This is a web edition of GBH Daily, a weekday newsletter bringing you local stories you can trust so you can stay informed without feeling overwhelmed.

See past editions and sign up here to get it in your inbox.

☔Wintery mix possible with temps in the 30s this morning, then warmer but still rainy with highs in the 50s. Sunset tonight is at 7:01 p.m.

If you live in Beverly, Wenham, Taunton or Easton, listen up: you may be in a district that has a special election for State House seats this spring, the State House News Service reports. 

On the North Shore, where Sixth Essex District incumbent Rep. Jerald Parisella vacated his seat to become a district court judge, Beverly City Councilors Hannah Louise Bowen and Todd Rotondo are competing for the Democratic nomination, with the primary scheduled for April 15. The winner will face Republican Medley Long III on May 13.

In Taunton and Easton, prospective candidates have until April 1 to turn in nomination papers for the Third Bristol District. The district’s former representative, Carol Doherty, died of pancreatic cancer in February, at age 82.

Two people are currently in the race for the seat: Republican Taunton City Councilor Christopher Coute, and Democrat Lisa Field, associate director of the Mass. Nurses Association. The primaries are scheduled for May 13, and the general election is set for June 10.

Read more about these special elections here. If you’re not sure which district you live in, you can double-check here.

Four Things to Know

Closing schools in Boston: The Boston School Committee voted to close four schools at the end of the 2025-26 school year: Excel High School in South Boston, Community Academy in Jamaica Plain, Mary Lyon Pilot High School in Allston/Brighton and Paul A. Dever Elementary in Dorchester. It’s part of the district’s facilities plan, which has a goal of closing 20% of BPS school buildings in the next five years and creating larger schools with more offerings. “There are going to be a lot of people not happy with the decision,” School Committee Chairperson Jeri Robinson said. “But in the long run, I think the people that we have to think most about are students… our number one job is to improve student outcomes.”

Cambridge City Councilor Paul F. Toner was named as one of more than 20 men accused of buying sex at a brothel operated out of a Cambridge apartment. Investigators obtained footage of men walking into the apartment and used a Registry of Motor Vehicles photo database to identify them. When prosecutors first announced the charges, they said the men accused included high-profile figures in politics, academia and business; Toner is the first prominent person to be named. He, like the other men charged on Friday, did not come to court, but sent GBH News a statement apologizing. “I caused pain for the people I care about most. For that, I will be forever sorry,'' he wrote. ”This is an ongoing legal matter and I will not have further comment at this time.” Chantha Carter, development and strategy director for the Framingham-based nonprofit RIA, which supports people with experience in the commercial sex trade, said naming accused buyers is important: “The demand is fueled by the buyer, 100%,” she said. ”If you don’t have buyers, you don’t have traffickers. And if you don’t have traffickers, there’s no need to find more bodies to exploit. That simple.”

After 66 years, trains are a-rumbling down the tracks to the South Coast again. You can hop on board and get from Fall River or New Bedford to South Station in about an hour and a half. Some residents and local business owners are excited for the changes, while others are concerned about issues like noise and the potential for the new service to drive up housing prices. Next stop: A proposal for Phase 2, which would reroute trains through Stoughton instead of Middleborough for a faster, more direct path and switch to electric trains instead of diesel. Right now, there’s no timeline for that, and the state is prioritizing other projects.

Signs of spring: Vernal equinox came last week, crocuses are popping up and this winter’s snow is largely gone. But birdwatchers in Maine, seeking signs of winter’s end, have been noticing that in a warming climate, the species they’ve come to rely on to mark the change in seasons are shifting their patterns . “It was always, you know, kind of the first week of March, red-winged black birds would come back,” said Doug Hitchcox, a staff naturalist with Maine Audubon. “And then, a couple years later, it was one of the last weeks of February. Then, a couple years later, mid February.”

Pro-Palestinian activists under increased surveillance on Massachusetts campuses

On the sidelines of a pro-Palestinian protest at Harvard University recently stood two counter-demonstrators taking photos and videos.

“Our purpose of taking pictures is to report to the administration how those people violate the safety and the well-being of Jewish students here on campus,” said one of them, Rotem Spiegler, who said she planned to give the footage to Harvard University officials.

There’s an effort to identify and catalogue people who protest the ongoing war in Gaza, who the far-right organization Betar USA labels as “Hamas supporters.”

“Yes, we are using AI technology and yes it, we believe, led to deportations,’’ Betar spokesman Daniel Levy wrote in an email. “We continue to counter Hamas supporters and work to get them deported.”

One Palestinian woman who spoke to GBH News, an American citizen, said she has friends in the U.S. on visas who are no longer attending protests. A Brandeis student said she’s been using a bullhorn to hide her face at protests.

That’s concerning for some protestors and free speech advocates.

“Just think, for example, how easy it would be to take a photograph of people at a Black Lives Matter protest or at a protest for abortion rights. And then run that image through a facial recognition program,’’ said Kade Crockford, who directs the ACLU’s Technology for Liberty Program. “It would essentially enable the government to download a list of everyone who attended that protest.”

And Carl Williams, a Boston civil rights attorney, said people recording protestors may be using tactics that create a chilling effect.

“It is clearly a thing to make people believe that they are not safe expressing political opinions in public,” Williams said. “This is a scare tactic.’’

Get the full story from GBH’s Phillip Martin here.