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☀️Sunny day with highs in the 50s and a 6:46 p.m. sunset.

Mass General Brigham is laying off workers this week, its second round of layoffs this year. The hospital group is the state’s biggest employer and a source of care for many: They get about 50,000 inpatient stays and 2.25 million outpatient appointments a year. In all, hospital administrators are expecting to lose 1,500 positions. While they won’t lose clinical staff, some MGB employees say they’re worried about cuts that will still impact operations — and patient care. Paula Ward, a registered nurse at Newton Wellesley Hospital, told GBH’s Craig LeMoult her hospital lost an associate chief nursing officer last month.

“They’re trying to cut money from stuff that should not be removed, she said. “You have top-level management, like executive-level management, making huge, huge salaries. We have not heard from any of them that there’s been any cut in their pay.”

Read more about it here. 

Four Things to Know

Energy rate relief: After a winter of climbing energy rates, you should see a $50 credit on your April utility bill, Gov. Maura Healey’s office announced yesterday. The funding — $125 million in total — will come from a pot of money called Alternative Compliance Payments, which retail electricity companies typically use on renewable energy sources.

Harvard University is freezing all faculty and staff hiring until the end of the semester in response to “changes in federal policy,” according to a statement from University President Alan Garber. This follows MIT’s hiring freeze on non-faculty roles and Boston University’s announcement that all new hires will require special approval. Harvard Prof. Ryan Enos, who teaches government, said he’d like to see leaders stand up for their institutions. “Authoritarians all over the world — in Hungary and Venezuela, in Russia and Turkey — they attack higher education,” Enos said. “And it was predictable that when Trump took office promising to govern as an authoritarian, he was going to do that.”

Federal funding makes up $16 billion of the roughly $57 billion Massachusetts budget, and goes to everything from education to infrastructure to jobs funding and health care. With President Donald Trump’s administration threatening cuts and attempting to freeze funding, Bay State lawmakers are looking ahead at what can be done if they lose access to some or all of that money. Massachusetts has an $8 billion rainy day fund, but Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues said he hesitates to tap into the fund, even in uncertain times.

Birth control and prenatal vitamins: Eligible people who get their health insurance through MassHealth and Health Safety Net will be able to receive prenatal vitamins and over-the-counter birth control at no cost to them. The orders from Gov. Maura Healey’s office are expected to cover approximately half a million patients. Right now, MassHealth helps cover the costs of about 40 percent of births in Massachusetts. “Removing barriers like this is one of the simplest ways we can work toward better health outcomes for mothers and infants in our state,” said Kate Walsh, Health and Human Services Secretary.

Boston strikes deal to stop gentrification of Mattapan housing complex

Mattapan resident Margaret Nichols had two days to go before she had to leave her apartment of more than 20 years. Her landlord had raised rents and rebranded the complex as “SoMa at the T,” named for South Mattapan and a new Commuter Rail stop that came to the neighborhood in 2019. Margaret had used nearly all her savings paying the increased rent. She was packing up and getting ready to leave.

Then came a knock on the door.

Gabrielle Rene, a community organizer from the housing nonprofit City Life/Vida Urbana, told Margaret she could stop packing. There was a deal to keep the whole complex — 347 units — affordable.

That deal was officially announced yesterday: developer Related Beal is buying the complex with $10 million from the city of Boston, and guaranteeing that existing tenants won’t see their rents go up by more than 2% a year. New tenants will have income requirements, meaning they’ll have to prove they make less than Boston’s average median income.

“I was praying for something to happen, you know, and suddenly it was there because I would have gone,” Margaret said. “I’d have been sleeping on a cot somewhere.”

So what does it take to keep a place affordable to the people living there?

“I think the credit is owed to the tenant association, their resilience and the fact that we kept the course for six years and we kept going at it and we didn’t relent,” said Gabrielle, the housing organizer.

Gabrielle and other housing activists say they’d like more help from lawmakers. They’re asking legislators to pass rent control, which has not been legal in Boston since 1994 and would require state approval, and to pass a law known as the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, requiring landlords who want to sell their properties to let their tenants make the first bid.

Read more from GBH News reporter Liz Neisloss here.