BOSTON

‘Boomtown’ host Trailer dies at family’s home in Florida

Rex Trailer, the native Texan beloved by a generation of New England children for the cowboy skills he demonstrated on the Boston-based television show “Boomtown,” has died.

His friend and manager Michael Bavaro said Trailer died Wednesday at his family’s home in Florida. He was 84. Trailer had gone to Florida for the holidays when he fell ill with pneumonia, but the exact cause of death was not immediately clear.

“Boomtown” ran on Boston television from 1956 until 1974. Trailer hosted the show, singing, playing guitar and showing off the horse-riding, roping and other cowboy skills he had learned as a boy on his grandfather’s ranch in Texas.

Trailer also taught on-camera performance and production at Emerson College in Boston since the mid-1970s, and ran his own production company.

PROVIDENCE, R.I.

Rhode Island brothers face counts in cooking oil scheme

Two Rhode Island brothers have pleaded not guilty in an alleged scheme to steal $430,000 worth of used cooking oil from hundreds of restaurants in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Andrew and Bruce Jeremiah of Cranston pleaded not guilty during an arraignment Thursday in federal court in Providence to charges of conspiracy to transport stolen goods and interstate transportation of stolen property.

The brothers were charged last month with overseeing the alleged scheme.

Prosecutors said they directed another man, Anthony Simone Sr., to drive a truck to the restaurants between midnight and 6 a.m. and pump used cooking oil into a tank inside the truck. Later, they would sell it to a New Hampshire business that uses it for animal feed and biofuel.

Simone has pleaded not guilty.

MANCHESTER, N.H.

Police arrest two men after convenience store robbery

Police arrested two men following an armed convenience store robbery.

The clerk at Tedeschi Food Mart said two masked men, one them armed with a knife, entered the store about 1 a.m. Thursday and demanded cash. They removed cash from the register and took some cigarettes before fleeting.

Police later arrested 19-year-old Jesse Reidy and 18-year-old Brannon Collins, both of Manchester, on charges of resisting detention and robbery.

CONCORD, N.H.

Rudman memorial service to be held at courthouse

A memorial service honoring former U.S. Sen. Warren Rudman has been scheduled at the federal building named after him in New Hampshire.

Rudman’s life and career will be celebrated at 3 p.m. on Jan. 25 at the federal courthouse in Concord.

The memorial service is open to the public.

Rudman, who died Nov. 19 at 82, co-authored a groundbreaking budget balancing law, championed ethics and led a commission that predicted the danger of homeland terrorist attacks before 9/11.

The feisty former New Hampshire attorney general went to the Senate in 1981 with a reputation as a tough prosecutor, and was called on by Senate leaders and by presidents of both parties to tackle tough assignments.

— From news service reports