Six months after tragic Gabriel House fire, is Fall River safer?                   FALL RIVER — Six months after the deadly fire at Gabriel House assisted living facility exposed how short-staffing in the Fall River Fire Department cost lives, firefighters have received their share of congratulations for their heroism, seen proposals for change, heard promises that everyone in power would take steps to improve working conditions. Firefighter Michael O’Reagan said for boots-on-the-ground firefighters, actual progress on improving their conditions has been minimal.

'Flanagan's Law' would build a state list of violent criminals.                         FALL RIVER — Former mayor Will Flanagan is championing a bill filed in the state House of Representatives that would create a centralized state database for people considered “violent or dangerous.” The bill, dubbed “Flanagan’s Law,” was filed by state Rep. Alan Silvia. On the afternoon of Oct. 20, Flanagan was assaulted and nearly killed in an evidently random attack, stabbed five times while walking from a Walgreens store to his office at Cosmopolitan dispensary on Hanover Street.