By RODRIQUE NGOWI and PATRICK WHITTLE

BOSTON (AP) — It wasn’t a croc — there really was an alligator on the loose in Boston.

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And the story of the city’s slithering saurian appears to have a happy ending. The small alligator, spotted along the Charles River in Boston multiple times this week, has been rescued and delivered to safety, wildlife officials in Massachusetts said Thursday.

The roughly foot-long crocodilian startled a few people and became an instant social media star after confused onlookers took videos of it slipping out of sight. But the animal is not native to Massachusetts, and couldn’t possibly survive the harsh New England winter, so the search for the wayward gator was on.

A local wildlife educator captured the critter on Wednesday night, and it’s now awaiting a permanent home, officials said.

Harvard University graduate student Whitney Lieberman was among the residents who caught a glimpse of the exotic visitor. She notified wildlife authorities when she saw the creature while she was jogging to work.

“Yeah, I did a double-take. For a second, I had to check myself — alligators are not native to Boston waterways, right?” Lieberman said. “I texted my coworkers because I had a morning meeting: ‘Hey guys, this is a good excuse to be late for work. There is an alligator right in front of me and I don’t know what to do.’”

This image provided by Whitney Lieberman shows a small alligator sighted on the Charles River Esplanade, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025 in Boston. (Whitney Lieberman via AP)

The animal was in jeopardy due to the chilly temperatures. It was 51 degrees Fahrenheit along the Charles on Thursday. Alligators prefer temperatures above 80 degrees. They are cold-blooded and can’t regulate their own temperature, so they enter a dormant, energy-saving state called brumation to survive colder temperatures.

Joe Kenney, who runs a wildlife education business called Joe’s Craz-zy Critters, captured the alligator, the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife said in a statement. It said the state has temporarily authorized Kenney to keep it for now while it evaluates where to find a long-term place for it.

Kenney, of Abington, Massachusetts, said the alligator, being young and just a foot long, is basically harmless to humans. He said he located it by walking in the area where it was last reported and was “a little shocked” when he found it.

Joe Kenney holds an alligator he rescued after it was discovered in Boston’s Charles River, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025 in Abington, Mass. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)

He said fans of the reptile have reached out to him and some asked to name it “Charles.” Kenney said the animal was probably someone’s impulse purchase, but not a good idea for a pet.

“An alligator isn’t designed to live in a fish tank. Really, ideally, it should be living out in the swamp in the southern United States,” Kenney said. “And they can get pretty big. So even though this guy is still little, by the time he’s somewhere around 10, 15 years old, he’ll be an adult alligator.”

Adult alligators can grow to more than 11 feet long and weigh more than 500 pounds.

The wildlife department said the alligator’s appearance is still under investigation, but added it was most likely a pet that escaped or was intentionally released.

Joe Kenney holds an alligator he rescued after it was discovered in Boston’s Charles River, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025 in Abington, Mass. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)

“MassWildlife is working in close collaboration with the Environmental Police to find a safe home for this alligator as an educational animal with a permitted facility. This incident serves as an important reminder that it is not legal to keep alligators or any crocodilian species as pets in Massachusetts,” state herpetologist Mike Jones said in a statement.

Alligators have a history of occasionally showing up in urban areas far from their native ranges. One, dubbed Chance the Snapper, turned up in Chicago in summer 2019 and was eventually trapped. Another one showed up on the Charles River in the Boston area in 2010.

Whittle reported from Scarborough, Maine.

By MAKIYA SEMINERA

Vital federal funding is on the way for Head Start centers that were thrown into crisis by the government shutdown, but it could take time before some children who rely on the federal program can return to preschool.

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Some centers that missed out on federal payments had to furlough staff. Others had to shut down entirely, destabilizing thousands of needy families around the country. And operators fear it could take weeks more for overdue payments to be processed.

Even when agencies receive long-delayed grant money, centers will have to rehire staff members and bring back families — both of which may have grown wary of instability in the program, which relies almost entirely on federal grants.

“The damage has been done in a lot of ways,” Massachusetts Head Start Association Executive Director Michelle Haimowitz said. “We know that it’s going to take some time to fill back up.”

About 140 Head Start programs representing 65,000 slots didn’t receive their annual grants during the 43-day shutdown, which concluded when President Donald Trump signed a government funding bill Wednesday night.

Head Start serves children from low-income families from birth to age 5. The program offers a variety of services to families, such as early learning, support for children with disabilities, free meals and health screenings.

With the shutdown over, the federal Office of Head Start will expedite funding and contact affected Head Start programs to share when they can expect federal money, said Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the program.

Head Start operators anticipate that could take weeks.

Federal workers are returning to “a mountain of work” that will take time to process, Haimowitz said. That doesn’t just include sending out missed grant awards — other paperwork for a range of technical issues has been delayed since layoffs at the Office of Head Start earlier this year, she said.

“Those delays have just been piling up since April, with no fault to the existing civil servants at the Office of Head Start,” Haimowitz said. “They just have half the capacity that they had just a few months ago.”

Families prepare for the worst-case scenario

Depending on how quickly federal workers can send out funds, the backlog in grant renewals could spill over and affect Head Start agencies that are supposed to receive funding in December, operators said. Some of the families who attend those centers are already making preparations for that worst-case scenario.

Gena Storer, who works as a home health aide in Xenia, Ohio, is trying to “make as much money as I possibly can” in case her daughter’s Head Start center closes. The center staff told parents hours before the government reopened that they still expect to shutter temporarily on Dec. 1 if funding is delayed, Storer said.

If the center closes, Storer’s 4-year-old daughter, Zarina, will stay at home until it reopens. Storer will then need to adjust her work hours to make sure she can be home with Zarina while her fiance works 12-hour shifts at a Target distribution center.

Uncertainty about SNAP federal food aid payments has also added stress for Storer’s family. Storer had been working extra hours through the shutdown to help provide for her 72-year-old mother, who also uses SNAP benefits.

“If my mom didn’t have us to help her, what would she do?” the 31-year-old said.

For Storer, Head Start has been more than a reliable option for child care. Zarina used to receive speech therapy to address her lack of speaking. But since starting Head Start in September, Storer said she’s noticed her daughter becoming more talkative and outgoing because she learns from having conversations with her classmates.

Programs pay out-of-pocket to keep doors open

Programs that stayed open without a guarantee of reimbursement by the federal government could also face further financial strains. At Louis Russ’ home day care in Knox County, Indiana, he and his wife are planning a pop-up toy shop out of their garage to offset money they might lose by staying open.

Russ and his wife started operating a day care out of their home in April and partnered soon after with East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, a nonprofit that serves children of migrant farmworkers across 10 states. Six out of the eight children in Russ’ home day care are Head Start-funded.

East Coast Migrant Head Start Project was one of the programs affected by a funding lapse, which resulted in more than 1,000 children being shut out of their centers. Russ and his wife also stopped receiving their Head Start payments at the end of October, but the decision to keep their home open was a “no brainer,” Russ said. Offering the children consistency during an otherwise unpredictable time was important to them, he said.

“Staying open and keep taking the children we have, that was the easy part,” he said. “Figuring out how we’re going to stay open if this goes on too long, that’s the tricky part.”

It’s been tense operating the program without knowing when funding will be released. Russ and his wife already took a pay cut, and they have another employee on the payroll. About three-quarters of their budget is payroll, Russ said, but other expenses like groceries and maintenance needs can stack up quickly without an income.

“Our program, being so new, we were running pretty bare bones as is,” Russ said. “And especially in child care, which doesn’t have a huge profit margin, there’s only so much wiggle room when things like this happen.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The Macalester College “community is heartbroken” by the death of a student in an off-campus accident, the St. Paul college announced Thursday.

Binta Maina, 21, was a senior biology and neuroscience major with a minor in psychology.

St. Paul police responded to a medical assist call in the Snelling-Hamline neighborhood just before 11:30 p.m. Sunday.

Multiple witnesses told officers that Maina accidentally fell down a flight of stairs inside a residence in the 1500 block of Hague Avenue where a party was taking place, according to Nikki Muehlhausen, a police spokesperson.

St. Paul Fire Department medics took Maina to the hospital.

“Binta was a cherished member of our community — bright, kind, and full of life,” according to a social media post from Macalester College. She “was known for her intelligence, her vibrant sense of style, and her deep love for her family and friends.

“We grieve this unimaginable loss alongside the Maina family, holding them — and everyone who knew and loved Binta — in our hearts during this difficult time.”

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Major League Soccer owners voted Thursday to shift the league’s season to a late-summer to spring calendar in 2027, bringing it more in line with its international counterparts.

The shift aims to put MLS in a more competitive position for player transfers while also freeing up players for national team duty during the summer, when many major international tournaments take place.

This season, the league started play in late February, with a break for the Club World Cup over the summer. The MLS Cup championship game is set for Dec. 6.

The vote came at the Board of Governors meeting in Palm Beach, Fla. Under the new calendar, league play would kickoff in mid- to late July, with the final day of the regular season in April. The playoffs and championship would take place in May.

Minnesota United posted an FAQ web page on its site that includes a note to fans from team chief executive officer Shari Ballard.

“We’re still more than a year out from this change, so we don’t have all of the answers right now, but we do have several,” she wrote, telling Loons fans the change was made to better integrate with the global transfer market and FIFA windows, as well as move the primary transfer window to the offseason.

The entire 2026 season, she added, “is unaffected.”

Under the new plan, MLS would go on an extended break during the winter, with just a few games played in early December and no games in January before resuming in early to mid-February.

The league is working with the Major League Soccer Players Association to finalize the transition.

While there were concerns about weather challenges during the winter months, teams like Minnesota United and the Chicago Fire already face cold and sometimes snowy conditions. In a March 2024 match, Real Salt Lake and LAFC played in blizzard conditions in Sandy, Utah.

But with a warming climate, matches in the summer months have become problematic, too. Soaring temperatures were a concern at some of the Club World Cup matches this past July and August.

The current schedule was based on not only the geography of the United States, but also the tastes of the American sports fan, avoiding the crowded months when NFL plays its biggest games, and the NBA and NHL are in full swing.

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Apple TV subscribers will be able to watch all MLS matches without an additional subscription beginning next year.

During the first three years of MLS’ 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement with Apple, a standalone Season Pass subscription was needed to access all matches. During this season, over 200 matches were simulcast on both MLS Season Pass and Apple TV, including the league’s “Sunday Night Soccer” package.

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