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🌤️Mostly sunny, with highs in the 80s. Sunset is at 7:58 p.m.
City councilors in Cambridge voted to temporarily bring back ShotSpotter, the technology that uses microphones across city streets to try and detect gunshot noises and alert local police. It’s been less than three months since the city stopped using ShotSpotter, saying the technology isn’t always effective and that residents had privacy concerns about microphones on their streets.
But a month ago Xavier Bautista, a 32-year-old man who worked for the city, was shot and killed near Central Square. Union officials representing the city’s police officers said Bautista wasn’t found for about an hour, until a passer-by saw him and called for help. Now Cambridge will go back to using ShotSpotter and assemble panels of residents to help decide whether to use the technology in the future.
Four Things to Know
1. A bill to ban PFAS use in items like food packaging and fire suppressing foam didn’t pass either chamber of the state legislature before the end of formal session last week. Advocates who have been pushing for the bill to pass said they’re disappointed and confused.
“We’ve spent close to $1.5 billion in Massachusetts just to clean up the problem, and we’re not doing anything to tackle the problem at the source,” said Deirdre Cummings, legislative director for MassPIRG. “We brought in firefighters, we brought in residents from communities who have lost their well water, who have lost their drinking water, who have been exposed to PFAS. We have coalitions of scientists, we brought forth evidence and studies. … And I don’t know, really, what more we can do on this side of the game.”
2. A family in Western Massachusetts says they don’t understand why Baystate Health in Springfield is still declining to offer hormone therapy to trans youth. The hospital announced in February that it will no longer offer gender-affirming care other than counseling to minors, saying that the Trump administration had said it would block their Medicare and Medicaid funding if they continued.
“If we were to create a system in which every pediatrician understands gender-affirming care and can comfortably treat it, then what are they going to do? Go after every pediatrician in the state?” one parent of a transgender boy said. “That scale is just impossible for them to approach.”
3. The Red Sox traded five players for three-time Baltimore Orioles All-Star catcher Adley Rutschman. That move has some fans feeling cautiously optimistic.
“I think if you asked the Red Sox fans a month ago, they were saying ‘sell the team,’” said Red Sox fan Brandon Summers. “But now we’re looking good, we’re all optimistic and in true Red Sox fashion, we’re going to come on late and do well.”
4. The National Parks Service is looking for people to lease three homes on the Cape Cod National Seashore: the Ahearn House in Wellfleet and the Jedediah Higgins House in Truro, both built in the 1800s; and the Anthony and Allison Sirna Studio in Wellfleet.
These 10-year leases are slightly less expensive than your average Cape rental — from $830 a month for a studio to about $2,100 for a home. But the houses need some significant work, and prospective renters will have to submit plans for what they’ll do with them. You can see photos of the properties here.
Why more than half of Massachusetts’ House reps are facing primary challengers this year
Two years ago, no one in Massachusetts’ Congressional delegation faced a primary opponent. This year there are six contested primaries: five incumbents are facing challengers and Rep. Seth Moulton is leaving his position to run for senate, opening his seat to newcomers. (If you’re not sure which district you live in, you can use this lookup tool.)
GBH politics reporter Adam Reilly has a rundown of the incumbents already in Congress and the challengers seeking to earn voters’ bids to represent their districts.
Here’s what some of the challengers said about why they’re running.
Patrick Roath, running against Rep. Stephen Lynch in the 8th Disctrict: “This is a really scary time in our country’s history, right?” Roath said. “We have an extremist in the White House that is threatening to undermine the foundations of this country — everything that we have worked so hard for — and really set us back by generations. And confronting that challenge — Trump’s MAGA extremist challenge — requires a different kind of leadership. It requires boldness and urgency and fresh thinking and a willingness to go down to Washington and treat it like a mission.”
Jeromie Whalen, running against Rep. Richard Neal in the 1st District: “The current congressman is, percentage-wise, one of the top recipients of corporate money in all of Congress,” Whalen said. “And so what happens when you have representation that is in bed with giant corporations — you have a lack of visibility, you have a lack of accountability and you have a lack of caring.
Jonathan Paz, one of two candidates challenging Whip Katherine Clark in the 5th District: “We want peace. We want to abolish ICE and replace it with an immigration system rooted in humanity,” said Paz. “And we want to take on the billionaire class rigging our economy. I think the 5th District deserves a fighter in Congress who’s going to take on these billionaires and not take donations from them in the millions like our incumbent is now.”
Tarik Samman, one of two candidates challenging Whip Katherine Clark in the 5th District: “I’m a war survivor — I grew up in Syria during the Syrian civil war — and I was at the receiving end of the failed American foreign policy,” said Samman, who’s a Harvard Law School researcher and Harvard labor organizer. “And it bothers me when I see politicians right now voting on sending money overseas to wars in the Middle East without understanding the complexity of the Middle East countries and their culture … My main message is that I want us to stop spending money overseas because that’s a bad investment and start spending money here at home to address the affordability crisis.”
Find the rest of the challengers here.
🗳️Can primary challengers unseat House incumbents?
🏛️Here’s what Massachusetts’ congressional incumbents say about their primary challenges
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