The opening date for a Korean Fried Chicken restaurant in Worcester has been pushed from Oct. 29 to Nov. 6, a spokesperson for the company confirmed.

Bonchon Chicken, at 81 Gold Star Blvd., was supposed to open on Oct. 29. The opening date was changed due to permitting delays, the spokesperson told MassLive Thursday.

This is the second time the opening date for Bonchon Chicken has been changed. A spokesperson previously told MassLive the store would open by mid-summer.

Korean fried chicken is a dish typically characterized by its thin coating. The chicken is fried twice and is often coated in sauces such as gochujang, honey or soy.

Bonchon Chicken first opened in the United States in 2006 in New York City, according to the website.

Massachusetts has six Bonchon Chicken locations, according to the website’s map: Allston, Cambridge, Lowell, Quincy, Salem and Waltham.

Eight months after declaring downtown Boston’s public safety situation “urgent,” officials gathered again Thursday to measure progress — and confront persistent challenges.

Representatives from numerous agencies, including Boston police, city councilors and the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association, reconvened in the Emerson College Theatre to evaluate progress on those promises.

“We want to give a glimmer of hope and optimism from where we have gotten, and where we want to go,” said Rishi Shukla, a 25-year downtown resident and co-founder of the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association, host of Thursday’s meeting.

“We’ve achieved some really interesting and thoughtful gains over the past few months, and we want to celebrate those and double down on it — but we also want to acknowledge the work that remains,” Shukla said. He spoke onstage using a microphone, with more than two dozen civic, state and local leaders behind him and the theatre seats filled in front of him.

Thursday night focused on changes that have been made since a February meeting with nearly 100 state, city and civic leaders. They came together in response to downtown residents and business owners calling problems like discarded needles, homelessness, public assaults and a rise in shoplifting last year an “urgent” threat to the neighborhood.

The group includes Boston police, city councilors and several city departments, chairpersons for other neighborhood committees like Beacon Hill and Chinatown, the St. Francis House homeless service, Friends of the Public Garden, and leaders at Emerson College and Suffolk University.

These changes included dozens of barriers and “no trespassing” signs on vacant buildings, repairs to sidewalks, and street and walkway lights — with more than 400 lights repaired on the Boston Common alone, Shukla said.

The main section of Downtown Crossing has undergone beautification processes from new programs such as “Color Flow,” which brought yellow brick roads, new outdoor seating, colorful murals and live music performances that began in early October.

To accomplish this in the past eight months, the group conducted safety and infrastructure walks through Downtown Crossing, Boston Common and surrounding areas. They held public coffee hours and surveyed “over a thousand” different crosswalks around the neighborhood, Shukla said, identifying which needed the most immediate attention.

Shukla brought up a survey conducted last November among 320 residents, which found that nearly 71% felt less safe compared to the start of the year. Shukla noted that when the survey was repeated this past month, it showed a nearly 40% decrease in the proportion of residents who felt less safe.

Boston police Supt. Robert Ciccolo shared that there’s been a 29% decrease in violent crime in Downtown Boston since the initiatives began and a 37% decrease in 911 calls for quality of life issues. The department’s goals are “always aspirational.” Back in March, a large goal was to “eliminate open drug use,” he said, and the department is still “working toward that goal.”

The area has also seen a 65% decrease in syringe-related 311 calls and a 38% decrease in overdose deaths, said Bisola Ojikutu, the city’s commissioner of public health.

And according to Kellie Young, leader of the city’s Coordinated Response Team (CRT), there have been 200 people “moved off the streets and directly into inpatient treatment” since September.

Councilor Ed Flynn called for the hiring of more police officers each year and acknowledged the department for its coordination with the group, adding that it’s “critical we work together” and that “we can’t let up.”

All of the leaders agreed that the work has just begun.

Downtown Crossing business owners say they’ve seen real improvements since February.

“I’m happy with the change … people feel more safe to walk on the street. Before, they were scared,” Bill Yuong, a three-year employee at Boston Precious Jewelry on Winter Street, told MassLive on Thursday afternoon.

Yuong pointed to the visible upgrades and noted fewer “disruptive” people or those openly using drugs, along with a stronger police presence since the spring — though he’d like to see even more Boston police officers patrolling and regular street trash maintenance.

But for Carl Volker, owner of the Underground Express souvenir shop on Winter Street, the changes have made a noticeable difference. “Just a little bit of paint makes it 100% better,” said Volker, who’s operated his shop for 15 years.

He’s seen fewer incidents at his store and neighboring businesses in the past year and credits the beautification efforts — including fresh paint, planters with trees and outdoor seating — with helping the area feel more welcoming. “Couple of planters out there, with trees? 100% better, friendlier and a major improvement,” he said.

While Volker acknowledged that aesthetic upgrades don’t directly prevent crime, he believes they contribute to a sense of safety that encourages people to linger for a positive reason — which, in turn, helps deter unsafe behavior.

Now, he’d like to see the city promote downtown businesses more aggressively and attract diverse, independent retailers to fill vacant storefronts, rather than relying on national chains or mall-style shops.

If you’re the parent of a school-aged child or a member of Gen Alpha, then you’ve probably heard the term “67” — many times over.

The word started trending in June and since then has increased more than sixfold, and the surge shows no signs of stopping. This exponential rise, which is particularly striking since most other two-digit numbers hold no meaningful cultural trend, is why Dictionary.com named “67″ (pronounced “six-seven”) its 2025 “Word of the Year”.

The source, however, admitted the choice was made even while its team is “still trying to figure out exactly what it means.”

First things first: the term can be written as “6 7, 6-7 or six-seven” but it is never pronounced as “sixty-seven,” Dictionary.com explained.

The origin of “67″ is thought to be a song called “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla. But it was quickly reinforced by viral TikToks featuring basketball players and a boy who will forevermore be known as the “67 Kid.”

Within weeks, teachers were trading tips online about how to get their students to stop saying “67″ constantly in the classroom.

Yet, even as the term caused widespread disruption, the source said that the meaning of “67″ is considered “complicated.”

For some, it can mean “so-so” or “maybe this, maybe that,” especially when paired with its signature hand gesture where both palms face up and move alternatively up and down.

Some children are also using it as an opportunity to frustrate older adults as a reply.

For instance, if a parent asks their kid, “Hello, darling child, how was school today?”

The child may say, “67!”

Dictionary.com says the most defining feature of “67″ is that it’s indefinable.

“It’s meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical. In other words, it has all the hallmarks of brainrot,” the source said. “It’s the logical endpoint of being perpetually online, scrolling endlessly, consuming content fed to users by algorithms trained by other algorithms. And what are we left with in the wake of this relentless sensory overload? 67. Still, it remains meaningful to the people who use it because of the connection it fosters.”

Dictionary.com’s team also identified 10 other words that made an impact during 2025:

1. Agentic: “A word to describe technologies that can perform tasks autonomously and make independent decisions-so called ‘agentic AI’”
2. Aura farming: Combines aura, a modern sense of charisma, style or personal energy, with farming, meaning “cultivation” or “deliberate effort,” to create a term meaning “the practice of intentionally developing one’s presence or vibe”
3. Broligarchy: A playful yet pointed term meant to capture the “public frustration felt in some circles with the concentration of power among a small, culturally homogenous elite”
4. Clanker: A mocking label for artificial intelligence
5. Dynamite emoji (TNT, Taylor ‘n’ Travis): Traditionally representing dynamite, a firecracker or TNT, the emoji conveys in 2025 the impact of explosive energy and became a reinterpretation following the engagement of singer Taylor Swift and professional football player Travis Kelce
6. Gen Z stare: A blank or expressionless look often attributed to Gen Z particularly in the workplace or retail settings
7. Kiss cam: A staple of sports arenas and concert venues found new cultural life following the viral moment in July when two executives from a data company were shown together on a kiss cam at a Coldplay concert
8. Overtourism: The overwhelming influx of visitors to popular tourist destinations, causing environmental strain, cultural disruption and local frustration
9. Tariff: Duties or customs imposed by a government on imports or exports
10. Tradwife: Short for “traditional wife,” the word is “tied to conservative subcultures that idealize a dutiful, domestic model of femininity.” The term has “broadened into a label for an aesthetic as much as an ideology.” Some embrace it as a personal choice while others critique it as reinforcing outdated gender roles.