The first 10 states to receive the waivers are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

The only state that applied for the flexibility and did not get it, New Mexico, is working with the administration to get approval, a White House official told the AP.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the states had not yet been announced.

A total of 28 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signaled that they, too, plan to seek waivers — a sign of just how vast the law’s burdens have become as a big deadline nears.

No Child Left Behind requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014.

Obama’s action strips away that fundamental requirement for those approved for flexibility, provided they offer a viable plan instead.

Under the deal, the states must show they will prepare children for college and careers, set new targets for improving achievement among all students, reward the best performing schools and focus help on the ones doing the worst.

In September, Obama called President George W. Bush’s most hyped domestic accomplishment an admirable but flawed effort that hurt students instead of helping them.

He said action was necessary because Congress failed to update the law despite widespread bipartisan agreement that it needs fixing.

Republicans have charged that by granting waivers, Obama was overreaching his authority.

The executive action by Obama is one of his most prominent in an ongoing campaign to act on his own where Congress is rebuffing him.

No Child Left Behind was primarily designed to help the nation’s poor and minority children and was passed a decade ago with widespread bipartisan support.

It has been up for renewal since 2007. But lawmakers have been stymied for years by competing priorities, disagreements over how much of a federal role there should be in schools and, in the recent Congress, partisan gridlock.

For all the cheers that states may have about the changes, the move also reflects the sobering reality that the United States is not close to the law’s original goal: getting children to grade level in reading and math.

Critics today say the 2014 deadline was unrealistic, the law is too rigid and led to teaching to the test, and too many schools feel they are labeled as “failures.”

Under No Child Left Behind, schools that don’t meet requirements for two years or longer face increasingly tough consequences, including busing children to higher-performing schools, offering tutoring and replacing staff.

As the deadline approaches, more schools are failing to meet requirements under the law, with nearly half not doing so last year, according to the Center on Education Policy.

Center officials said that’s because some states today have harder tests or have high numbers of immigrant and low-income children, but it’s also because the law requires states to raise the bar each year for how many children must pass the test.

In states granted a waiver, students will still be tested annually.

But starting this fall, schools in those states will no longer face the same prescriptive actions spelled out under No Child Left Behind. A school’s performance will also probably be labeled differently.

The pressure will probably still be on the lowest-performing schools in states granted a waiver, but mediocre schools that aren’t failing will probably see the most changes because they will feel less pressure and have more flexibility in how they spend federal dollars, said Michael Petrilli, vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank.

While the president’s action marks a change in education policy in America, the reach is limited. The populous states of Pennsylvania, Texas and California are among those that have not said they will seek a waiver, although they could still do so later.

On Tuesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said states without a waiver will be held to the standards of No Child Left Behind because “it’s the law of the land.”

Some conservatives viewed Obama’s plan not as giving more flexibility to states, but as imposing his vision on them. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, said the president allowed “an arbitrary timeline” to dictate when Congress should get the law rewritten and set a dangerous precedent by granting the education secretary “sweeping authority to handpick winners and losers.”

Duncan maintained this week that the administration “desperately” wants Congress to fix the law.

In an election year in a divided Congress, that appears unlikely to happen.

A Senate committee last fall passed a bipartisan bill to update the law, but it was opposed by the administration and did not go before the full Senate for a vote.

Kline released a draft of a Republican-written bill to update the law, earning the ire of California Rep. George Miller, the committee’s ranking Democrat.

Miller said such partisanship “means the end” to No Child Left Behind reform in this Congress.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the Senate committee with jurisdiction over education, has said he believes it “would be difficult to find a path forward” without a bipartisan bill in the House.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

The 32-year-old San Francisco Internet entrepreneur spoke with WBZ-TV Wednesday from his room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“It’s kind of amazing that this came together the way it did,” says Gupta.

“I can’t imagine this happening without Twitter or Facebook or Tumblr. It just wouldn’t have been possible to meet so many people so quickly.”

Gupta was diagnosed with Leukemia in September.

To live, he needed a bone marrow transplant. Since he’s Indian-American, he says his chances of finding the perfect match he needed were slim, some estimate one in 20,000.

He turned to social media to get the word out, and his friends in the tech industry even raised a $30,000 reward for a match.

It worked.

WBZ-TV’s Christina Hager Reports

“I had my transplant about a week and a half ago, and right now I’m waiting for the cells to get to my marrow and start producing blood, so that should happen soon,” says Gupta.

His search for a match inspired some 10,000 new potential bone marrow donors to register.

“We don’t get a chance to be heroes in our everyday life. We’re not firemen. We don’t get to run to a burning building, and pull someone out and save their life, but these individuals who are willing to donate their stem cells for blood or marrow, are just like firemen,” says Dr. Robert Soiffer, who specializes in blood cancers at the Dana Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center.

If you’re interested, you can find out how to register at the National Marrow Donor Registry.

Someone kicked down her door and went through everything. They even tore open her refrigerator and her pantry, stealing her food.

Among the more costly items, robbers made off with, “Mostly jewelry, silver, silver coins, a lot of collectibles,” says Reid. “They stole my son’s clothes. They dumped every drawer out and took a lot of his clothes with them.”

WBZ-TV’s Jim Armstrong Reports

Her house is only the most recent one hit. At least six others have been robbed over the past two weeks in Yarmouth alone.

All of them have happened in broad daylight.

“That’s a rash and that’s very serious,” according to Deputy Chief Steven Xiarhos of the Yarmouth Police Department.

“They’re pretty brash to be doing it in broad daylight,” he continued. “They’re forcing their way into homes.

People are at work or out shopping and these people are actually kicking in doors or breaking in windows.”

In Wednesday afternoon’s case, they almost got caught.

A friend of Reid’s son knocked on the door as the thieves were ransacking the place. He must have spooked them, because they immediately took off.

“I would say they’re getting a lot more brazen and there’s a lot more surveillance going on,” said Yarmouth Patrolman Chris Marino, who responded to the burglary at Reid’s home. “They’re not just hitting a random house.”

Harriet Laurin researched how much it would cost to heat her home this year and the news wasn’t good. “It was nearly $4.00 a gallon in the summertime, and I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ There’s got to be a better way, so I started looking.

That’s when she found www.neighboroil.com, a new company based in Andover which promises to save homeowners big bucks by earning points. The more points, the cheaper the oil.

WBZ-TV’s Kate Merrill Reports

Harriet’s first reaction wasn’t positive. “Scam. Scam. It’s got to be a scam. It looks too good to be true.”

CEO Paul Harkins says he’s hearing that a lot because people aren’t used to saving money on their heat. “You could buy food, clothes, airline tickets. You could reduce the price all the way down to almost nothing by using coupons and reward, incentives. Home heating oil never had that ability.”

So in the past, the only option to save money was to turn the thermostat down and grab another sweater. With Neighbor Oil the focus is on accumulating those points, and there are a couple of ways to do that.

First, you can get points by getting family and friends to sign up. Harkins says that is the most popular approach. “It’s as simple as ‘I found this site, check it out’.”

You can become one of their ambassadors on social media which is what Harriet did. “I did Facebook. I did list groups because I belong to a few Yahoo groups, mostly related to dogs. And guess what? Dog owners use oil too.”

The American pastime of shopping can also help you save money on your oil. Harkins explained, “The other way to earn points is to shop with our more than 3,000 retail partners. You will see the for X dollars you spend, you earn Neighbor Points. It’s very easy to do.”

Neighor Oil keeps track of your points and calculates your lower price every time your order oil. The savings can add up fast for the average client. “We are saving them 30%-35% over last year’s price,” said Harkins.

Harriet did even better than that. Way better in fact. “$1.70 for the entire delivery, a penny a gallon,” she bragged. That’s right. A penny a gallon.

Harriet prides herself on being a smart shopper and says she still can’t find a catch to the Neighbor Oil approach.

Neighbor Oil is free to use and doesn’t require any contracts. You do, however, have to use the supplier in your area who is part of their network.

Firefighters discovered two main central columns missing inside a building on Harrison Ave. The residents of the building were not allowed back in.

“We have structural deficiencies on the first and second floor of the building,” says District Fire Chief Dennis Keeley. “A number of columns have been removed so we’ve ordered the owner to hire an engineer to come in and evaluate the structure to see if it’s sound to occupy.”

WBZ-TV’s Jonathan Elias reports

Keeley says the top three floors of the old building are apartments and it is very tight living conditions. He estimates there are 33 units, which house 35 to 40 people. The floors have common kitchens and bathrooms.

An MBTA bus was on scene to keep the displaced residents warm.

“I was surprised the support columns were removed,” says Alex Szato, the building owner.

Szato says he had no idea there were any code violations in the building he bought three years ago. He told WBZ that he gets annual inspections, but did not know when the last one was.

Boston Fire says there is no imminent threat that the building will collapse.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Mark Katic Reports

But he had the same effect on the seniors. Roast Beef is an African Penguin from the New England Aquarium.

The aquarium got a letter from one of the residents asking for the visit, and they were so touched by the letter they brought Roast Beef out for a visit.

He was a hit and clearly has the ability to make folks of all ages smile.

WBZ-TV’s Jonathan Elias Reports

Officer Robert Robichaud is being credited with saving the life of a distraught woman who was threatening to jump from a rooftop.

Robichaud caught the woman as she fell head first from the roof in Dorchester. The incident happened on Wilbert Road.

He does not consider himself a hero, rather a police officer doing his job that had a good outcome.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Don Huff reports

The so-called “salt and pepper” bridge, which spans the Charles River between Boston and Cambridge, will get a $270 million makeover.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Mark Katic reports

WBZ-TV’s Bill Shields reports

The big change – outbound traffic to Cambridge will be narrowed down to one lane. The two inbound lanes to Boston will remain.

“There’s clear evidence that one lane coming out of Charles Street Circle going into Cambridge will easily accommodate existing traffic and future traffic growth.  Coming inbound from Cambridge to Boston, it was clear that two lanes was needed,” Richard Dimino, a member of a special task force overseeing the project, told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 Wednesday.

Sidewalks and bike lanes will also be wider.

“The bridge is going to be providing some new accommodations for bicyclists, pedestrians (and) new accessibility for folks that are physically challenged down at the Boston end of the bridge,” Dimino said.

“The bridge will also have a new pedestrian bridge that will cross over Storrow Drive and connect to the Charles River.”

The salt and pepper shaker towers will come down temporarily but they’ll be restored as repairs are done.

A hearing on the plan will be held March 1 at the state transportation building.

Officials hope to send the project to bid within 6 months.

So how will this affect commuters during construction, which is expected to start in the spring of 2013?

“There will be one lane inbound coming into Boston, but the traffic going into Cambridge will have to be diverted for a good portion of the time,” Dimino said.

“Mass Highway group has found a way working with the MBTA to keep Red Line service operating during the weekdays, which is very important because the Red Line service carries so many people. So folks that are counting on the Red Line day in and day out to get to their jobs will be able to continue to use it.”

Joyce Liberty was located Wednesday evening in Providence.

Police said disturbing text messages were received from her cell phone on Tuesday and Wednesday stating she was tied up, that she would be killed, and her body would be delivered.

The last message received from the phone is believed to be from Liberty on Wednesday. She said she was injured and had no idea where she was.

Anyone with information is asked to contact 401-462-6237.

Jennifer Lee and her children, who range in age from one to eight years old, were looking forward to the moment they would see Lt Col John Lee return to Massachusetts with his 26th Yankee Brigade after his year deployment. She says her children and other soldier’s families had made signs and were told it would be a daytime return.

But then, she says they got the word that the day changed, and then again another change that the soldiers would come home at 11 pm. For the Lees, that means the children won’t be able to be there.

WBZ-TV’s Karen Anderson reports

Jennifer says she is very disappointed. “I was really looking for that moment, so the kids can see him and hold their signs up they were working on. Just disappointment,” says Jennifer. “We already went through the sad part, I want to do the happy part.”

National Guard spokesperson Lt Col James Sahady released the following statements:

• “The Soldiers need to go through an “administrative process” in New Jersey before returning home and times vary based on the availability of the full-time support personnel at the active duty station: Joint Base Dix-McGuire-Lakehurst.”

• “The arrival of the soldiers at about 11:00 p.m. on February 9, 2012 in Reading is an informal welcome home ceremony held at the unit’s armory. The Massachusetts National Guard will hold a formal welcome home ceremony for all the Soldiers and Family members at a later date.”

• “The unit was initially scheduled to return home on Friday, Feb. 10, 2012, this would have required the unit to conduct the “administrative process” in Massachusetts on Saturday keeping the Soldiers away from their Families for an additional weekend. To expedite the completion of this mission and return our Soldiers to their Families, the Army gave permission for the unit to return home on Thursday.”

• “Our goal is to compress the three day post-deployment administrative process in Massachusetts into one day Friday. This will allow the opportunity to give the Soldiers a two-day weekend pass with their Families. By bringing the Soldiers home one day early, they will now have the weekend off.”

Jennifer says she would rather have the full family together to welcome Lt Col Lee home.

She will be there to pick up her husband, and wishes her children could share that moment as well.

“My kids who have sacrificed a lot over the past year, they’re going to miss out on that experience,” she says.

They say one video shows him assaulting the girl. Ettlinger just resigned as a Newton teacher.

WBZ-TV’s Kate Merill spoke with a mother who had arranged for him to babysit her kids in just a few days.

Watch The Report

“We felt lucky that we found somebody like that,” says Isabel Stover. “That he was a babysitter he was a teacher we felt like he’d be great with the kids.”

Isabel Stover admits when she hired David Ettlinger to babysit last October, everything seemed perfect.

Not only was he a local teacher in town, but her 8-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son approved.

“They liked him,” says Stover. “They asked ‘when can we have that guy back again?’”

In fact, the Stovers had him booked to sit next week on Valentine’s Day.

“I still think when I see his face he was really friendly looking, he had a nice smile,” says Stover. “We just connected on many levels.”

But now Ettlinger is behind bars, facing charges of child porn and assault on a child.

New charges just filed in Middlesex County allege Ettlinger photographed and sexually assaulted a young girl he was babysitting.

The charges are deeply disturbing to the Newton mom who found him on the popular babysitting match site “Sittercity”.

And while she doesn’t blame the site, the entire ordeal has taught her a tough lesson.

“I don’t think I could have done anything differently,” she says. “The only thing different is educate my kids.”

Sittercity released a statement saying they pulled his profile and contacted all parents who reached out to Ettlinger.

Ettlinger is being held on $50,000 cash bail.

Following this system we will actually see a warm up…SW winds in the mid levels and westerly winds at the surface will provide some good mixing and highs in the 40s even close to 50 again will be seen both tomorrow and Friday.

All eyes are on the weekend and a series of arctic fronts that mean business.  The first will pass through on Saturday so temps will be falling through the day.  The bigger question with it is can we manage to develop an area of low pressure along it to spin up some snow.  The answer still isn’t well-defined but at the very least we’ll see some snow showers with its passage.  The phasing between the southern and northern stream looks feeble and even if a storm materializes we’d be hard pressed to see accumulations over a couple of inches.  More interesting will most likely be the second arctic front that passes through on Sunday…snow squalls will be possible and temps will fall during the day.  The wind will be very gusty and windchills will be harsh in the single digits.

The arctic outbreak will last through Monday then another surge of 40+ temps works back in to New England.

Josh Beckett appeared on the MLB Network’s Intentional Talk with Kevin Millar and Chris Rose and drinking in the clubhouse was one of the topics.

Is what goes on in the clubhouse different from what happens on the field? Why can’t Beckett take responsibility?

How will new manager Bobby Valentine be able to change the culture in the Sox clubhouse?

One of those veterans was Rodney Harrison, the hard-hitting safety who played with the Patriots from 2003-08. Harrison was a member of the Super Bowl-winning teams in ’03 and ’04, and he was also on the losing end of the could-have-been perfect season in 2007.

Now a television analyst, Harrison said on ESPN Radio on Wednesday that the partying that Rob Gronkowski did after the Super Bowl loss on Sunday would have never been OK during the dynasty era.

“I guarantee you this, if Willie McGinest, Tedy Bruschi, Larry Izzo, Richard Seymour or myself had been at that party, [Gronkowski] probably would have got his head rung,”  Harrison told the Chicago radio station. “There’s no reason for that to happen.”

The 22-year-old Gronkowski was seen in pictures and video after the loss partying on stage with LMFAO and dancing with his shirt off. Harrison, who also lost a Super Bowl with San Diego in 1995, couldn’t understand that behavior.

“When we lost the Super Bowl, any of my Super Bowl losses, I was so devastated the last thing I ever wanted to do was party, let alone dance or take off your shirt,” he said. “It’s just immaturity. It’s not right. He made a mistake and I’m sure he feels absolutely stupid about it at this point. There’s a time and place for everything.

“The leadership has to step up and someone has to pull him to the side and say, ‘Look young man, this is inappropriate, this is not the time nor the place. You need to grow up,’” Harrison added.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Lana Jones reports.

According to WISH-TV in Indianapolis, the Department of Health is investigating whether a person with the contagious disease visited the Super Bowl village on Friday. Two people have since contracted measles.

Measles is a highly contagious illness that can be spread through the air by coughing or sneezing.

Read: Measles Fact Sheet (.pdf)

Symptoms include a high fever, runny nose, watery red eyes and a cough, followed days later by a rash.

Those who notice symptoms are encouraged to contact their doctors.

Anita Barry of the Boston Public Health Commission told WBZ-TV they are aware of the situation, but have not had any reports of measles cases here.

Barry said if you believe you have symptoms call your doctor, but don’t go in, in the event you may be infected.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone says if the charges aren’t disturbing enough, McAllister had contact with children as the baseball coach, a volunteer at a bible camp at St. Mary’s Church in Winchester, and an instructor at a Woburn jujitsu studio.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Mark Katic reports.

WBZ-TV’s Beth Germano reports

“He’s always been a good kid, everybody likes him he has a great heart. To see something happen like this, it’s terrible,” said his father Wayne McAllister.

Investigators say Raymond McAllister made contact with a 13-year-old boy in Arizona over the website Teenchat.com and then enticed him onto the webcam Skype to perform sex acts while they engaged in conversation.

According to State Police, the boy reported the contact to Arizona authorities leading them to track down the Internet address of the Skype account that was used. In December 2011, Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force were informed of the investigation and traced the account to McAllister’s Woburn home. Troopers seized his laptop computer where they allegedly found pornographic videos of young boys.

They say he admitted to often using websites frequented by boys ages 12 to 16 and convincing them to engage in a mutual sexual activity at least twice a week. If McAllister makes the $10,000 dollar bail that was set, he’s been ordered held under house arrest with no access to telephones.

A judge also ordered that computers be removed from the home.

Police originally arrested 40-year-old Daniel C. Stimpson on eight counts of breaking and entering, but prosecutors increased that total to 24 counts in all, including trespassing along with breaking and entering.

Stimpson was arrested Tuesday night after police released surveillance video that allegedly showed him breaking into the storage facility and stealing several big-ticket items, including TV’s, guitars and tools.

WBZ-TV’s Ken MacLeod reports

Revere police said the crime spree lasted ten days in January, with the suspect hitting 79 units in all. The value of the stolen goods was between $7,000 and $10,000, but that number could rise as more victims come forward.

Stimpson was already out on bail stemming from a Boston arrest for breaking and entering. He is also suspected in scrap metal thefts from MIT.

Prosecutors said Stimpson is a heroin user.

The removal had been scheduled for Tuesday night, but the prep work took longer than expected and workers wanted to start fresh Wednesday.

Crews began removing the section of the bridge Wednesday evening.

The barge will then float the span to a scrap yard in Everett, Mass.

WBZ-TV’s Lauren Leamanczyk reports

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Carl Stevens reports

The Coast Guard has shut down river traffic on the Piscataqua River until 7 a.m. Thursday to accommodate the work.

Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez was on hand to see the preparations.

A new bridge is expected to open in July 2013.

(TM and © Copyright 2011 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Now, Anna Larsen of Needham has written her very own symphony and it will debut this weekend.

She has been composing since she was 6 years old.

Check out Anna playing another one of her own compositions:

This weekend, her first symphony will premiere with Newton’s “New Philharmonia Orchestra.”

Check: Ticket Information

Those performances are Saturday and Sunday at the “First Baptist Church” in Newton Centre.

Maybe the Patriots would have gone on to beat the Giants, and the typically sure-handed receiver certainly wouldn’t be dealing with the unfair wrath of the media on a daily basis. Maybe he’s got his first Super Bowl ring and posting every 10 seconds on Twitter about how good it feels to be a champion, or what it’s like to have the world’s second most famous mustache (next to Tom Selleck, of course).

I don’t know, but I do know this:

Dinners out with the Brady’s are going to be awkward for a while! Can’t you just picture it?

Wes: Tom, could you pass the rolls?

Tom: Sure thing, Wes.

Gisele [under her breath]: Try not to drop them all over the table …

Wes: What’s that?

Gisele: Hmm? Oh, nothing.

Tom: So what are you guys gonna order?

Wes: The lobster looks good.

Gisele: Yeah, when you’re not the one catching it …

We’ve all heard Tom’s wife, Gisele Bundchen, and her postgame rant about how Tom-terrific would be better at your job than you are. Ask her and he could probably write this article better than I will, and I bet he’d drive a mean mail truck, too.

You could call her a brat, spoiled or just plain ignorant for saying, “My husband cannot f—ing throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time!” and you’d be about the one millionth person to do so. Just don’t call her man ‘OK-looking,’ or she might unleash one of her mystical supermodel powers.

You could call Brady a different guy than he was back when the Pats won three Super Bowls in four years, a glamorized version of himself that’s still awfully good at his job but just doesn’t have that same edge he once did. Will Smith comes to mind. If things go south in another three to four years, Nicholas Cage might as well. You wouldn’t be the first to make that accusation either.

Teammates are quick to defend Welker, as they should be. Win as a team, lose as a team. We know this. But, what we should also all keep in mind is that one play – or at least this play – doesn’t decide the Super Bowl. If Brady and Welker connect there, New England probably kicks a field goal or maybe scores a touchdown. Or, you could view it from the perspective of killing more clock late in the fourth, forcing the Giants into having to score a touchdown for the lead, or maybe putting the thing out of reach altogether as a two-possession game. If that’s all guaranteed, the experts are right and there should have been another duck boat parade this week.

Consider this, though, if common sense hasn’t allowed you to yet: Maybe Welker makes that catch, but the next play is a fumble, an interception or some divine intervention courtesy of Tim Tebow’s boy, Jesus. Maybe the Pats line up for that field goal, and Steven Goskowski Cundiffs it wildly into the crowd. Giants ball, still a 17-15 lead, and time for another heroic Eli comeback.

Hard as it is to believe after the year that was, but you can’t attack the defense too much. Before the game, if asked how we felt about limiting New York to 19 points (safety, aside), we’d all ask where to sign. But, the case can also be made that the group had to make one big stop, and it didn’t. The end, game over.

So, in Vegas-speak, that argument’s a push.

The point is, as has been well-documented, while a game can be defined by a mere moment or two – in this case, the Mario Manningham catch that was, and the Welker catch that wasn’t – the reality is there are so many other things that went wrong for New England in Indianapolis.

Brady was sub-standard on this night, made some poor throws, plus he was intercepted when trying to find an injured Rob Gronkowski, who’s good for much more than 26 yards when healthy. Twelve men on the field. Two drops on the final possession of the game.

None of those are excuses, just realities. It’s why we love the NFL. Some nights you get the Tuck Rule, others the Helmet Catch. You don’t get that in any other game.

Fans can rationalize this loss however they’d like.

Blame Welker, one of the best receivers in the franchise’s history, but I’m not buying it. Blame Brady, who obviously made some mistakes, but I dare you in good conscious to hang that whole game on his head. Call it a choke-job if you want, if you refuse to give the Giants the credit they deserve. Say it’s the end of an era – I don’t believe that either. Based on next year’s Super Bowl favorite odds, neither does Vegas.

As a Patriots fan, I do believe I now hate the Giants. In January of 2007, I couldn’t have cared less about them. One month later, I was bitter and full of angst. Now, they beat my team again on the biggest stage imaginable and I think I have more disdain for them than I do Sexy Rexy’s Jets. By training camp, I’ll probably have reverted back because, hey, as Bostonians, we just love to hate New York teams. Give us a reason, and we’ll hate the MLS Red Bulls.

Thing is, who cares? No matter how Gisele sees the world through her Tom-loving glasses, we’ve got to recognize as sports fans that the better team won at Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday. Whether Peyton or Eli, it truly is Manning’s house. If the Pats and Giants meet 10 times, perhaps they split. The way these games have ended, you could certainly make that case. But, Tom Coughlin’s G-Men have won the last three and, no matter how narrow the margin, he’s got the Pats figured out right now and you have to respect it. Not enjoy it, just respect it.

The Giants won the Super Bowl, and they’ve had better things to do since than to face questions about Tom’s gorgeous, famous wife opening her mouth. I don’t blame Brandon Jacobs for saying, “she just needs to continue to stay cute and shut up.”

That said, for everyone other than us media folks, it’s a dead issue. The season’s postmortem? That’s got a long way to go. So, I’ll just take my rational hat off and leave you as a bitter Pats fan:

Hey, Jacobs! You shut up! Go enjoy your stupid trophy! See ya next year, ya dink!

Adam Kaufman, a native of Massachusetts, joined the Sports Hub as an on-air personality in June 2011. He has worked as a television and radio anchor and broadcaster for various outlets since 2004, and his written views on sports and entertainment have appeared on NESN.com and in the New England Hockey Journal. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamMKaufman.

Investigators took 23-year-old Tyler Almeida of Taunton into custody Wednesday.

Police say he didn’t rob the Taunton Federal Credit Union, but stole a donation jar that was on a table in the lobby.

The nearly $900 inside was supposed to go to a local veterans group that was working to place small aluminum markers at the graves of every veteran buried in Taunton.

With a healthy sense of humor, Jeffrey likes making people laugh. He is curious and is interested in learning, as well as trying new activities. He is hoping to find a loving and supportive adoptive home where he feels like he belongs.

In his free time, Jeffrey loves playing video games and would like to join either a baseball or soccer team. He likes to draw, do arts and crafts and watch television and movies. Jeffrey also enjoys taking karate lessons. Jeffrey currently lives in a foster home where he is doing well and gets along with the other children in the home. Meeting with similar success in school, Jeffrey benefits from being a part of a therapeutic school setting.

WBZ-TV’s Jack Williams reports

Legally free for adoption, Jeffrey would do well in a family of any constellation, with or without other children. An active family that can work with Jeffrey on increasing his self-esteem would be ideal. Jeffrey enjoys contact with his siblings, which would need to continue after placement.

With the structure, stability, love and affection of a permanent family, Jeffrey will continue to triumph over the obstacles in his life and blossom.

To learn more about Jeffrey, and about adoption from foster care, call the Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE) at 617-54-ADOPT (617-542-3678) or visit www.MAREinc.org. The sooner you call, the sooner a waiting child will have “a permanent place to call HOME.”

“Oh yeah, at every ballpark. There wasn’t one ballpark that I probably didn’t stay up all night, until four or five in the morning, and the same thing is still in your system,” Boyd told WBZ NewsRadio 1030’s Jonny Miller in Fort Myers, Fla. “It’s not like you have time to go do it while in the game, which I had done that.

“Some of the best games I’ve ever, ever pitched in the major leagues I stayed up all night; I’d say two-thirds of them,” said Boyd,  who spent eight of his 10 major league seasons with the Red Sox. “If I had went to bed, I would have won 150 ballgames in the time span that I played. I feel like my career was cut short for a lot of reasons, but I wasn’t doing anything that hundreds of ball players weren’t doing at the time; because that’s how I learned it.”

Despite that, Boyd said he has no regrets.

“It was something that I had to deal with personally and I succumbed,” he said. “I lived through my life and I feel good about myself. I have no regrets about what I did or said about anything that I said or did. I’m a stand-up person and I came from a quality background of people.”

Boyd, who went 78-77 with 799 career strikeouts with the Red Sox, Expos and Rangers, said he received support from some teammates, but not all.

“All of them didn’t rally around me,” he explained. “All of them knew and the ones that cared came to me. The Dwight Evans and Bill Buckners… It was the veteran ball players. Some guys lived it… They knew what you were doing, and the only way they knew was they had to have tried it too.”

Boyd explained why he believes he got a worse reputation than some others.

“The reason I caught the deep end to it is because I’m black. The bottom line is the game carries a lot of bigotry, and that was an easy way for them to do it,” Boyd said. “If I wasn’t outspoken and a so-called a ‘proud black man,’ maybe I would have gotten the empathy and sympathy like other ballplayers got that I didn’t get; like Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Steve Howe. I can name 50 people that got third and fourth chances all because they weren’t outspoken black individuals.”

Boyd said he was never asked to take a drug test during his playing days.

“I never had a drug test as long as I played baseball,” he said. “I was told that, yeah, if you don’t stop doing this we’re going to put you into rehab, and I told them (expletive) that (expletive).  I’m going to do what I have to do, I have to win ball games. We’ll talk about that in the offseason, right now I have to win ball games.”

The retired Red Sox pitcher has been busy as of late. His autobiography, “They Call Me Oil Can,” is scheduled for publication in June. In May, he will be filming his role as pitcher Satchel Paige in a major motion picture about Jackie Robinson, starring Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey, Richard Gere and Chadwick Boseman as Robinson, the first African-American to play Major League Baseball.