UPDATE: The director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency said that firefighters responded to 60 to 80 structure fires Thursday in the three communities affected by a series of natural gas explosions. Kurt Schwartz said Friday that firefighters in Lawrence, North Andover, and Andover responded to about 150 emergency calls, adding that close to 400 people spent the night in emergency shelters. The cause of the fires and explosions remains under investigation.

Almost 20 years ago, when Denver International Airport was still brand new and I may have been a little too brash, I detailed in this space some of the airport’s most noticeable problems. A few Denver residents have never quite forgiven me.

Now I read that our friends in the Mile High City are getting ready to spend over a billion dollars updating and expanding the fifth-busiest airport in the United States. Yes, I said a billion dollars. For that kind of money, maybe I can sneak in a few kind words.

A New York moment: 

Good luck keeping up with all the corruption trials going on here in the Empire State. Since the U.S. Supreme Court let off Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in 2016, setting a higher legal standard for corruption cases, federal judges here have tossed out corruption convictions of two top New York politicians. 

A New York moment in London:

New York pastor Tim Keller, who recently retired from Redeemer Presbyterian Church, spoke to a group of British members of Parliament in late June at the United Kingdom’s National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast. The audience of 170 included members of Parliament and the House of Lords, as well as Prime Minister Theresa May. 

A New York moment: 

Monday was the city’s big fashion night, the Met Gala held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This year’s theme was plastered on the front of the museum: “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” The evening featured, of course, high profile celebrities dressed in sometimes unsettling tributes to Catholicism—the pop star Rihanna, for example, came dressed as a glittery pope. 

A New York moment: The Girl Scouts of Greater New York designates troop numbers by the city’s five boroughs—1000 for the Bronx, and so on—but last year the organization started a Girl Scout Troop 6000, serving girls in the city’s homeless shelters. Troop 6000 now has 297 members from 14 shelters, according to Buzzfeed.

A New York moment: 

Recently I took the NYC Ferry from Manhattan to visit my relatives in Queens at a cost of $2.75. The new and popular ferry has relieved some of the stress on the overcrowded subway system—3 million riders took the city ferry last year after service began. The ferry boats are a return to the city’s first public transportation. They were the main way early New Yorkers—going all the way back to the 1600s—traveled to Queens, Brooklyn, and New Jersey.