2023 in review: Recapping the biggest stories from Massachusetts

Paris Alston: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. As we wrap up the year 2023, we’re taking a look back at some of the biggest stories from this year, including those in the ever changing world of social media. My co-host, Jeremy Siegel, spoke with GBH’s social media strategist, Zack Waldman, to get his take on the biggest trends of the year.

Jeremy Siegel: Three stories. What is your number one?

Zack Waldman: Okay. So we’re going to start with the soap opera that was Twitter-slash-X, X-slash-Twitter, and Elon Musk. I think that’s got to be the —

Siegel: It’s got to be number one. Before we go any further, I have to ask, do you call it X at this point? Are you still on Twitter?

Waldman: I default to Twitter and tweets, out a habit of more than anything else.

Siegel: I’m about the same. So what exactly happened here?

Waldman: Ooh, how much time do we have? You know, since Elon Musk took over Twitter last year and bought the company, it’s just been a laundry list of head scratching moves for the platform. We could start with the whole overhaul of the verification subscription program, which basically said that for $8 a month, people could purchase the blue checkmark, rendering it pretty, in my opinion, irrelevant and obsolete. There was the institution of rate limits for unverified users where they would be put in timeout if they were on the platform for too long. And then there was the big one, which is really the rebranding of Twitter to X, which kind of happened on a whim out of left field by Elon himself. I think the latest thing that happened, which was super problematic that led to another exodus from the platform was when Musk kind of in many ways endorsed antisemitic conspiracy theories and rhetoric from users on the platform and then went on a tirade bashing advertisers for quietly quitting. It’s just been 12 months of kind of a disaster, kind of a dumpster fire, for X-Twitter, Twitter-X.

Siegel: It’s hard to imagine anything in the world of social media as momentous as what has happened with Twitter or X. But what’s your second number two story in the world of social media?

Waldman: It’s kind of very closely tied to what’s gone on with X, which is kind of the emergence of both new and old alternatives to Twitter, to Twitter 2.0s, If you will. I’ll go through just a few: Mastodon BlueSky, Spill, Post, Pebble, which is actually now no longer. But the headliner really has been Threads. I would say that is the number one alternative, quote unquote, to Twitter. It did reach 100 million users in its first week after it opened up on app stores. It is spearheaded by Meta and has kind of the cachet of Mark Zuckerberg. And we’ll kind of see in 2024: can it take over what Twitter became in its heyday, reach that critical mass and become a in vogue platform for everyday users, for media organizations, for brands, for journalists, for newsrooms? The jury’s still out, but I think that’s a huge story to follow in 2024.

Siegel: Before I let you go, what else have you been following in social media this year?

Waldman: Yeah, so I would say just in general, government oversight over a number of social media platforms. We’ve got a few lawsuits that have either already taken place or are ongoing. You look at TikTok and Montana became the first state to outright ban TikTok for all users. However, that has been put on hold by a federal judge. There are about 70% of states that have already banned TikTok for any folks who use a government-issued phone. And then separately, a lawsuit against Meta from 40-plus state attorneys general who have all come together and are suing Meta for deliberately designing addictive platform features that potentially harm children and underage users. We’ll see where that goes. One of the attorneys general that’s involved there is Andrea Campbell from Massachusetts. So just across the board, more oversight, more control, more measures in place to figure out ways to combat the addictiveness and the harms that exist on these platforms.

Alston: That was my co-host, Jeremy Siegel, speaking with GBH, a social media strategist, Zack Waldman. You're listening to GBH's Morning Edition.

Paris Alston: Hey, Meghan, Thanks for being here.

Meghan Smith: Hi, Paris.

Alston: So what’s been the biggest story you’ve been watching this year?

Smith: Yeah. So I covered the fight to increase pay for personal care attendants, which is a MassHealth program that helps people with disabilities with daily activities like getting out of bed, showering and food prep. And a big problem that I heard about was that the low wages for those workers made it difficult for so many people to find and keep PCAs, which meant a lot of people were just left without support. And advocates and activists spent a whole year advocating to increase the pay. They had rallies on the Boston Common, you know, marches at the State House. And then finally, in September, the union that represents PCAs finally reached a deal with the state to gradually increase the pay rate to $25 an hour for PCAs and give them some other benefits. And the governor, when she spoke about this, called the deal historic. And she said that it was really a show of support for the "heroic work that PCAs do." And I think it’s a bigger story about just a shortage of services for home health care workers that was really highlighted during the pandemic.

Alston: And a service that so many people rely on for the things that they need throughout the day. And we know that so much of disability rights comes from the advocacy, right? The people who push for these policies to change. And I know that this year we lost someone who was really instrumental in doing that.

Smith: Exactly. In March, Judy Heumann passed away at age 75. A lot of people called her the mother of the disability rights movement, and she was really considered a civil rights hero to a lot of people that were inspired by her. And when she was born, you know, when you think about it, the Americans With Disabilities Act had not been passed yet. So people with disabilities like her were still excluded from so many parts of public life. And she spent years as an advocate. She led protests, sit ins at federal buildings, and she really pushed disability rights to the forefront of national politics, which had not really been there before. And that activism eventually led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. And so many advocates I have gotten to know here in the Boston area really credit her as their inspiration and kind of guiding light for their own work.

Alston: So lastly, Meghan, we do have to talk about something that hits pretty close to home: the tragedy of the Lewiston, Maine, mass shooting that happened this October. But you have been looking at some of the aftermath of that and how people who have disabilities were affected by that.

Smith: Right. So very sadly, four out of the 18 people that were killed in that mass shooting were Deaf because they were at a Deaf cornhole league tournament at one of the restaurants. And it really sent huge ripple effects through the Deaf community to lose four of these well-known people in a tragedy like that. And since the shooting, I’ve been noticing that it has really spotlighted the lack of information access for people who are Deaf or use ASL [American Sign Language]. And it’s raised questions about how prepared are first responders, hospital staff, law enforcement officers to engage with Deaf people and provide services such as mental health support and counseling in ASL. And, you know, I was in Maine a few weeks ago, and this tragedy is very still in front of people’s minds. When I was there, I saw a commercial in ASL that was, you know explaining to people how they can get support. So even though that was a tragedy, there’s been a lot of conversation about how it could actually improve some access to information and emergency response for people who are disabled in the deaf community.

Alston: Well, we are definitely keeping the whole Lewiston community in our hearts and minds this holiday season. And thanks to you too, Meghan, for making sure that we shed light on this issue. That is GBH’s Meghan Smith, thanks so much.

Smith: Thank you.

Jeremy Siegel: OK. So first, can you tell us what exactly is your role as an audience impact manager?

Annie Shreffler: As the title implies, my role is focused on developing strategies for how our journalism can land with power, as our executive editor Lee Hill likes to say. Part of doing that requires us to get to know the people we want to serve. I do that with a variety of activities, but today I brought you some examples of how GBH News is crowdsourcing to report on topics that matter to our audience.

Siegel: All right. So let’s talk a little bit about that. What are some of the ways that we reported on stuff while gathering audience input?

Shreffler: Sure. And crowdsourcing, just to be specific, is an open invitation for anyone who wants to participate and contribute their own talent or their perspective to a task. So to report on some of the issues of the day, we create an invitation to put a form out asking for people to submit on our website a response to a question.

We began in 2023 with the inauguration of Maura Healey as governor, and rather than dwell on what she promised in her first speech, we turned to our audience and we let them have their say on what they thought Healey should focus on in her first 100 days. More than 500 people wrote in to share with us what they wanted the governor to work on. For this project, we partnered with public media stations and NEPM in Springfield and CAI on the Cape, so that we actually heard from people all across the state. They told us about their struggles to afford property taxes as they age in their homes. They asked us to keep the opioid crisis on the governor’s radar. They expressed concerns about climate change, clean water, public transportation, affordable child care, resources for veterans, and a story we may have never thought to cover: Logging taking place on state land, something that the governor put a halt on in June of this year.

Siegel: And that’s a story that people might have heard here on GBH’s Morning Edition. And then we’ve also had reporting from our politics team, people like Katie Lannan, who covers state politics, on topics that we would not have found out about otherwise outside of getting input from the audience.

Shreffler: That’s right. Katie shared several issues that she noticed coming in on the form when she got a chance to go on Boston Public Radio with Jim and Margery before the Ask the Governor that was coming up in April, that would have marked Maura Healey’s hundred days. She was part of a roundtable and offered a story about Ali, Ali Harris, someone who wrote in to tell us about the burden of being a caregiver, an unpaid caregiver.

Siegel: So beyond state politics, one thing that we reported on that I had a lot of fun with was nightlife in Boston, or the lack thereof that a lot of people will reference. And you helped us produce this series. We put out a survey to a bunch of people around Boston, heard from tons of people. And also I remember going out into the street and just talking to random people to hear their thoughts on nightlife in Boston, which was a lot of fun, and it was also really insightful. But can you give people a little bit of a look behind the scenes at when we’re approaching a big topic like nightlife in the city of Boston, we actually used our audience and people beyond our audience to inform the way we approached that topic.

Shreffler: Yeah, it’s really cool that, you know, you are so open to sharing your microphone with the public by inviting them in. You know, in this case, again, we put a form on a website so that people could write in and we could follow up with them. But, you know, you were able to take what you were reading in there, more than 300 people wrote in on that form, and bring that to the new nightlife czar for Boston and talk to them about the fact that people are really concerned about transportation and about, you know, more things being open late, and, you know, just all kinds of safety issues. Someone named Lizzie wrote in about the Model Cafe in Brighton having disco nights on Fridays and Saturdays. Nicte recommended that Legacy is the only trusted queer space in Boston, where they feel safe. And a common one, you’ll hear: Nick wrote in to tell us that spending 40 bucks to park in Boston for a nightlife event is just crazy.

Siegel: That is our audience impact manager Annie Shreffler, talking about stories that were informed by our audience and the people living around Boston. Annie, thanks so much for your time.

Shreffler: Jeremy, thanks for letting me be here today. And you know, we have a lot of great things coming up in 2024. I know our politics team is cooking up a plan to invite our youngest voters to tell us what will be most important to them during the upcoming presidential election. So we’ll look forward to hearing about that.

Paris Alston: Hey, Haley.

Haley Lerner: Hey. How are you?

Alston: I’m good. How about you?

Lerner: Great.

Alston: Good. So, Haley, what’s been the biggest story you’ve been watching this year?

Lerner: Well, I just think the concert tours that are happening this year have really been like no other. I mean, they’re just dominating the news cycle like I’ve never seen before.

Alston: I went and had my full out Renaissance experience with the Beyonce concert.

Lerner: As did I. Yeah, I saw Beyonce, I saw Taylor Swift. And they truly, it was phenomenons, these two concerts.

Alston: Mm hmm. And what stood out to you? I mean, the Taylor Swift effect, obviously is being felt, has been a real ripple this year, because it wasn’t just going in-person. This was true for Beyonce, too, but it was being able to go and see the films in theaters, right?

Lerner: Yeah, There are these two concert films that both tours have. I feel like they’re really just, people want to see these tours, whether they can get tickets or not. And I think with the concert movie, it’s more accessible. And people just love these artists so much and they really love going out to see them. There are such active fan bases here.

Alston: Obviousely. And a testament to that is the billions of dollars that the tours have raked in. So I have to ask, between the two concerts, which one was your favorite?

Lerner: I don’t even, I don’t know. That’s like asking like a parent to pick... They’re just really different. I think Taylor is very much about, you know, there’s a lot of the emotions and there’s like, these are songs that I grew up with. And then Beyonce, you’re just watching this insane show, like seeing everything that goes into it, the dancing, the singing, the sets. It’s just a totally, they’re different, they’re so different. Which sounds bad, in a cop out. But I really, I was blown away by both shows.

Alston: Yeah. I think a testament to how two Queens can coexist.

Lerner: Exactly. They’re doing very different things, but they’re both doing it so well.

Alston: But for the artists that are a little bit smaller, Haley, I understand that it was a big year for them too, in terms of having more places to perform.

Lerner: Yeah, there’s been a lot of new venues opening up in the Massachusetts area, some bigger sizes, some of the smaller size. Suffolk Downs opened up where they had their first event with the Re:SET festival, where they had some pretty big artists coming through there. And it’s a new place. They can have some open-air festival type venues. There’s also The Cut in Gloucester that opened upm a kind of small, 400 capacity seat place. You know, Regattabar reopened. There’s really a lot of spaces that people can see live music now in the area.

Alston: Do you have a favorite local venue?

Lerner: Favorite local venue? I mean, Roadrunner is just a great place to see music because there’s a lot of pretty big touring acts, but it’s still intimate. I also like MGM Fenway. The Sinclair is great for really small shows. There’s a lot of options in the area.

Alston: Okay. And lastly, Haley, for folks who love a good read, it was a big year for for places to go and get those, right?

Lerner: It was. So many local bookstores are opening up and expanding and building on. And it’s really exciting because there’s just nothing better than buying a book in person, not on Amazon, not online, and getting a real bookseller to help you. East End Books, which is from Provincetown, has opened up a Seaport location. I think they’re going to be ready at the end of this month. Then there is going to be a new Harvard bookstore in the Prudential. I think that’s opening next year. Very exciting to look forward to. There’s All She Wrote Books in Somerville, which is a feminist LGBTQ bookstore. There’s just so many cool new stores opening that I love to hear about.

Alston: All right. Well, that is GBH’s Haley Lerner giving us a recap of a big year for arts and culture. Haley, thank you so much.

Lerner: Thanks so much for having me.

Alston: You're listening to GBH News.

Arun Rath: This is GBH’s All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath. Joining us for a look back on the biggest stories that GBH News has covered in 2023, and a look ahead to 2024, is our assignment editor Matt Baskin. Hey Matt. 

Matt Baskin: Hey Arun.

Rath: So after a year like this, I think there’s no other place to start with than the MBTA, right?

Baskin: Yeah, where else indeed. What a year. For everyone out their listening who’s had to contend with the T in 2023, I think it’s only fair to say, in solidarity: what a mess. But as the year comes to a close, I think it’s also fair to say it’s a mess that’s being addressed with more seriousness and more transparency than we’ve seen in the past.

The MBTA entered 2023 under a massive cloud, on the heels of a really blistering report from the Federal Transit Administration, and really under continued scrutiny from the FTA after a series of awful safety incidents in 2022.

With all that going on in the background, the resignation of T General Manager Steve Poftak took effect on January 3^rd of this year. Governor Maura Healey was sworn in on January 5^th. And so one of her first orders of business was finding a new GM. The person she picked was Phil Eng, a former head of New York’s Long Island Railroad.

He came on the job in April, and he inherited a slew of problems: the notorious slow zones we’ve all been dealing with thanks to aging tracks and signals; decrepit stations crumbling to the point that they’ve put passengers at risk; an inadequate workforce with not enough bus drivers. So we’ve seen a lot of drama and danger and just plain inconvenience this past year thanks to all those things.

But what stands out most in my mind in terms of T mishaps is the news we got about the Green Line Extension back in October. That’s when Eng forced the agency to come clean, and he publicly announced that the tracks on really significant portions of the extension were laid down wrong. They were too narrow. And the really troubling part is that the T knew this before the extension was opened to the public in 2022, but they didn’t do anything to fix it — didn’t tell anyone that the tracks were screwed up — and they opened the extension anyway. It’s still unclear who knew what when, but I can say that one thing I’ll be very curious about in 2024 is whether folks who were at the helm of the T at the time, Eng’s predecessors, face any sorts of consequences.

Eng has since taken steps to fix the tracks. That’s meant shutdowns on the Green Line Extension. And of course there have been shutdowns all across the system in 2023, with more to come in the new year. But Eng says it’ll be worth it. And in fact, he’s made the case that it’s already been worth it. A significant number of slow zones have been lifted in the past several months, and the plan is to eliminate all of them and have a subway system that runs at its proper speed by the end of 2024.

Rath: You mentioned Governor Healey, and the MBTA was one major issue she’s had to face since taking office in January. Another maybe even bigger issue for her as governor — has been more urgent at least — the influx of migrants to Massachusetts. Can you look back on that story?

Baskin: Yeah. So over the course of 2023, thousands of migrant families have made their way to Massachusetts. The numbers have basically doubled. The state, communities, nonprofits, individuals have really done a lot to try to help people coming to the commonwealth. But the sheer number has made things tough.

And so in October, Healey announced that Massachusetts actually could no longer abide by its right to shelter law, which requires the state to put a roof over the head of families with children who can’t find housing themselves.

Healey said that given the capacity issues in the shelter system, she’d have to put a cap in place at 7,500 families. And a few weeks later, in November, the state hit that cap. Since then, families needing shelter have been waitlisted and basically triaged according to need.

This month, lawmakers on Beacon Hill approved a quarter billion dollars to help get more migrants into shelters, expand the system. But there was a caveat: in order to access that money, Healey needed to stand up a new space by the end of the calendar year. And yesterday [Dec. 21], to meet that mandate, her administration announced that it was establishing an overflow space at an old courthouse in Cambridge.

The governor has said she’ll need more money, more resources in the new year to keep addressing the migrant issue. But one thing that could keep helping is the expedited work permitting process for migrants the Biden administration announced back in September, and the subsequent work clinics that the state, the feds, and providers have been partnering on. The idea is that if it’s easier for migrants to get jobs, it’ll be easier for them to make money, easier for them to put a roof over their heads themselves, and not relying on the state for shelter.

Rath: The problem of finding shelter for migrants obviously overlaps with the more general homelessness problem in Massachusetts, and there’s nowhere that was more apparent this year, and certainly not — certainly well before this year — than Boston’s Mass. and Cass corridor.  

Baskin: That’s right. Over the course of 2023, the city and public safety officials really started showing more concern about drug use in the area, illegal drug sales, and also the potential for violence, for trafficking. So at the very end of August, Mayor Michelle Wu announced an ordinance that would ban encampments throughout Boston, and the obvious target of this, of course, was Mass. and Cass. Unsurprisingly, it caused a lot consternation in some quarters, with advocates once again making the case that no city can police its way out of homelessness. But the ordinance was approved, and at the end of October into the beginning of November, the city started enforcing it. There was a major clear-out at Mass and Cass, and since then, the area has been largely vacant when it comes to encampments. It’ll be very interesting to see whether that remains the case in 2024, especially as we get into warmer weather. And our newsroom will be looking into what life is like now for those who’d been living at Mass. and Cass, and whether new encampments start popping up in other parts of the city.

Rath: We’ve got a couple of minutes left, so let’s talk about, quickly, some other stories that got their start in 2023 and will be extending into the new year. 

Baskin: Sure. First off I’ll mention the Jack Teixeira case. Teixeira is the air national guardsman from Dighton, down on the state’s south coast, who’s facing federal charges for allegedly leaking classified intelligence to a group of mostly teenagers on Discord. It’s a chat app popular with gamers.

Teixeira got access to the intelligence while he was working as a cyber specialist at the Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod. He was arrested in April and his case has been playing out ever since. New reporting from the Washington Post’s Shane Harris — who you spoke with on this show just last week —

Rath: Which you can find at gbhnews.org.

Baskin: Yeah, that’s right. It showed that Teixeira got security clearances despite a history of making violent threats when he was a teenager. And just for reference, Teixeira’s only in his early twenties now.

And this month it came out that the Air National Guard punished more than a dozen of its members for failing to step in and stop Teixeira despite knowing that he was not just accessing intelligence he had no reason to be looking at, but taking notes on it apparently as well. Teixeira’s next court date is in February, and we’ll keep following the case from there.

Rath: And of course there’s the war in Gaza and how that has been resonating locally. That’s obviously not going away. 

Baskin: Yeah, we’ve talked about this before, but the reaction to this latest development in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been much, much different in tone and in energy than anything we’ve seen before. There has been sustained local activism and advocacy for Palestinians who are being killed by Israeli forces in horrific numbers following the Hamas attack back in October.

Amidst all this, there’s been a deep split among people particularly whose politics are left of center. I don’t mean just in general, I mean within groups of friends, within families. And the cascading effects have spilled over not just onto college campuses, but into the halls of power at those colleges, with Harvard President Claudine Gay under continued scrutiny from Congress and from donors over her response to alleged antisemitism at Harvard.

Those are all angles we’ll keep our eye on in the next year.

Rath: And something we’re not going to be able to keep our eye off of in the next year will be the 2024 election. 

Baskin: Yeah, you know, things are not looking particularly dramatic when it comes to the Massachusetts congressional delegation. Elizabeth Warren is up for re-election, but we don’t yet know who her main Republican opponent will be. And as of right now at least, it’s not looking like any of our House incumbents are going to be facing serious challengers. That could of course change.

Meantime, Massachusetts’ presidential primaries are set for March 5^th, and that brings us, of course, to the looming specter of Donald Trump. We don’t know what the outcome of his various civil and criminal legal challenges are going to be. But when it comes to Trump, it’s safe to say there will be drama, and I don’t mean that in any sort of fun or flippant way. This is a dangerous man. We’ll keep covering local reaction to his court cases, his candidacy, the March primary, and of course the November election itself. And if Trump makes it to the November ballot and he takes back the White House, whether through a legitimate victory or God forbid some other method, you can bet we’ll spend a lot of time during next year’s version of this conversation talking about what that will mean for Massachusetts in 2025.

Rath: Matt, thanks as always. 

Baskin: Thanks Arun.

Rath: That’s GBH News assignment editor Matt Baskin. This is GBH’s All Things Considered. 

Paris Alston: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. It’s been a big year in the sports world. And as we head into 2024, we may have some big changes just around the corner. Joining us now to talk about what his big takeaways are from sports this year is GBH’s Esteban Bustillos. Hey Esteban.

Esteban Bustillos: Hi, Paris.

Alston: So first up, I mean, we cannot ignore what is going on in Foxborough.

Bustillos: The elephant in the room.

Alston: Is this the end of the Belichick era?

Bustillos: Maybe? Maybe. So we all know it’s one of the worst Patriots seasons in decades. And look, the team as it’s currently constructed, it just doesn’t have what it takes to win. And to be fair, there’s only about 6 to 8 teams on a maximum in the NFL season that can compete for championship. The Patriots right now just aren’t one of them. So I think a lot of the problem is Belichick, he’s responsible for that roster building, so he’s getting a lot of blame for that. And you know, Robert Kraft, he is well within his rights to move on. But it would be a seismic, seismic shift.

Alston: And what could that look like?

Bustillos: So there’s reporting that former linebacker Jerod Mayo , who is on the Patriots staff, he could be the coach in waiting. I don’t think anybody really, really knows yet. I think I just want to caution people that a coaching change, as enticing as that could be, it’s not going to — probably not going to yield immediate results. And, you know, the other thing, too, is no matter what happens with Belichick, his legacy as one of the greatest coaches of all time, I think that’s to remain intact. He could end up being a coach who has the record for the most wins and the most losses depending on how the rest of his career goes. But yeah, it’s a change. Change may be coming soon in Foxborough.

Alston: And changes are going to be coming to the world of college sports too, right? Involving a familiar name around here.

Bustillos: Yeah. So former Governor Charlie Baker, now president of the NCAA — the whole organization is in some hot water over how athletes are getting compensated. So he’s proposed one really big change where he wants to have a subdivision of Division 1 athletics where athletes will get paid essentially directly. Now, what that would be is that schools would opt into this subdivision and they could pay at least half of their athletes a payment of at least $30,000 per year through a trust fund. That’s a big deal.

Alston: Yeah. I mean, are they considering it a step forward?

Bustillos: I think it would be a step forward. There’s still litigation that the NCAA would be facing either way. There’s one case where athletes are basically seeking damages for money that they couldn’t get before NIL, along with media rights revenue that could cost the NCAA literal billions of dollars. So even though these changes may be coming, the challenges that the NCAA is going to face as a structure and that Charlie Baker is going to have to navigate are massive. And so what college sports is now and what it was in the past, I don’t think we’re going to see that anymore. It’s going to be something entirely different.

Alston: So lastly, the third big story you’ve been following involves women’s sports.

Bustillos: Yeah, Yeah. So as we’ve talked about before, the National Women’s Soccer League, they granted a team, a Boston expansion team. And the newly formed professional women’s hockey league, the PWHL, is also starting up in January.

Alston: And yeah, what’s the latest with the soccer team?

Bustillos: Yeah so they don’t start play until 2026, but big moves are already happening with that franchise we’ve talked about. They’re making moves with the city to renovate White Stadium, get that ready for play and recently hired Kim Miner who was the executive vice president and general counsel for the Worcester Red Sox as the organization’s chief of staff. She says there’s a lot of pressure to do well as the team gets ready.

Kim Miner: But I welcome that pressure because with that, it means that people are paying close attention to what we’re doing and people care deeply about what we’re doing. And I will take that any day in exchange for some pressure, some stress, some sleepless nights. It’s a blessing to have people care that much.

Bustillos: So, yeah, I think there’s a lot of changes that have happened this year and there’s got to be a lot of changes going forward in sports in 2024.

Alston: Well, that is GBH’s Esteban Bustillos talking about the year in sports and Esteban, we look forward to talking more with you about it.

Bustillos: Thanks. Thanks, Paris.

Alston: You’re listening to GBH News.

Paris Alston: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. As we close out 2023 and look back at the year’s biggest stories in the world of local arts, GBH is executive arts editor and host of The Culture Show Jared Bowen is here to tell us: what were some of the big ones for him? Hey, Jared.

Jared Bowen: Good morning. Great to be with you.

Alston: So Jared, what’s been the biggest story for you this year?

Bowen: Well, the three biggest stories I look at all equally. But I think one of the things that resonated with me most deeply was: This became a blockbuster museum year for us. And I’m so excited to talk about all of the shows that launched here in Boston and are now literally traveling the world For instance, we had the Edvard Munch show “Trembling Earth” out of the Clark Art Institute this summer. This was the first show in the United States, anyway, and one of the first major ones to look — for people who don’t know, he did "The Scream," that that figure in Norway. But this dialed it back and looked at how nature informed his work. We had the Simone Leigh exhibition at the ICA.

Alston: I heard, so I never — I didn’t get to go see it. I’m so upset with myself.

Bowen: This is exactly what I’m talking about. Now, you have more chances. Right now it’s in Washington, D.C. It’ll be out in California leading into next year. And this was a show of her sculpture. And she became the first Black woman was represented at the Venice Biennale in a show that was curated by the Institute of Contemporary Art. So technically, it launched in Venice and then came here. We had Fashioned by Sargent, which gave us a whole new dimension to John Singer Sargent. At the Museum of Fine Arts, the show that looked at how more than 100 years ago, the painter Fashioned by Sargent was looking at gender and gender issues, things that have society up in an uproar today. But he was addressing very boldly on the canvas 100 years ago, and that’s going over to London and then a great Hopper show at the Cape Ann Museum, which I think broke records for them.

Alston: Wow. Well, we’re really blessed with a wealth of museums here in the Boston area. So still, I’m sure, will be more and more things to check out in the new year. Jared, the theater scene was also really poppin this year, right?

Bowen: It was. And in particular one place, and that would be the Huntington Theater Company. They have a magic sauce right now. They have had hit after hit after hit. And I think the part of the magic sauce is Loretta Greco , who is their brand new artistic director. She helped shape this season and what a season it has been. She brought "The Lehman Trilogy" here this summer, also a bold move because theater isn’t typically programed here in the summer. A lot of people migrate to other places, the Cape or the Berkshires. But she brought this big, bold show that was very, very successful. After that, we saw "Fat Ham," which was a hit Broadway comedy, and it was just as delicious when they presented it here. I remember it being one of the most exciting opening nights I have ever attended because of the energy that night. She brought "The Band’s Visit" here. This is a big Tony-winning Broadway show that people didn’t have the chance to see. It never got to tour because COVID ended it. And they managed to put together a really terrific production. But the big one for me is "Prayer for the French Republic," which they presented September through October. And this is a story of a Jewish family in Paris who is suddenly finding a rise in antisemitism and is trying to figure out what that means to them and whether Paris can still be their home. And that was presented right before the attacks by Hamas. And I know that I have, I’ve talked to other people who have felt like they have a bigger understanding, a much deeper, more resonant understanding, of what’s happening there because of what we saw represented in this one particular family. It was a great production. It’s going to Broadway and in a fabulous turn, they are taking one of the stars, the local actor Nael Nacer, to Broadway with them.

Alston: Wow. Amazing there. So lastly here, Jared, is a bit of a tactic that we’ve been seen touting a lot lately. I guess they say nothing in this world is free, but apparently in the world of arts, there is.

Bowen: Well, Paris, you know, this is huge for me. If we can break down barriers — the barrier to entry being entry prices — because it can be expensive to go to museums, it can be expensive to go to theater — then it will be so much more democratic, will get more people in the door, more people exposed to the arts, which is all I ever want to see. It’s my thrust and main drive for hosting The Culture Show is to introduce people to arts. But now we have a couple of organizations helping. The Harvard Art Museums this year announced that all admission would be free. They announced that in June. It’s a game changer to have a major art museum in this region be completely free. There are some others: The Addison Gallery’s always free. Mass Art’s museum is always free. But that was a big signal by the Harvard Art Museums. And the other one is kind of late-breaking. Just a couple of weeks ago, Company One Theatre announced that for their 25th season, it’ll be 100% free. So it’s either free or pay what you can for all of their upcoming shows. So now we have it happening in museums, We have it happening in theater. So there are models now. We know it can be done.

Alston: All right. Well, there you have it. That is GBH executive arts editor Jared Bowen, who is also host of The Culture Show, which airs every day here on GBH 89.7 at 2 p.m. Jared, thank you so very much.

Bowen: Thank you.

Alston: You’re listening to GBH News.

Arun Rath: This is GBH’s All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath. As 2023 comes to a close, we’ve been taking a moment to look back at some of the stories that dominated the news. GBH’s Craig LeMoult joins us now to talk about some of the environmental stories that he’s been covering. Craig, one thing we talked about a lot this year was PFAS contamination. Can you first remind us what PFAS is?

Craig LeMoult: Sure. PFAS is a group of chemicals that are called "forever" chemicals because they don’t degrade in the environment. And they’ve been used since the 1940s in consumer products and for industrial uses, including nonstick pans, food, packaging, firefighting foam. And they’re linked to a range of health issues, including low birthweight in babies and kidney cancer.

Rath: And this year, we saw some steps towards regulating PFAS, right?

LeMoult: Yeah, that’s right. In March, the EPA proposed limits on six PFAS compounds. The regulations would limit them to four parts per trillion, which is the lowest level that can be reliably measured. Public water systems would be required to monitor for these chemicals and notify the public if they’re found — and to take steps to reduce the levels of these chemicals. The EPA said it expected to issue a final rule by the end of this year, but at this point, it’s not clear that’s happening. I’m told it could come in January.

The federal rules would go beyond state regulations we have here in Massachusetts. The state regulates four of the chemicals that the federal proposal would also regulate. But because EPA would regulate two PFAS chemicals that Massachusetts doesn’t, and Massachusetts is regulating two the EPA doesn’t, here in Massachusetts, we actually have limits on a total of eight PFAS chemicals in drinking water.

Rath: I understand there’s been some criticism of the proposed PFAS regulation.

LeMoult: Yeah, that’s right. Environmentalists say it doesn’t go far enough. There are over 14,000 PFAs chemicals and the federal rule, as I said, regulates just six of them. On the other side, I spoke with some utility experts who said installing systems in treatment centers to filter out those chemicals could cost millions of dollars per facility. And they said it could take years before they’re up and running.

A couple other points of PFAS news from this year that I also wanted to note. In June, the chemical company 3M agreed to pay over $10 billion to resolve PFAS claims from around the country, including a lawsuit from Massachusetts. Critics say that is not nearly enough to fully address the problem.

Also late last month, more than 40 environmental groups called on the EPA to require the Deer Island Wastewater Treatment plant to better regulate the discharge of PFAS and of microplastics into Boston Harbor. Deer Island is due for a new permit from the EPA, and the letter from the groups was part of the public comment process on that newly reproposed permit. The groups say Deer Island is one of the largest sources of this kind of contamination in the country.

Rath: Craig, it’s been a busy year for you on the environmental beat. Tell us about some of the other environmental stories you’ve been following.

LeMoult: You know, as there are more extreme weather events as a result of climate change, we’re increasingly seeing the impact on rivers in Massachusetts — especially on the state’s thousands of aging and obsolete dams. Remember, in September, there was a crazy rainstorm that caused significant flooding in Leominster? The water from that storm topped the Barrett Park Pond Dam, and there was a lot of concern that dam could fail. I talked that week with Martha Snow Morgan of the Nashua River Watershed Association, who said when the news of the storm hit, she wasn’t surprised at all to hear there was a problem with that dam.

Martha Snow Morgan: There are so many dams around the state, around our watershed, that are aging and threatened by these extreme weather events. And we’re worried about that. And the dams need to be prioritized by the state. We need to have a really good mapping system that categorizes all these dams and their threats to life and property.

LeMoult: There are roughly 3,000 dams in Massachusetts, and about 1,300 of them are large enough to be listed in the national inventory of dams kept by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Of those, 328 dams are ranked as having high-hazard potential, which means it’s likely there could be loss of life and significant damage to homes, buildings and infrastructure if the dam fails.

Several groups are pushing to have more of these dams removed from rivers. There were several dam removal projects this year, including the High Street Dam in Bridgewater. And there is funding available now through the 2021 Federal Infrastructure bill. So there is hope that that could lead to more dam removals.

Rath: We’ve also seen the impact of climate change on water quality in Massachusetts rivers, right?

LeMoult: Yeah. Over the summer, an EPA report card gave mixed grades for the water quality of the three rivers flowing into Boston Harbor. The rivers scored pretty well, but some of the smaller tributaries that go into them got D’s and F’s. The report said that’s because of extreme weather fluctuations linked to climate change.

For one thing, we’ve seen droughts in recent years that lower water levels — raising temperatures in rivers and leading to blooms of toxic cyanobacteria. Also on the opposite extreme with major rain events, a big problem is combined sewer overflows. That’s when runoff from rainstorms can flood a sewer system, causing untreated sewage to flow into waterways. I mean, just this week, actually, the intense rain we had on Monday caused overflows in Charlestown, the Harbor, and in the Charles River between BU Bridge and Mass. Ave bridge. And there’s also another overflow in Roslindale. Andy Hyrcyna, who’s a watershed scientist at the Mystic River Watershed Association, showed me a spot by Alewife Station in Cambridge, where raw sewage runs into Alewife Brook when there’s a heavy rain event.

Andy Hyrcyna: In order to get rid of combined sewers, you have to do what’s called sewer separation, which involves digging up every street in the neighborhood and putting down two pipes where there used to be one. So it’s very expensive, disruptive. And we still, as an environmental advocacy organization, are arguing that it should happen.

LeMoult: But he acknowledges getting rid of all of them isn’t going to be easy. Interestingly, one place where they did get rid of them is in Leominster. Remember, we talked about the big flooding event there in September.

When I was reporting there, the mayor said: thank God they did separate out their combined sewer system — because he said, otherwise, they would have had an even worse situation on their hands.

Rath: Craig, I know one highlight for you this year was a conversation you had with the legendary conservationist Jane Goodall.

LeMoult: Yeah, it was actually a highlight of my career, to be honest. Goodall was at the Museum of Science for the premiere of a new documentary screening there that features her. It’s actually still playing there now. The documentary is all about hope. And with all the terrible environmental stories, including the ones we just talked about, I think, you know, it’s easy to get depressed. But Goodall’s documentary highlights people who are taking steps to make a positive difference. She told me hope is not about wishful thinking. She said hope is about action.

Jane Goodall: I see humanity as at the mouth of a long dog tunnel, and right at the end there’s a little star. That’s hope. But we don’t sit at the mouth at all and hope the star will come to us. No. We have to roll up our sleeves and climb over, crawl under, work our way around all the obstacles that lie between us and hope.

LeMoult: She listed off some pretty big obstacles, like climate change and overconsumption. But she said, if you focus on the issues you’re passionate about and get together with others who also care, you’ll find you can make a difference. And she said it’s then that you can dare to think globally.

Rath: Craig, looking ahead, what stories do you have coming up in the New Year?

LeMoult: You know, I’ve been looking into efforts to expand Massachusetts’ Bottle Bill, which was enacted in 1983 and includes a deposit only on containers of carbonated drinks. Of course, now water and iced tea and all kinds of other drinks also come in bottles. And there’s a push to modernize the system, to expand what kinds of bottles are included and to increase the deposit amount to $0.10 for a bottle or a can. There’s a hope that that would increase the redemption rate. Right now, Massachusetts has the lowest return rate of any state that has a bottle bill at just about 38%.

Rath: Craig, great work, great talking to you — and have a great new year.

LeMoult: Thanks. You, too.

Rath: That's Craig LeMoult. This is GBH is All Things Considered.

Jeremy Siegel: You’re listening to GBH’s Morning Edition. And as we wrap up our coverage of 2023, here to talk with me about the MBTA and look back on the biggest stories in public transportation around Boston is GBH’s Bob Seay. Good morning, Bob.

Bob Seay: Good morning, Jeremy. Thanks for having me.

Siegel: Thanks for coming in. So over the next 3 minutes, we are going to run through the most important trends in your beat, the MBTA, from the past year. I cannot imagine a world where number one does not involve the mess that the T has been for a lot of people over the past year.

Seay: Well, that’s true.

Siegel: But let’s see if you surprise me. What is the biggest story of year of the year in your view?

Seay: I think the most significant thing was the hiring of Phil Eng to be the new general manager of the MBTA. This is the first experienced transit agency manager we’ve had in more than 10 years to take over the T, and he immediately reorganized the management. He brought four people he worked with in New York and they are basically trying to get things straightened out over there and figure out what needs to be fixed and how to fix it. And so far, he has done well, I think. He has been blindsided, as could be expected, by a couple of developments, but he’s recovered from that pretty well and he’s laid out a plan for 2024 that he says will eliminate all the slow zones in the system. So we’ll just have to wait and see.

Siegel: Do you have confidence, though, that things are going to be changing for the better over the next year?

Seay: I do, and I’m not alone in that. A lot of transit advocates really respect Phil Eng and they like what he’s doing so far. He certainly has a huge challenge.

Siegel: It’s hard to top big changes coming to the top of the agency, to the top of the MBTA. But what’s your second biggest story in the world of public transportation?

Seay: Well, it happened actually back on March 10 when the T announced that there would be speed restrictions between 10 and 25 miles per hour on the entire system. And they later refined that, so they’re just selected segments. But as many riders know, the slow zones and restrictions have persisted for months as they get to repairing the tracks that need to be repaired. And part of what this revealed was that the T really didn’t know just how bad everything was, because when they requested documentation to prove that they had inspected certain tracks on the Red Line and what they did to fix it, they could not produce any documentation. And the stunning fact is that this entire inspection process was basically mismanaged. And so when we had the great Orange Line shutdown of 2022 and everything was supposed to be fixed after that was over, it didn’t happen because the T really didn’t have any idea how serious things were. Now they do, thanks to Phil Eng, and now they have a plan to fix it. They’ve started on the Green Line, and of course the Red Line, a month ago. So we’ll see how they do. But they at least have a plan and they have an idea of what needs to be fixed.

Siegel: I got to say, when you said that these slow zones first came in in March of this year, my mind was kind of blown because it feels at this point like they’ve been around for years. And you mentioned that over the next year there’s going to be a series of shutdowns to try to fix this. I mean, slow zones have kind of become the status quo for T riders. But are we going to be saying goodbye to them?

Seay: I think we will. And I think in one year, you can save this tape, interview me and I think you’re going to see some definite progress being made.

Siegel: All right. Before we let you go, what’s your third biggest story involving public transportation?

Seay: It may not be that exciting, but it was actually the new labor contract that the T signed with its Carmen’s Union, representing, you know, several hundred, a thousand workers who drive buses and operate subway trains. An 18% wage increase in four years, plus lots of benefits. And starting wages for bus drivers boosted from $20,000 to $30,000 a year. And that’s really important because the workforce of the T was depleted during the pandemic. One of the big problems was a lack of bus drivers coming out of the pandemic. They were short 300 drivers, couldn’t manage to hire any. And people were suffering because if you don’t have the bus drivers, you can’t provide the service. So last month, they reported the biggest surge in new hiring that they’ve had in years. And that’s really going to, you know, reflect on the increased service for customers — more reliability, more frequency, hopefully. So building that workforce is one of the key objectives and one of the goals Phil Eng set for himself — and Governor Healey when she took office — was rebuilding that workforce. And I think they’ve been successful so far in doing that. It’s amazing: You offer people more money, you get more people applying for jobs.

Siegel: That’s GBH transportation reporter Bob Seay on the three biggest stories in public transportation this year. Bob, it hasn’t been the most fun year for T riders, but it’s been fun covering it all with you. Thanks so much for coming on.

Seay: Thank you, Jeremy.

Siegel: You're listening to GBH News.

Jeremy Siegel: You’re listening to GBH’s Morning Edition. And as we wrap up the year of 2023, we’re taking a minute to reflect on some of the biggest stories that have happened over the past year. Today, we’re talking with Worcester reporter Sam Turken who has been covering the many stories that have come out of the second-biggest city in New England. Good morning, Sam.

Sam Turken: Good morning, Jeremy. Thank you for having me.

Siegel: Thanks for coming in. So what were the biggest stories to come out of Worcester this year?

Turken: Yeah, I’m going to actually go with four: Police, housing, and a couple other issues I’ll get to. But first, police. For people who may not know, the U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating the Worcester Police Department now for over a year for excessive use of force, and discriminatory policing based on race and sex. We don’t know how much longer this investigation will take it. In other cities, they can take years.

Siegel: What does that mean for a city to have their police department under investigation like this? Because they still have to function day to day.

Turken: Correct. And what we do know is the Worcester Police Department, despite this investigation, has continued to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. There have been lawsuits against the department this year for falsifying police reports and fabricating evidence. And a few months ago, the now-former police chief retired amid accusations of harassment and inappropriate behavior. There have also been some disagreements about whether the city should release public records regarding police officer misconduct. So it hasn’t been great in terms of the public’s perception of the Worcester Police Department this year. And we’ll see what next year has for it.

Siegel: All right. So that’s been one of the biggest stories of Worcester this year. You’ve got three more. We’ll hit them rapid-fire. What else?

Turken: Yes. So, look, housing is nothing new for Worcester, historically an affordable place to live. But as more people have come over from Boston escaping that city’s even higher housing prices, rents have just surged. Median rents are hovering at an historic high, about $2,000 a month, vacancy rates below 2%, which is extremely low, according to housing experts. And this is forcing people to leave Worcester for other cities, for other states. People are becoming homeless. And now, city officials say they are creating pots of money to help folks like this. They’re trying to incentivize the development of more affordable housing. Again, a lot of this stuff is new, so we can’t really tell whether it’s helping or not yet. It’s more of a wait and see approach.

Siegel: All right. What else are you tracking in Worcester this year?

Turken: Yes. Crisis pregnancy centers. For those of you also who don’t know, these are the anti-abortion clinics that have attracted increased scrutiny since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. And basically, abortion rights advocates have accused the centers of using deceptive tactics to steer people away from abortions. Worcester has two of these centers, and there was this big effort by some councilors to crack down on them, to basically penalize them if they use these deceptive tactics. And eventually, a majority of city councilors decided not to punish them, crack down on them, because there was a fear that it could subject the city to First Amendment lawsuits, that the crisis pregnancy centers could go after the city for violations of free speech.

Siegel: So these centers, they’re still there in Worcester.

Turken: They are still there. They’re still operating. The way Worcester city officials left it is it’s up to the state to do something about them.

Siegel: All right. One more big story that you’ve been tracking in Worcester this year. What’s it been?

Turken: Yeah, these are nonprofit funding inequities. And this may be something that a lot of people may not know about. But you have nonprofit organizations and they obviously are trying to go after public money to fund themselves — grants, things like that. And what I have been reporting on since late last year is how smaller nonprofits, often led by people of color, struggle to secure these local these state, even these federal grants. And you saw that with the COVID relief federal money that’s been going out. A lot of smaller organizations didn’t get that money in Worcester and they were really upset about it. And one activist, her name’s Nelly Medina, the way she put it is: The grassroots efforts that are coming from the people on the ground are the ones that are scoffed at. These organizations that were looked over are some of the most respected in the community. It’s a huge injustice. So a lot of this money tends to go to the bigger, more established organizations that have been around for a long time because the government trusts that they can handle that money and manage it appropriately. These smaller organizations with less of a track record, they have less of a track record, so there’s not as much trust there. So it’s a big deal when we think about inequities and how certain issues within communities are being addressed and who they’re being addressed by.

Siegel: Definitely something to keep an eye on in the year ahead. That’s GBH of Sam Turken on the biggest stories affecting Worcester this year. Sam, thanks so much.

Turken: Great being here.

Siegel: You’re listening to GBH News.

Jeremy Siegel: You’re listening to GBH’s Morning Edition. And today, we are kicking off our year-end coverage for 2023, looking back on all of the biggest stories that have happened around Massachusetts. First off, we are looking at what happened in state politics both inside and outside of the state capital with two of our politics reporters, Katie Lannan and Adam Reilly. Good morning, Katie and Adam.

Adam Reilly: Hey, Jeremy.

Katie Lannan: Hey, Jeremy. Good to be here.

Siegel: So, Katie, I’ll start with you. What is the biggest story you’ve been following inside of the state house?

Lannan: I think the biggest thing is going to have to be the migrant shelter crisis that we’ve seen emerge over the past several months, and the way that’s really kind of taken up most of the oxygen in state government lately.

Siegel: It caused a huge problem for the state budget, too, right?

Lannan: Yeah. They’ve been spending millions of dollars a month to shore up the shelter system, which is now over capacity. There’s 7,500 families. Governor Healey declared a state of emergency. She capped the capacity of the shelter system for the first time since we’ve had a right to shelter law in place in Massachusetts decades ago. It’s really forced some new ways of thinking about that policy, some questions over whether that still applies in 2023, if those principles still hold the same way they did years ago.

Siegel: A huge story with major implications, especially for the migrant families at the center of it. Katie, what’s your number two story? And Adam, feel free to jump in at any point here. But what’s the second-biggest thing you’ve been tracking at the Capitol?

Lannan: I feel like this is kind of cheating because it’s more of a story of what’s not been happening. It’s the relative inactivity of the state legislature and some of the inter-chamber power struggles that we’ve seen. As you know, at this point in the year, the legislature has passed something like 77 laws. But when you count, when you take out the local laws, the things that affect maybe an individual state worker, you’re down to more like 16. And many of those have been late. They’ve been marked by drawn-out disputes between the House and Senate. One of the legislative committees still is meeting separately because the House and Senate chairs disagree over rules. So it’s been a slow-moving legislative year up on Beacon Hill.

Reilly: You know, from outside the building, I am always mystified — and we’ve talked about this on Friday nights on Talking Politics, we’ve talked about it at other times as well — I’m just always mystified at the pace that the legislature sets for itself. And it seems to me, and I think I’ve offered this cynical take and you’ve corrected me before, but it seems to me like at least part of it is just their desire to show that they’re going to go as fast as they want to go. They’ll get there when they want to get there on any particular policy issue, and they’re not going to be rushed as a rule by people on the outside who want them to move fast. Now, I think you’ve told me that there’s other things like their affinity for doing great big omnibus bills that cover every single facet of an issue as opposed to taking single bites of the apple. But I still feel like there’s a message being sent there sometimes.

Lannan: Yeah, they’d tell you they’re a deliberative body. They’re meant to, you know, not maybe move at the speed of light, but they want to take times to get things right. And you do see, one of the things is often these negotiations between the House and the Senate play out behind closed doors in these big omnibus bills. So you really don’t know what the holdup or what might be going on to make things slower.

Siegel: All right, Adam Reilly, let’s talk about what you’ve been tracking from the outside of the state capitol, your biggest story of the year in politics.

Reilly: Okay. The one that I thought was most interesting, most fascinating to watch, both in terms of drama and also trickle down impact was the fall of Rachael Rollins as U.S. Attorney. People will remember that we had her exit that job. Former Suffolk County D.A., very reform-minded woman of color, serving as U.S. attorney, a real trailblazer, a political force who’d gone toe to toe with the Baker administration, among other things, back when she was Suffolk DA. And she had to leave that job because two federal investigations found, essentially, that she had misused her office to try to help one of the people seeking to replace her of Suffolk, DA, Ricardo Arroyo, the outgoing Boston city councilor. She wanted him to win. She wanted Kevin Hayden to lose. And she, according to these reports, was doing things that were just egregiously inappropriate in her role as U.S. attorney. So here we have one of the real rising stars of Massachusetts politics laid low by what seems like a combination of hubris and just really bad judgment. And I think it’s, you know, it’s weird almost that it happened this year. It feels longer ago than that. But that was a huge story and a really important story. And I wonder, moving forward if Rollins exiting the way she did is going to lead to here locally diminished sympathy for her approach to criminal justice, a more reform minded, more tolerant, you know, let’s not prosecute lower level offenses because it pushes people into the prison pipeline in a way that’s ultimately destructive. I don’t think we know the answer yet, but I think that’s a possibility. And worth noting, you know, I think a case can be made that it led to Ricardo Arroyo losing his seat on the Boston City Council, part of this harder left progressive exodus that we’re seeing as the year draws to a close.

Siegel: A huge story and something to keep an eye on in the year ahead. Adam, what’s your number two? Katie kind of skirted the question and talked about something that didn’t happen in politics this year. You’re going to go the same route? What’s the second thing that you’ve been tracking?

Reilly: I guess it depends on the framing. You could make a case after I say what I want to say, that I’m cheating or that I’m following Katie’s lead. I was fascinated to watch Governor Healey not make good on her transparency promise the way that she had indicated she was going to.

Siegel: Explain that. What was the problem?

Reilly: She said on our airwaves, talking to Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, that she was not going to claim an exception. And tell me if I’m getting this wrong, Katie, I want to make sure that I’m precise here, but that she wasn’t going to claim an exception under the state’s public records law, as past governors have.

Lannan: I think she said blanket exemption. So it’s kind of a matter of in practice what ends up happening if you’re still claiming piecemeal exemptions.

Reilly: So I think a lot of people interpreted her words, I think Jim and Margery did, I think other people did, to basically be her saying, okay, this old court case that a lot of people have said was inappropriately decided, which exempts the governor and the legislature from public records law, I’m not going to say it applies to me. There was, I think, a shift in terms of what she had promised and what she delivered. And the administration has been loath to acknowledge that there was even any shift whatsoever. So that to me is an especially interesting piece of this story.

Siegel: That is Katie Lannan and Adam Reilly of the GBH Politics Desk. Thank you so much for talking about the biggest stories you followed this year.

Reilly: Thanks, Jeremy.

Lannan: Thank you.

Reilly: Good to see you, good to talk to you.

Siegel: You're listening to GBH News.