The Associated Press called the races for Biden and Trump not long after the polls closed in Maine at 8 p.m. as election returns began trickling in from across the state.

The mountain magnolia's native range has diminished due to climate change. Two Smith College researchers are leading a conservation effort to translocate a collection of the species in order to conserve it.

In the early 1900s, four western Massachusetts towns disappeared from the map. They were flooded to build the Quabbin Reservoir. But those towns closest to the Quabbin don't have access to the water supply. And several are now experiencing significant water quality issues.

The acclaimed conductor Seiji Ozawa died Tuesday. For 29 years he was the music director for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His tenure brought global attention to both the orchestra and to Tanglewood, where Ozawa was once a student.

By the time Brian Sharp saw the whale dead on an Edgartown beach, her jet black skin was pockmarked by hungry seagulls, her baleen had been dislodged from her mouth, and thick rope was wrapped tightly — as it had been for the last 17 months — around the most narrow part of her tail.