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.
❄️Sunny day, chance of snow and rain at night, with highs in the 40s.
It’s the last day of the week and the last day of February. If kids in your household have been dealing with the flu, Massachusetts public health officials would like you to keep an eye for a rare but serious complication. It’s a condition called acute necrotizing encephalopathy, in which neurological symptoms like seizures, loss of consciousness, new difficulty in speaking or highly unusual behavior follow a flu infection. If you notice any of that, seek medical help. “I think the important thing to know is that this is incredibly rare,” said Molly Wilson-Murphy, attending neurologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Most of the cases of neurologic involvement in the flu across the country have been brief, self-resolving, and symptoms that improve and go back to normal on their own without intervention.”
Four Things to Know
Boston will increase its enforcement of drug laws in areas with rising public drug use. That means more police officers in some neighborhoods, as well as increased efforts to connect people with services. “We’re not trying to create a war on anything,” Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said. “We are trying to address crime and fear in our city in a fair and balanced way.”
Doctors still seeing patients in a building on the campus of the closed-down Carney Hospital in Dorchester, got an eviction notice this week. They have 90 days to vacate their offices. The Carney shut down when its owner, the for-profit company Steward Health Care, filed for bankruptcy last year. Dr. John Ferrante, an internal medicine and primary care specialist, has been in the building for 28 years. He said, “It’s just crazy. I mean, it’s unconscionable, because Dorchester is hurting and we need help.”
Fears of taking the stage: Three immigrants who were supposed to share their life stories this weekend at a Somerville event have decided not to take the stage because they are worried about President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown . “People are being silenced in a way that was not happening before,” said Cheryl Hamilton, founder of Suitcase Stories, the eight-year-old events series. .
Gaza through 360 video: An exhibit that lets people tour the streets, markets and fig orchards of Gaza, through 360-degree video and virtual reality goggles — with footage taken both before Oct. 7, 2023 and during the current war — is on display at Tufts University through today. “They could attack, you know, the places, they could destroy the locations, but they will never attack the memory,” said the project’s co-founder, Naim Aburaddi.
Scratch and Win: The game dreams are made of
Ian Coss here with the latest on Scratch & Win, GBH’s podcast about the role Massachusetts played in America’s gambling history.
One of the very first interviews I did for this project was with lottery broadcaster Dawn Hayes. Dawn is hard to miss in the story of the Massachusetts lottery, because she was the face and voice of it for the better part of two decades. Night after night, in the prime sliver of air time between Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, Dawn would come on TV to draw the winning numbers – tempting, dashing and sometimes fulfilling the hopes of millions of players.
Today Dawn works for a philanthropic organization downtown where she keeps a tidy office; that’s where we met. The one sign of her previous life is a single lottery ball on the desk.
I was still feeling out the lottery story at this point – unsure if there was enough to really make a series out of – so I asked Dawn how she got started with the lottery in the first place. She launched into a bizarre story about the pageant-like competition she entered to become the face of the lottery, complete with costume changes and plot twists. It was one of those moments as a producer when you sit in the interview with your headphones on and can hear the finished show in your mind.
Dawn’s story sets the stage for episode 6 of “Scratch & Win,” all about how advertising and media transformed state lotteries into a big big business. You can listen to it here.
—Ian Coss, host of the The Big Dig and Scratch & Win podcasts
