more than two or three pages. Some towns will have as many as four pages because of multi-language printing, summary of each question, and the size of the text.

Needham Town Clerk Louise Miller says voters should expect longer wait times at the polls.

"In all my time as a voter, I also do not recall this many ballot questions," Miller said.

Miller said it is going to take a longer time to process the ballot, a longer time for voters to fill out the ballot and a longer time to put the ballot through the tabulators on Election Day.

Nine questions actually tie the record for the greatest amount on one ballot, the fourth time in state history. It happened once in 1994 and twice in the 1970s. 

"It's unusual it got to this number, and the reasoning is first of all the legislature has failed to act on these things. Remember, any ballot question that makes it to the ballot has been sent to the legislature first, and they have had the opportunity for the full period of time from January to May of an election year to vote on it or take some action on it. And they failed to do that," Secretary of State Bill Galvin said.

Galvin says what's striking this year is not just the number of ballot questions, but the diversity of issues, from spending to marijuana.

Each question requires a summary, so voters are clear on what they are voting on.

"Put it in the box themselves. The problem is the box can get very full very fast. We have to anticipate that," Galvin said.

To avoid some of the stress and delays, voting officials say folks should read and know each question in advance, vote by mail or vote early.

"People who need additional time will find early voting convenient because it is not as crowded, not as stressful," Miller said.

Polls on Nov. 3 will open at 7 a.m. Residents can still apply for a vote-by-mail ballot. There will be early in-person voting beginning Oct. 17.

DePeña was indicted in federal court in August on wire fraud and money laundering charges. At the state level, he is accused of wiretapping and witness intimidation.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and in the meantime has said he does not plan on resigning.

"We cannot normalize this type of situation. Twenty-six different charges, two different courts, two different systems are saying this person has done something wrong," Lawrence City Council President Jeovanny Rodriguez told WBZ-TV.

Rodriguez acknowledged it will ultimately be up to the courts to determine whether DePeña committed any crimes, but said councilors believe they need to respond to the situation in the meantime. At their meeting on Tuesday, they could move forward with a vote of no confidence.

"A no confidence vote, we believe is appropriate to let the mayor know that what he has done is unacceptable and the people need a level of confidence towards his job and what he's doing," Rodriguez added.

The vote would not remove DePeña from office, but residents pursuing a recall election believe it could strengthen their new effort to oust him later this year.

Lawrence resident Sarah Perez said organizers have already collected nearly 400 signatures as part of the first step in the process.

If and when the affidavit paperwork is approved and returned, Perez said organizers will have 30 days to collect 7,078 valid signatures. Their goal is to collect 10,000.

"It's going to take a lot of signatures, a lot of effort. Nobody can ask him to resign, nobody can force him out and nobody can fire him," Perez explained, adding the criminal cases surrounding DePeña have become a distraction for the city.

"A human being cannot be focused on being a mayor of the city and having all these distractions, all those charges. He's looking maybe many, many years in jail," Perez said.

"And it's just not good for us. And every time we become a viral sensation is for something bad is happening, bad news. And we are not like that. We at this point, we need a change. We need normalcy back."

Perez said organizers hope to receive the recall paperwork back by Oct. 19 and return the required signatures by Nov. 16, with the goal of holding an election within a couple of months.

DePeña was working at his office in Lawrence City Hall on Tuesday ahead of the city council meeting. He declined to comment.

"The snow was accompanied by thick rime ice, subzero wind chills, and a peak wind gust of 110 mph!" the New Hampshire-based observatory said in a social media post.

Rime ice is a common phenomenon on New England's highest peak throughout the winter season. It forms when the summit is encased by clouds or fog and temperatures are below freezing. Supercooled water droplets start to accumulate on surfaces, and a strong wind can create interesting formations, like a "frozen tornado" on the summit last year.

The Mount Washington Auto Road also shared photos of snow-covered pavement. The road is only open for cars up to 4,200 feet of the 6,228-foot peak. 

A wind chill advisory is in effect on Mount Washington through 7 p.m. on Tuesday. 

"Despite the added sunshine and rising temperatures, daytime temperatures will remain below normal overall," the higher summit forecast reads. "Winds will be gradually decreasing through the day, but hurricane-force gusts are expected to remain."

It will warm up to 40 degrees on Wednesday, with a chance of rain. But meteorologists warn that hikers may encounter slippery trails until the snow and ice melts completely.

Last year, the summit saw its first snow of the season on Oct. 15. 

HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan shared the "very difficult news" in a letter to employees that said about 660 workers will be laid off, which amounts to a 7% staff reduction.

"Over the past year, we have shifted our strategy from building software that helps customers grow to delivering outcomes for them with AI," Rangan wrote. "That shift is transforming product, pricing and how we serve our customers."

Rangan said "we need to move faster" and announced organizational changes that include fewer management layers. She did note that the layoff decision "is not driven by AI-related efficiencies."

"We believe in a world where AI helps make us more productive and we will continue to invest to make that happen," she said. "This change is about aligning our organization with our strategy and how we need to operate going forward."

Employees will get 20 weeks of base pay, plus a week per year of service, up to 30 weeks, in severance. They'll also receive five months of healthcare benefits and career support.

In an August earnings report, HubSpot said revenue was up 20% to nearly $912 million for Quarter 2, with Rangan saying "we made deliberate choices to accelerate our AI transformation."

"The AI shift unlocks a much larger opportunity for HubSpot, and I'm confident these choices position us to drive long-term, compounding growth," she said at the time.  

Prosecutors say Farwell met Birchmore when she was a 13-year-old cadet in a Stoughton Police Department youth program. They say he started a sexual relationship with her when she was 15 and he was 27.

It's alleged that Farwell killed Birchmore after she told him she was pregnant with what she believed was his child. The defense argues that Birchmore died by suicide after Farwell told her that it wasn't his baby and the relationship was over.

Farwell is set to stand trial inside the Moakley Courthouse in Boston's Seaport District. He has been held at a Rhode Island detention center without bail while he awaits trial, despite a request in April to be released from the facility.

The jury selection process will take several days. On Tuesday, jurors filled out a questionnaire. The next day, they'll find out of if they need to return to the courthouse on Thursday to be questioned. Each side will get a chance to challenge certain jurors. Opening statements could take place as early as Friday. 

The goal is to reach 16 jurors, with four serving as alternates and 12 deliberating.

Farwell had filed a motion for a change of venue for the trial, but it was rejected last week. Opening statements could start as soon as Friday once 16 jurors are seated, and it's anticipated that the trial will last five weeks.

He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if found guilty on the federal charge of killing a witness or victim. In October 2025, a superseding indictment also added a second count under the state's protection of unborn children law. Farwell has pleaded not guilty.

Federal prosecutors allege that Farwell strangled Birchmore inside her Canton apartment in February 2021.

Her death was originally ruled a suicide. In August 2024, Farwell was arrested on allegations that he killed the 23-year-old woman.

What is Matthew Farwell accused of?

According to prosecutors, Farwell allegedly began having sex with Birchmore when she was 15 and he was 27 years old. Farwell was a volunteer for a youth program called "Stoughton Police Explorers Academy" that Birchmore attended.

Farwell is accused of grooming and sexually exploiting Birchmore. Prosecutors said a friend of Birchmore's called the Stoughton Police Department in January 2021 to tell an employee that Farwell and Birchmore were having sex.

According to the prosecution, the employee told Farwell about the call, and several days later Birchmore was found dead. Farwell allegedly killed Birchmore the day before his wife was scheduled to give birth to their third child.

Farwell's defense argues that he went to Birchmore's apartment where they had an argument, he told her he was not the father of the child and ended their relationship. The defense also argues that DNA tests later showed he was not the baby's father.

The defense says that Birchmore died by suicide, as was originally determined by local investigators. 

"So this is an interesting case, because when Sandra Birchmore was originally found dead, the coroner initially said it was a suicide," WBZ-TV legal analyst Jennifer Roman said. "Her family hired a private investigator and had their own autopsy done, and that autopsy revealed that it was not in fact a suicide and it in fact looked like a murder homicide. And that's what opened this case up three years later."

What sentence does Matthew Farwell face?

Farwell was eligible to stand trial with the possibility of facing the death penalty.

In December 2025, the Department of Justice announced that they would not seek capital punishment in the case.

Instead, if convicted, Farwell faces life in prison.

"The prosecution needs to establish here that Matthew Farwell did in fact kill Sandra Birchmore, that he did it intentionally, he knew, that he was trying to cover something up, that she was a witness to this illicit relationship that they had," Roman said.

Will the Matthew Farwell trial be live streamed?

Because the trial is taking place inside a federal courtroom, cameras are not allowed, so it can not be watched live by the general public.

Restrictions on electronic media inside federal courtrooms have been in place since 1946.

Reporters inside the courtroom are allowed to take notes and describe what is happening. Sketch artists regularly release drawn versions of what is happening inside the courtroom during trials.

Crews responded at about 6:15 a.m. to the serious crash at 430 New State Highway on Route 44 near a Dunkin' and other businesses.

"A preliminary investigation indicates that a Honda CR-V, driven by a 37-year-old man from Taunton, was traveling west on Route 44 when it struck the pedestrian as he crossed the street," the Raynham police and fire departments said in a statement.

Police said the teenager was from Brockton but did not immediately release his name. He received medical care at the scene and was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The driver, whose name has not been released, stayed at the scene. The driver and a passenger were also taken to the hospital to be evaluated. 

Police urged drivers to avoid the area Tuesday morning. Only one lane of eastbound traffic was getting by during rush hour as police investigated. There was a white car with front-end damage and a cracked windshield parked nearby. 

Raynham is about 32 miles south of Boston. 

U.S. Attorney Leah Foley announced that 44-year-old Jacob Miller pleaded guilty to several charges, including importing nuclear material without lawful authority, being a felon in possession of explosive materials and child pornography possession. 

"Miller imported plutonium from Russia and arranged for it to be mailed to him at his residence," Foley's office said in a statement.   

Foley said a search of Miller's home uncovered bottles of explosive powder, six rifles with rounds of ammunition and child sex abuse material on his laptop and phone. She said Miller was previously convicted in Massachusetts of having child sex abuse materials in 2024.

Investigators say that Miller had a business called "Collect the Periodic Table" and sold samples of chemical elements. That included plutonium and the highly toxic element thallium.

Miller sold plutonium to 67 customers in the United States and abroad, and thallium to 71 customers, Foley said. Both are not allowed to be mailed because they are considered hazardous substances.

According to a 2025 affidavit, Miller's website advertised "Plutonium (Cold War Era Detector Source)," which purported to be derived from Soviet smoke detectors.

According to the government, Miller "has exhibited a long-standing and unlawful obsession with explosives, dangerous chemicals and radioactive substances dating back to at least 2002." In 2014, the Massachusetts Radiation Control Program sent a cease-and-desist letter to Miller for selling depleted uranium on eBay. And neighbors said they saw him using black powder "to ignite a fireball and detonate a dishwasher in his backyard" in 2023, according to prosecutors.

Miller is due to be sentenced on Jan. 21, 2027. The nuclear materials charge carries a potential of up to 20 years in prison.