GBH Daily: Having fun isn’t hard

🌂Cloudy with a chance of afternoon thunderstorms and highs in the 80s. Sunset is at 7:26 p.m.

Two big things are happening on Tuesday: it’s Sept. 1, which means a lot of people will be moving as their old leases end and their new ones begin, and it’s also primary election day. When you move, you will need to re-register to vote at your new address. So what do you do if you’re moving and still want to exercise your right to vote?

GBH’s Renuka Balakrishnan talked to voting advocates and the Secretary of State’s Office to figure it out. Here’s what she found: if you’re moving within the same district, you can still vote at your old polling place. If you’re moving to a different district, you technically have a six-month grace period during which you can vote at your old polling place. Or, you can vote early before Sept. 1 (check with your city or town here to find out when and where).

And most importantly: once you’re living in your new place, don’t forget to update your address with the Secretary of State’s Office. If you have a Massachusetts driver’s license or state ID, you can do it online. Note that you have to be living at your new address before you register to vote there — do not change your address today if you’re not moving until Sept. 1. The voter registration deadline for the Nov. 3 midterms is Oct. 24. You can find more in Balakrishnan’s story here.

Four Things to Know

1. Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Facebook, will pay the state of Massachusetts between $366 million and $516 million as part of a $17.1 billion legal settlement according to Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell. Massachusetts was part of a coalition of states that sued the company, alleging it violated consumer protection laws and built its social media platforms in ways that harmed young people’s mental health.

A judge still has to approve the settlement. The money will go to crisis and mental health services for young people, after-school and summer programs, digital wellness and literacy initiatives, programs aimed at keeping phones out of students’ hands in schools and training for doctors and other health care providers on social media use and body dysmorphia.

2. State Rep. Francisco Paulino, a Democrat from Methuen, pleaded not guilty to charges that he lied to get $700,000 in COVID-19 relief money. Prosecutors said he filed unemployment claims in a 77-year-old relative’s name, saying that relative worked for his tax business, and that he obtained loans intended to help small businesses, then loaned the money to others at a higher interest rates.

The money went to “real estate expenses, loan payments and transfers to his campaign account,” said Leah B. Foley, the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts.

3. Massachusetts is one of about two dozen states who are again suing the Trump administration over an executive order trying to limit voting by mail. This lawsuit comes after the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a previous case, saying that states didn’t have the standing to sue at the moment but not addressing whether they will find the executive order constitutional.

So what’s changed? This week the U.S. Postal Service put out new rules for mail-in ballots, saying they won’t be able to guarantee the delivery of ballots in states that don’t comply with those requirements.

4. Researchers from Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center looked at the brains of 338 former NFL players who have died and determined that 93% of them had CTE, the condition researchers believe is related to repeated head trauma. They weren’t able to give a definitive diagnosis to former players whose brains they had not looked at after death, but they estimate that somewhere between 24.5% and 97.7% of those who died between 2016 and 2021 likely had the condition.

By comparison: less than 1% of the general population has signs of CTE after death. “I look back on the choices I made as a younger person and think, was my risk of CTE worth it if it’s going to take years away from my family?” said Dr. Chris Nowinski, a researcher and former college football player. “We at least owe athletes, and their parents who often make this decision for them, a choice.”

Worcester Public Schools will open seven new libraries — but lacks books to fill shelves

As the song goes: Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card. But there’s more going on behind the scenes to make that fun possible. Worcester is opening seven new libraries in city elementary schools this year, but getting the librarians, rooms and shelves in order was only the first part of the project. Now parents and educators are scrambling to fill those libraries with actual books. To meet their goal of 35,000 books citywide, they’ll need to acquire almost 17,000 more books.

“They very much need more books,” Noelia Chafoya, a parent and member of the library coalition, told GBH’s Meghan Smith. “My biggest thing is having real books in real hands.”

Some people have donated books, but not all those books are up-to-date and kid-friendly, so a group of parents is raising money to fill the library shelves. As of last night, they’d raised just over $3,000 toward a $72,000 goal. 

You can read more about this project here. 

Dig deeper: 

-Indie bookstores in Boston to check out

-Books GBH staff can’t wait to read this summer

-Books about books: Three authors on writing every bookworm’s favorite subgenre