What was interesting about Thursday’s press conference at Boston City Hall on how the city plans to cope with the fallout of the Annie Dookhan scandal was who showed up — and who didn’t. Mayor Thomas Menino was there, along with Police Commissioner Ed Davis; Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley; US Attorney Carmen Ortiz; Menino’s director of intergovernmental relations, Marie St. Fleur; Boston police Superintendent-in-Chief Daniel Linsky; a representative from the Probation Department; and Greg Torres, MassINC’s president and CommonWealth’s publisher, who is part of a group looking to develop support for a statewide reentry program.

Surprisingly, no one from the Patrick administration stood with the mayor. (Probation doesn’t count; it’s in the judiciary.) By most accounts, state officials are cooperating with local authorities, but the absence of state officials at the event was noticeable.

Conley went out of his way to emphasize that the mistakes originated with the state drug lab but the burden of coping with them will fall to local communities. “This is an utter disgrace,” Conley said. “We will have to deal with the fallout.”

Dookhan, a chemist at the state drug lab, has admitted tampering with some of the evidence she tested over the years, a confession that has cast a legal cloud over all her work. Boston officials say 1,140 inmates in the state prison system could be released, about half of them likely to return to Suffolk County.

Conley suggested it may be time for the Boston Police Department, instead of the state, to handle drug testing for Suffolk County cases. Menino called for the state and federal governments to pony up money for municipalities to deal with the problem. He said the Boston Police Department needs at least $3.5 million.

As Menino made his case, Shawn Drumgold was in court across town trying to toss out a drug conviction against him on the grounds that Dookhan was involved in testing the drugs. One of Dookhan’s fellow chemists, Daniella Frasca, testified that she tested the cocaine and heroin that sent Drumgold to jail, and that Dookhan merely transferred the samples, NECN reported.

Conley said the inmates who could be released are not low-level drug users. “These are people with violent histories across the board,” he said.

Davis told CommonWealth there will be a surge in crime. The city is launching “crisis reentry” teams of police, probation officers, and street workers who will work with freed offenders to help them reenter society but also send a message of “zero tolerance” for criminal activity, the Globe reported.

                                                                                                                –BRUCE MOHL

BEACON HILL

Does Beacon Hill’s 20-year history of bipartisan weekly meetings among the state’s top leaders offer lessons for solving partisan gridlock in Washington? Bruce Mohl and Sam Obar take an inside look at the Beacon Hill leadership meetings in the cover story of CommonWealth’s newly released fall issue.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

Swansea library officials told selectmen that, unless the library’s budget is raised, they will lose state certification as well as state funds.

Newton Mayor Setti Warren fires the city’s police chief for “inappropriate and offensive” comments directed toward a longtime police department female employee.

Officials in Methuen refuse to identify an employee who was led out of school by a police officer last June, the Eagle-Tribune reports. The school department cites a personnel exemption from the state’s Public Records Law.

Somerville’s redevelopment authority approves a plan for reshaping Union Square around the still-unbuilt Green Line extension.

Newbury makes a third attempt at passing a property tax override.

NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON

A report says women’s access to health care in Texas would be hurt if the state goes ahead with a plan to bar Planned Parenthood from a Medicaid program, Governing reports.

INTERNATIONAL

The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize today but it’s doubtful the $1.2 million award that goes with it will do much to stem the economic crisis. But it will help.

ELECTION 2012

The Globe’s Christopher Rowland says both Joe Biden and Paul Ryan delivered for their side in last night’s debate. The National Review says Democrats needed someone to be a jerk to Ryan’s face and Biden answered the call. Howard Kurtz, in The Daily Beast, says Biden’s passion trumps Ryan. Time’s Joe Klein says Biden was in command. The Weekly Standard says he couldn’t even control himself. The American Spectator labeled Biden “Crazy Uncle Joe.” Here are more winners and losers. The Atlantic accuses Ryan of being “totally out of his depth, with little to guide him but ideology” on foreign policy.

Moderator Martha shows ‘em how its done.

Scot Lehigh asks what has become a running 20-year question: What does Mitt Romney really believe?

Paul Krugman, on the politics of the economy: “Republicans have been wrong about everything.”

Dan Kennedy and Mo Cunningham chew over Wednesday’s Brown-Warren debate in this CommmonWealth magazine “Face to Face” video conversation.

Keller@Large says the Brown-Warren race is becoming redundant. Military spending is likely to get renewed attention as a result of the candidates’ Springfield debate. Meanwhile, outside groups are finding ways around the Brown-Warren pledge to keep outside money from interest groups outside the race. The Wall Street Journal editorial page takes up Brown’s attack on Warren’s Harvard Law School salary. Glen Johnson takes a long look at how Brown’s National Guard service and political career have intersected.  Brian McGrory does the same, and paints a less than flattering picture.

US Rep. Niki Tsongas and Republican challenger Jon Golnik offer clear differences in their positions at a debate in Devens, the Lowell Sun reports.

Republican Thomas Keyes, challenging Senate President Therese Murray for the second election in a row, tried to tie her to the Probation Department scandal in an often testy debate on local radio last night.

In Lynn, Dwight Caulfield is running for the House because he believes the state is using the city as a dumping ground for group homes, halfway houses, and methadone clinics, the Item reports.

The Berkshire Eagle supports easy access to contraception to cut down the region’s high rate of teen pregnancies and abortions, and gives a nod to Obamacare’s birth control provision.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Three developers file applications to build a casino in Springfield, the Associated Press reports (via the Telegram & Gazette).  Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno makes the case for a Springfield casino in the new issue of CommonWealth, while Mayor Alex Morse of neighboring Holyoke lays out the reasons why he adamantly opposes a casino in his city. Meanwhile, Plainville town officials huddle up with the Plainridge Racecourse, which is pursuing a slot machine license.

Google uses state-level lobbying on its robotic driverless car as a dry run for the company’s looming foray onto cable companies’ heavily regulated turf.

PUBLIC SAFETY

In the new issue of CommonWealth, Jack Sullivan reports that as many as two-thirds of Massachusetts public schools, most of which are aging, are not equipped with automatic fire sprinklers or fire suppression systems even though there are more than 200 school fires in the state each year.

EDUCATION

Jeff Riley, the state-appointed receiver put in charge of the beleaguered Lawrence public schools, is trying to pull off something that’s never been done: successfully turn around an entire low-performing US school district.  In the new issue of CommonWealth, Michael Jonas looks at his plan and why some are betting it might just work.

UMass Lowell opens its new $80 million Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

Officials from the Freetown-Lakeville Regional School District will seek the public’s help for “outside the box” ideas to raise revenues to fill a potential $2 million budget shortfall.

RELIGION

Cardinal Sean O’Malley has joined the twitterverse to share his thoughts about faith and his opposition to the upcoming ballot question on physician-assisted suicide.

TRANSPORTATION

In CommonWealth’s fall issue, Paul McMorrow details the state’s bid to tap Wall Street funds for public transportation projects.

US Rep. Michael Capuano tears into Gov. Deval Patrick’s plans for funding the Green Line Extension.

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

A three-judge panel in Minnesota rejects the arguments of environmental groups and allows a wolf hunt to go on, the Star-Tribune reports.

Rockport begins preparing for the delivery on Monday of the largest wind turbine in the Northeast, with blades stretching 160 feet in length and a tower that will stand 300 feet tall, the Gloucester Times reports.

A newly discovered planet is made of mostly diamond, Reuters reports.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Peabody begins a push for an ordinance that would bar convicted sex offenders from places where children congregate, including parks, playgrounds, recreation centers, beaches, swimming pools, gyms, and sports fields, the Salem News reports. Meanwhile, in Lynn a 50-year-old man in the country illegally is convicted of raping and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old family member. The man will serve 15 to 25 years and then be deported, the Item reports.

MEDIA

The new owner of Variety tells employees he is going to remove the paper’s online paywall, the Los Angeles Times reports.