Mercy

SOMERVILLE — On its recent debut album, Fistful of Mercy — the new collective featuring Ben Harper, Joseph Arthur, and Dhani Harrison — puts a pleasantly off-kilter twist on the Crosby, Stills, and Nash model, embellishing their harmony-saturated folk-rock tunes with ambient and psychedelic fillips. While enjoyable, the record feels a bit too ethereal in places. In concert Thursday night at the Somerville Theatre, the trio — with a big boost from gracefully simpatico violinist and Sheffield native Jessy Greene — brought the songs of “As I Call You Down’’ to terra firma, fleshing them...

France has bestowed honors on three dozen World War II veterans at the U.S. Military Academy. The French ambassador to the United States awarded the French Legion of Honor during a ceremony held Tuesday at West Point, on the Hudson River north of New York City. It's the highest decoration given by France. Since 2005, more than 300 American veterans who fought in France during the Second World War have received the honor. Among those receiving the Legion of Honor at West Point were several combat veterans from New York.

ATHENS -- Jennie Finch and the United States softball team made an Olympic debut that was sweaty, short, and thoroughly satisfying. Finch didn't allow a hit in three innings, and the Americans began their run toward a third straight gold medal yesterday with a shortened 7-0 victory over Italy. Natasha Watley went 4 for 4, hitting a two-run double in the fifth inning to put the US up by seven runs, invoking the mercy rule that ended the game. Three-time Olympian Lisa Fernandez had an RBI single as the US extended its winning streak to 71 games since July 2003.

Pavel Dzemianok for the Boston Globe East Boston freshman infielder Stephanie Rizzo beats the throw to home on Tuesday afternoon at Madison Park. The Jets crossed home plate 19 times compared to the Cardinals eight runs. By Justin A. Rice, Globe Correspondent ROXBURY -- After she scored a run in both the first and second inning on Wednesday afternoon, Nicolette D'Andrea was the only batter in East Boston's lineup that failed to cross home plate in an eight-run third inning that broke open the Jets' 19-8 victory at Madison Park.

The original title of T.I.’s latest was “King Uncaged,’’ but after he was sent back to prison for the third time in November, a change was in order. The retitled “No Mercy’’ often sounds at war with itself; the tone of the album feels all wrong — part of it exults in hedonistic impulses while other parts are acts of contrition and pleas for sympathy. Some of the best tracks strut with the undeniable T.I. charm and bravado, including “Welcome to the World,’’ “How Life Changed,’’ and the Dr. Luke-produced “That’s All She Wrote,’’ with Eminem.

Bernie Williams and Carlos Beltrán homered and Puerto Rico routed Cuba, 12-2, last night in San Juan. Both teams had already secured spots in the second round. Williams, named the best player in Pool C, hit a two-run homer to right in the second before a home crowd of 19,000 fans. Beltrán hit a towering three-run homer over the foul pole in right field and Alex Cintrón also had a two-run shot for Puerto Rico, which won in seven innings. It was just the second time Cuba has lost by the mercy rule.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Kosuke Fukudome hit back-to-back homers in the fifth inning yesterday to lead Japan to an 18-2 rout of China in the World Baseball Classic in Tokyo. The game was called after eight innings under the tournament's mercy rule. Seattle Mariners slugger Ichiro Suzuki, the only position player from the major leagues representing Japan, went 1 for 6 with an RBI. Hideki Matsui of the Yankees and infielder Tadahito Iguchi of the White Sox opted to sit out the tournament.

WELLFLEET -- "No. No. No. " Conflict being the heart of drama, isn't that a terrific way to start a play? Corinne (Laura Esterman), a gin-steeped widow, is fending off a home invasion of sorts: Her late husband made a deathbed decision to will their house to her born-again stepdaughter, Rena (Tanya Clarke), who has just now shown up with her priggish minister spouse (Mark Rosenthal) to claim the cluttered old homestead. Corinne can stay on if she agrees to behave -- that is, quit drinking and find succor in Jesus instead.

What’s it like in a meeting when TV producers build a hospital drama like NBC’s new “Mercy’’? Is it like a group Lego project - put the arrogant doctor here, put the new nurse who gets puked on here, put the storage closet where staff hook up here? Do the creators have fun piecing such a prefabricated show together, or is it a chore? And is “Grey’s Anatomy’’ actually named, or is it left tacit, so as not to be spoken in vain? “Mercy,’’ which premieres at 8 p.m. on Channel 7, is a bunch of played-out hospital clichés placed together...

Pavel Dzemianok for the Boston Globe East Boston freshman infielder Stephanie Rizzo beats the throw to home on Tuesday afternoon at Madison Park. The Jets crossed home plate 19 times compared to the Cardinals eight runs. By Justin A. Rice, Globe Correspondent ROXBURY -- After she scored a run in both the first and second inning on Wednesday afternoon, Nicolette D'Andrea was the only batter in East Boston's lineup that failed to cross home plate in an eight-run third inning that broke open the Jets' 19-8 victory at Madison Park.

She and her fellow jurors in the terrorism trial of Tarek Mehanna had no choice but to find him guilty. And she cannot fault the government for charging the Sudbury man in the first place, she said. But still, she struggles to sleep at night. If she had the opportunity, Beverly A. Richards said she would have asked US District Court Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. to show mercy before sentencing 29-year-old Mehanna to 17 1/2 years in prison Thursday, because she saw too many things wrong with the case.

The other day , Jörg Krämer, chief economist for Commerzbank in Frankfurt, said of the Greeks, ‘‘If you live beyond your means, then you can repair your balance sheet only if your consumption goes down. " This sentiment has become a German mantra. Germany's price for the latest bailout deal has been an insistence on an ever-more intense and self-defeating Greek austerity program, which has now pushed Greece to the brink of a social catastrophe. But the Germans might take a moment and reflect on their own history.

He picked up his reading glasses, and put down his wet tissue. Baldwin Ihenacho, a Dorchester pharmacist, had his first opportunity to address US District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns since his arrest in 2008, and he had much to say. And he said it, in between tears and cries. "I apologize to my family and friends and to you and this court," he began, failing to hold back his sobs. "It was a betrayal of my family, of my friends, of my profession, and I betrayed the core principles and core values on which I had been brought up....

History is the vehicle for most of Barry Unsworth's novels, but he never lets the vehicle preempt the passengers. It is for their sake that he provides it; to display and explore their complexities as if only in movement might a character's concealing pleats unfurl. In "Losing Nelson," the charting of the admiral's battles serves to illuminate the wondrously kinky landscape of the hobbyist who charts them. In "The Songs of the Kings," the Trojan War is a tragicomic ring for a circus of Greek dolts and schemers, as well as a beautifully inflected satire on our contemporary...

When regular riders gripe about the MBTA, it's rarely because the system is too warm, too personal, or too brimming with holiday cheer. So it's gratifying that T officials let a dispatcher off with nothing more than a light reprimand after he programmed electronic message boards at Park Street station to display the lyrics to "Deck the Halls. " If anything, many riders' spirits rose as digital "fas" and "las" brightened the subway platform, and as an affectless electronic voice read along.

The money broker who unwittingly provided $7,000 to Times Square bomb plotter Faisal Shahzad (FY'-sul shah-ZAHD') says his life has been plunged into emotional and financial chaos, and he hopes he can avoid jail time for his family's sake. Mohammad Younis of Centereach, on New York's Long Island, pleaded guilty in August to an illegal banking charge. Prosecutors say Younis provided $7,000 in $100 bills to Shahzad. The Bridgeport, Conn., man drove an SUV to Times Square on May 1, 2010, and tried to set off a propane-and-gasoline bomb.

DUBLIN - A major Irish order of Roman Catholic nuns, the Sisters of Mercy, offered yesterday to pay child abuse victims, the government, and charities a further $193.5 million to compensate for decades of abuse in its schools and orphanages. The compensation offer to the Irish Education Department is by far the largest from 18 orders of Catholic priests, brothers, and nuns found guilty of chronic child abuse. They ran scores of residential schools, workhouses, and orphanages for generations of Ireland’s most deprived children from the mid-19th century to the 1990s.

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. -- Agnes Mary Mansour, who gave up her religious vows rather than resign as Michigan's welfare director in a showdown with the Vatican over abortion, has died. She was 73. Miss Mansour died Friday at McAuley Center, an assisted-living facility operated by the Sisters of Mercy. She was a member of the order for 30 years and an associate for the 20-plus years following dispensation from her vows. Controversy arose in the 1980s over her role as a nun and as head of an agency that oversaw Medicaid funding for abortions for low-income...

The baseball gods were merciful this week in sparing the Red Sox a one-game playoff for the American League wild card slot. That would only have reinforced the comparisons, made frequently this week, with the 1978 team, which lost a one-game playoff on the infamous Bucky Dent homer. Any linkage would have been deeply unfair to the '78 team, which won its last eight games to force the playoff. This year's squad did nothing to deserve such a chance. Every day, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia fought valiantly to keep the team alive, sometimes with the help of Marco Scutaro, but the rest of the...