Noah Rayman

Menino was the city's longest-serving mayor, who led for more than two decades

Thomas M. Menino, the beloved former mayor of Boston who led the city for more than two decades, died Thursday. He was 71, and his passing was confirmed in a statment on his Facebook page.

Menino, who served five terms in office to become the city’s longest-serving mayor, was diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer soon after stepping down earlier this year. Last week, Menino announced that he would stop chemotherapy treatment — and suspend a tour to promote his book Mayor for a New America — to spend more time with his family and friends.

“At just after 9:00am this morning the Honorable Thomas M. Menino passed into eternal rest after a courageous battle with cancer,” the statement said. “He was surrounded by his devoted wife Angela, loving family and friends. Mayor Menino, the longest serving Mayor of the City of Boston, led our city through a transformation of neighborhood resurgence and historic growth—leaving the job he loved, serving the city and people he loved this past January. We ask that you respect the families’ privacy during this time and arrangements for services will be announced soon.”

Menino is credited with overseeing the ascent of Boston’s skyline and leading the city through economic downturns to become a hub for business and technology. The city’s first mayor of Italian descent, according to the Boston Globe, Menino’s oldschool political style won him the support of the city, leaving office with an approval rating of nearly 80%. A 2008 Globe poll found that more than half of the Boston respondents said they had met him personally.

Read TIME’s 2013 profile of Menino here: The Last of the Big-City Bosses

The company's claims to Lee's characters, which include Spider-Man and the X-Men, are "simply implausible"

The company co-founded by but long since unaffiliated with comic book tycoon Stan Lee does not own the rights to his most famous characters, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 9th Circuit ruled that a federal judge in Los Angeles appropriately dismissed the case in 2012, saying that the Colorado-based company Stan Lee Media Inc. never demonstrated that Lee had given it the rights to his characters.

SLMI was founded in 1998 but declared bankruptcy in 2001. Its shareholders are asserting their claim over Lee’s characters.

“Give the significant value of these franchise, SLMI’s failure to publicize, protect, or exploit its right to profit from the characters establishes that these claims are simply implausible,” the court said.

After an investigation found fault in the military's handling of claims

The Pentagon will provide long-term health monitoring for American service members and veterans who were exposed to chemical agents in Iraq, according to a report Thursday, in a move that comes after an investigation earlier this month found fault in how the military responded to troops’ claims.

The New York Times reports that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was said to have ordered a review into the military’s handling of troops who came forward about their exposure following its explosive investigation that found at least 17 U.S. service members had been exposed to abandoned mustard and nerve agents dating back to the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Eight new cases have emerged since the report was published in mid-October, the Times said Thursday, and the U.S. government has neither released a list of those incidents, nor of the abandoned chemical weapons found in Iraq.

[New York Times]

School says it's not "an endorsement of any of Mr. Maher’s prior statements"

The University of California, Berkeley says it will not rescind an invitation to comedian Bill Maher to be the school’s commencement speaker, despite a student vote to disinvite him.

The student committee in charge of the speaker selection process voted to rescind the HBO host’s invitation on Tuesday amid growing criticism of Maher’s views on religion and particularly Islam. More than 4,000 people have signed a petition on Change.org to cancel Maher’s December commencement speech.

But on Wednesday, the university released a statement saying it will not accept the student vote.

“The UC Berkeley administration cannot and will not accept this decision, which appears to have been based solely on Mr. Maher’s opinions and beliefs, which he conveyed through constitutionally protected speech,” the school said. “It should be noted that this decision does not constitute an endorsement of any of Mr. Maher’s prior statements: indeed, the administration’s position on Mr. Maher’s opinions and perspectives is irrelevant in this context, since we fully respect and support his right to express them.”

Maher’s response to the controversy? You’ll have to watch the show:

Read next: Watch Ben Affleck and Bill Maher Argue About Islam

She even declares Colbert a feminist

The tech executive's first public acknowledgement

Sotheby's calls the valuation of what it determined to be a Caravaggio copy "preposterous"

A man is suing Sotheby’s in London after a painting he sold in 2006 for $68,000 was valued to be worth up to $17.7 million.

Bill Thwaytes, from northern England, has accused Sotheby’s of “professional negligence,” according to the BBC, after the new owner declared the painting to be done by the Italian baroque master Caravaggio.

Thwaytes, whose family bought the painting for $226 in 1962, says Sotheby’s failed to thoroughly research the artwork when it determined that the painting–depicting a wealthy man playing cards with two swindlers, called “The Cardsharps”–was a 17^th century follower’s copy rather than the real deal.

Sotheby’s stands by its analysis and says the $17.7 million valuation is “preposterous.”

[BBC]