2024 in review: The biggest stories from Boston and around Massachusetts

Arun Rath: This is GBH’s All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath. As 2024 draws to a close, we’re taking a minute now to look back at some of the big environmental stories of the year. Joining us now is GBH’s Craig LeMoult, who’s brought us many of those stories. Craig, thanks for joining us.

Craig LeMoult: Hey, Arun.

Rath: So start us off. State lawmakers did manage to pass a big climate bill this fall.

LeMoult: Yeah, that’s right. There had been a lot of frustration when they didn’t manage to pass a climate bill before the end of the regular session, but they did manage to get it over the finish line in November, and that was signed into law by Governor Healey. A lot of what that law is about is about making it easier to site new clean energy infrastructure. The process for getting wind and solar and other electric infrastructure projects approved was just crazy difficult. And this law just streamlines the permitting process. It also requires an impact analysis for new projects in environmental justice communities. And there’s a lot of other interesting stuff in there. One thing advocates had been pushing for that wasn’t included in that was an expansion of the state’s bottle redemption system. They wanted it to include containers like water bottles, as well as to increase the deposit amount from 5 cents to 10 cents. And the advocates I talked to say they’re going to push for that in the new year.

Rath: And I think we have to say one of the biggest environmental stories this year, big in terms of being right in our faces, was this big drought.

LeMoult: Oh, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. The state saw virtually no rain in September, October and much of November. That led to really low supplies of groundwater. And, of course, as you know, there was just hundreds of wildfires around the state. A state fire official told me there was a 1200% increase in Massachusetts wildfires in October. I was there as the Braintree Fire Department was spraying one in the woods of a residential neighborhood that just kept flaring back up. And I talked to the department’s chief, Fred Viola.

Fred Viola [recorded]: So dry. So deep. The old moss and all the old grass and leaves and everything that’s underneath there is smoldering. And when the wind kicks up, it flares up. So it’s — yeah, we’ve been here all week just doing that. It’s so dry. We just need some rain.

LeMoult: Fortunately, by the start of December, we did see enough rain to put those fires out. And last week, the U.S. drought monitor changed the status of most of the state from extreme drought down to severe or moderate drought. So we are moving in the right direction. You know, but I did hear some real concern this fall that this might be the new normal with a changing climate and we might just start to see longer fire seasons on a more regular basis.

Rath: Big year for wind power in Massachusetts.

LeMoult: Yeah, for sure. Vineyard Wind project is still under construction, but in January it did begin delivering power. Then, of course, as you remember, in July, there was a significant setback when a turbine blade failed, sending debris washing ashore in Nantucket in on the Cape. They did start installing blades again earlier this month. You know, in September, I got to be on a boat full of public media journalists that went about 35 miles offshore to see Vineyard Wind up close. And, you know, those turbines they’re 853 feet tall and the blades are over 350 feet long. They’re arranged neatly in rows, about a nautical mile between them. It’s just really striking to see it up close like that. There were some experts on board, too, including Amber Hewitt, who specializes in offshore wind for the National Wildlife Federation. She was seeing them for the first time. And she was actually — she said she was emotional.

Amber Hewitt [recorded]: Massachusetts has been trying to make offshore wind happen for over 20 years. We’ve endured setback after setback after setback. The developers of this project had to persist through the Trump administration, through almost not getting their federal permits, and really just stuck to it relentlessly until we could be here in this moment.

Rath: Of course, what jumps out there, Craig, I know you took that trip before the election. She was saying that before the election, and didn’t know yet that we would be facing another Trump administration? How were environmentalists feeling about that?

LeMoult: Yeah. I mean, on offshore wind, I think the general feeling is that a second Trump presidency is likely a setback, it could delay some approvals, but that in the long run, these projects are going to move forward. But, you know, there’s a lot of concern among environmentalists that I’ve heard from about the impacts this next administration is likely going to have on climate policy, on fossil fuel drilling, on the ability of the EPA to enforce environmental regulations. You know, there’s still a lot of unknowns, but I think it’s safe to say there’s going to be a need in the coming year for a lot more environmental reporting.

Rath: You covered some different kinds of environmental cleanups this year.

LeMoult: Yeah, yeah. Just a couple of weeks ago, there was this spill of about 100 gallons of what’s believed to be home heating oil in the Muddy River. That that’s the one that winds through Boston’s Emerald Necklace. I was there as a team from the New England Wildlife Center was catching oil covered birds. They’ve now cleaned off a few dozen of these birds and expect to release them back into the wild once they’re fully rehabilitated, sometime early in January. And then back in September, there was this huge effort to clean up the Boston Harbor Islands. We had federal, state and nonprofit agencies all working together with the army of volunteers to get all kinds of debris — including boats and docks and fishing gear and just all kinds of trash — off the islands. I talked with Laura Ludwig of the Center for Coastal Studies, who was leading that effort.

Laura Ludwig: There’s really never been a concerted cleanup effort. This is trash that’s accumulated on the tops of islands, every corner of the islands because of overwash from winter storms over many, many decades.

LeMoult: It was just kind of incredible to see these huge piles of scrap metal and wood and tons of plastic that they removed off of those islands that had been there for God knows how long.

Rath: Tell us about what the year was like for endangered species in Massachusetts.

LeMoult: Yeah, it was a tough one for the North Atlantic right whale for sure. Two of them were spotted earlier this month, about 50 miles off Nantucket, entangled in fishing gear. A third entangled right whale was spotted off North Carolina recently. And, you know, at least five North Atlantic right whales have died this year from human causes. And there are just 372 right whales known left to be alive. Another thing that happened this year that was interesting is that Massachusetts expanded its endangered species list. And that does sound like a bad thing, right? But in a few cases, they added species that were found here that they previously thought were no longer in the state. So they added, for example, the macropis cuckoo bee, which hadn’t been seen in Massachusetts since 1927 until it was spotted by a retired biology teacher named Michael Veit.

Michael Veit [recorded]: And it wasn’t by chance that I found it. I was looking really hard for it and had been for years. So when I finally found it in 2018, it was an incredible feeling.

LeMoult: They also added the golden borer moth that hadn’t been seen in the state since 1983. Also, two rare species of bats were added to the list this year and a bunch of orchids, grasses and other plants.

Rath: One last note. Early in the year you did a report on something near and dear to both of us: a winter crow roost in Lawrence. What’s the word so far this year? The crow has come back to roost.

LeMoult: They have. That crow roost, I think as you know, is no joke. Every winter, as many as 15,000 crows flock to this one area of Lawrence every night to sleep in the trees. It’s a stunning sight. And I visited it last winter with Craig Gibson, who writes a blog about this at wintercrowroost.com.

Craig Gibson [recorded]: My goodness. How amazing. Wow.

LeMoult: Gibson reports the crows are back again. So head out to Lawrence around sunset if you want to see a natural phenomenon like you’ve never seen before.

Rath: Love it. That’s GBH’s Craig LeMoult with the biggest environmental stories of the year. Craig, thanks so much for sharing this with us.

LeMoult: Thank you. Happy New Year.

Rath: We're marking the end of 2024 with a week of year in review conversations. Tune in to GBH 89.7 all week for more. This is GBH's All Things Considered.

Arun Rath: This is GBH’s All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath. We’re looking back at some of the biggest stories we’ve covered this year. Today, we’re looking at immigration. Here to talk us through our immigration coverage is GBH’s Sarah Betancourt. Sarah, welcome.

Sarah Betancourt: Thank you for having me on, Arun. It’s been really incredible. I was just tallying up our immigration stories for just this year, and we published about 60 of them. It’s — it’s such a rich topic.

Rath: Wow. That sounds about right. It’s been quite a year. Let’s start at the beginning in January of this year. Gov. Maura Healey put in place a cap of 7,500 families in the emergency shelter system, half of whom were migrants. And the state started to see those effects, right?

Betancourt: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the first big stories of the year happened in January when more and more migrant families were sleeping at Logan Airport in terminal E. So nonprofits were scrambling to find a place for them to sleep before they could actually apply for emergency shelter and be added to a waitlist. So I spent a night watching terminal E and interviewed one pregnant mom from Haiti who hadn’t been able to find a place to stay elsewhere with her kids. It was — it was really heartbreaking. And soon after, Healey opened the Melnea Cass Recreation Center in Roxbury as a temporary safety net site for those staying at the airport. But it wasn’t without a lot of community controversy.

Rath: Yeah. What a stressful situation. Beacon Hill Republicans and even some Democrats have pushed against the cost of over $850 million this past fiscal year. But it seems like the Healey administration’s message this whole year has been basically "There’s no more room. We can’t afford this."

Betancourt: Exactly. So the opening of more temporary respite centers like the one in Norfolk at the site of the former prison brought a lot of controversy. Our colleague Marilyn Schairer covered the concerns of townspeople there pretty extensively. And here’s a clip from a select board meeting.

John Semas [recorded] We do not want to be here. We don’t. And it doesn’t make us bad people. It doesn’t make me not compassionate. It doesn’t make me a bad father. OK. Taking care of your own is not a disease.

Rath: Wow. Beyond the opening of the temporary respite centers in droves this past year, what policies of the Healey administration make this year around shelters?

Betancourt: In the spring, Beacon Hill capped shelter stays at nine months with some extension options. Then the Healey administration required families to show they’ve been making efforts to find housing and prove they’ve been applying for work in May. Then the state began to notify families to leave the long-term emergency shelters in July, giving them until the end of September. And then finally, over the summer, a five-day limit on the overflow shelters — that’s the shorter-stay ones — went into effect. And that enraged a lot of advocates, who said five days wasn’t enough to help immigrants find their footing in Massachusetts. And that whole time, families were actually sleeping on the ground at transit centers.

Rath: I mean, going through all these these changes, it feels like the state has been constantly moving the goalposts when it comes to shelter policy. We know from your reporting that nonprofit groups have been integral to providing assistance, legal assistance to migrants, as well as contracting with the state to provide food and English classes. Tell us about what that looked like on the ground.

Betancourt: For those who couldn’t actually make it into shelters quickly, it was often spots like this Mattapan church that spent eight months providing transit to and from Logan Airport, English classes, daycare for kids and Haitian food. That really made people — because the majority of people are Haitian migrants — really feel at home, even for a few hours. So here’s Reverend Leonie Drummond.

Leonie Drummond [recorded]: We’re providing a warm space for them to stay during the day. These new neighbors that we have, they’re all brothers and sisters and we’re all immigrants in some way, you know, whether we want to admit it or not. And therefore, it’s important to treat these people with dignity.

Rath: So I think about these people we hear in your stories. Is the state hearing these people? Is the state listening to people on the ground who are actually working face-to-face with these new arrivals?

Betancourt: I mean, advocacy groups were so enraged over some of the shelter policy changes of like, timing that they were actually planning to sue over some of these policies. But in the end, I think the Healey administration actually did listen to both sides of this. Like in late November, the Healey administration lengthened the stay in temporary centers from five days to 30. And then to throw a bone to those concerned about the costs, they proposed limiting stays at longer-term shelters from nine months to six months. But that’s actually going to have to require approval from Beacon Hill.

Rath: This is a lot of fast-changing, fast-paced news. I know GBH has a series for something a bit more nuanced. What happens to immigrants after the initial shock of "Where am I going to sleep?" Tell us about the After Arrival series.

Betancourt: So there’s a number of stories there, and I encourage everyone to take a look at them on our website. There’s one feature I wrote about what it’s like to find work following getting work authorization. And the Healey administration really pegged success in the housing movement out of shelter on being able to get a job. But for many migrants, that’s just not the case. It’s a struggle to find a job when they’re technically living in a homeless shelter. And here’s Jeff Thielman, the head of the International Institute of New England, a refugee agency that also works to help migrants find employment.

Jeff Thielman: Getting an employer authorization document does not automatically lead to you getting a job right away, because you may not have the skills needed for a job, you may not have the language skills required for the workplace, and you may not understand exactly where and how to look for a job.

Betancourt: The second one that was most rewarding to work on was with my former colleague Elena Eberwein, and that was on the impact of a fire on immigrants who deal with with these fires that are happening more and more. And in this case, an undocumented mom lost her only daughter in a fatal fire in East Boston. And the struggle she dealt with after just shows how ill-prepared the city and region are in helping immigrants deal with this type of travesty, like something that everyone deals with. The city of Boston had no fire prevention materials in Spanish. And as a result of the story, those are now being interpreted, translated and being handed out in Open Streets events.

Rath: Wow. Now, Sarah, we’re heading into a second Trump administration. He has promised to deport immigrants en masse and has even promised to revoke citizenship for those born in this country. For cities that support migrants, federal funding could be on the line. What do you think’s going to happen next?

Betancourt: Trump has made a lot of promises, but there’s a question of whether he has the logistical support to actually carry some of these out quickly. For instance, there’s only one ICE detention center left in Massachusetts, in Plymouth. If he wants to carry out mass deportations, he’s going to have to contract out another space to do that. That takes time. And there’s also sanctuary cities and areas with policies that bar local police and others to voluntarily participate in giving ICE information to deport people. So here’s Laura Rotolo of the ACLU of Massachusetts on that.

Laura Rotolo: What we’re seeing under this new Trump administration is Massachusetts cities and towns stepping up to the plate to protect their communities by passing new policies or by reaffirming all policies against voluntary collaboration with immigration.

Betancourt: Some of those include Boston, Chelsea, Amherst, and most recently, Natick.

Rath: Well, it’s looking like you’re going to be doing at least 60 stories this coming year. Sarah, thank you so much for talking all this through with us.

Betancourt: Yeah, Thank you so much for having me on, Arun, and to talk about this topic.

Rath: This is GBH's All Things Considered.

Mark Herz: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. We’re continuing our coverage looking back at the biggest news stories this year. We turn now to transportation, where this year the MBTA tackled slow zones, faced some budget shortfalls and redesigned its bus routes. Jeremy Siegel covers the issue here in the Commonwealth and around the globe for GBH and The World, and joins me now to go over the year in transportation. Jeremy, thanks for joining us.

Jeremy Siegel: Good morning, Mark. It’s great to be here.

Herz: Fantastic. So as of this week the T’s entire train system — speaking of fantastic — from subways to trolleys, are now free of slow zones. That’s a far cry from where we were this time last year. And it’s kind of a long time first for us, right?

Siegel: Yes, it is. I think 2024, this year, will go down in history as the year that the T actually proved it could work. You might remember that one day just over a year ago when the MBTA, under the new leadership of general manager Phil Eng, announced that it was putting in place a series of shutdowns on every one of its trains: the Blue Line, the Green Line, Orange, Red, in order to do some sorely needed maintenance work. And I think a lot of us, from riders to reporters in journalism, we were skeptical.

Herz: But they did it, huh?

Siegel: They did. Piece by piece. The MBTA was shut down and it wasn’t what I’d call a totally smooth process. We did over and over what I like to call the shuttle bus shuffle with buses replacing service when trains were closed. That caused a lot of traffic, a lot of confusion. Buses were not always accessible for people with disabilities, too. But after all of the pain of those shutdowns, the maintenance is now complete. And for the first time in more than a decade, trains are, for the most part, operating at full speed. And then on top of all that, Mark, as you mentioned, the T also launched the first phase of its bus network redesign. This is a huge project to overhaul bus lines around Boston to be more frequent and to better serve riders. Here is Undersecretary of Transportation Hayes Morrison at a recent ride along in Chelsea of the new Route 104 bus.

Hayes Morrison: I know that there has been an awful lot of press time given to the release of all of the slow zones on the MBTA system, and that is amazing. But there are at least 40% of the riders on the MBTA system who are using buses at any time. And the improvements on services like these are as if not more important to those residents.

Siegel: So, Mark, it is not just getting rid of the slow zones, but it’s totally redoing the buses around Boston.

Herz: Well, let’s take the overview now. How would you rate this entire year for the T?

Siegel: In some respects, it was a great year for the T, but there is a big but here: that is funding for the agency. The T is operating under a huge, and I mean huge deficit, $800 million for next year. Experts are calling this a fiscal cliff. I recently spoke with Reggie Ramos with the nonprofit Transportation for Massachusetts, and I asked her how the team can continue operating given that funding problem. Her answer here was blunt.

Reggie Ramos: Frankly, to your question, I don’t know. I don’t know how we’re going to solve the $800 million.

Siegel: And then on top of that, Mark, Ramos says she has some big concerns, first, that service cuts could actually be coming. And second, she says even though everybody is really excited about these slow zones being gone, trains operating at full speed doesn’t mean we actually have a good system that makes the state competitive. We now just have a system that isn’t bad. So overall, I would say this was a huge year for transportation in Massachusetts, especially for the T, but the real test comes in 2025 because the state legislature needs to do something to fund transit, according to advocates I’ve spoken to. They are hopeful that there’s an appetite and there are ideas out there like more corporate taxes or congestion pricing. But it remains to be seen what could actually make it past state lawmakers.

Herz: Well, speaking of looking into the future and wondering what’s going on, I’ll ask you to take out your crystal ball, such as it is. What do you foresee next year in transportation?

Siegel: You know, I’m going to be looking at whether the T continues to operate smoothly, whether there is money for it and for the other regional transit authorities in Massachusetts. And then also what Boston can learn from other places around the world. I recently went on a reporting trip to Japan, which has some of the best public transportation in the world. So stay tuned for some reporting on that and some of the big ideas that Massachusetts could be looking into for how to better serve its residents and cut down on emissions.

Herz: GBH transportation correspondent Jeremy Siegel, thanks for joining us.

Siegel: Thank you, Mark.

Herz: This is GBH News.

Arun Rath: This is GBH’s All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath. Higher education and the value of a college degree has been under attack for years. But when college leaders and students look back on this year, 2024, they’ll likely remember it as one full of intense political pressure and polarization on campus. GBH’s Kirk Carapezza from our higher ed desk has been following it all, and he’s here with our year in review roundup. Kirk, hi.

Kirk Carapezza: Hey, Arun.

Rath: So polarization was actually Merriam-Webster’s word of the year this year. So where should we dive in on the division on campus?

Carapezza: I mean, man, what what a year for American higher ed. One of the first big stories happened on the second day of the year. We didn’t waste any time. That’s when Harvard President Claudine Gay announced her resignation — and she wasn’t the only one this year. In 2023, six out of eight Ivy League presidents were women.

Protest chants [recorded]: Free, free Palestine!

Carapezza: But then Gaza-related protests really shook their campuses. People started putting many of them in the hot seat.

Rep. Virginia Foxx [recorded]: Good morning. The Committee on Education Workforce will come to order. I note that a quorum is present.

Carapezza: Suddenly, these presidents were called before a congressional committee looking at claims of antisemitism on campus. And it was this kind of aggressive questioning of Gay by Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik that went viral. Here’s the moment that would forever shake American higher ed.

Rep. Elise Stefanik [recorded]: Dr. Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?

Claudine Gay [recorded]: It can be, depending on the context.

Stefanik [recorded]: What’s the context?

Gay [recorded]: Targeted as an individual. Targeted at an individual.

Stefanik [recorded]: It’s targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals. It does not depend on the context. The answer is yes. And this is why you should resign.

Carapezza: And Gay did resign a month later. But it wasn’t just that testimony. Gay was also facing death threats and plagiarism allegations, which she called politically motivated. Harvard’s internal probe did find she used some material without credit. And her tenure lasted just six months and two days, making Harvard’s first Black woman president also its shortest serving. Liz Magill at Penn and Minouche Shafik at Columbia also stepped down under pressure. And right now, around about a third of college presidencies are either vacant or have interim leaders. So it’s been a bit of a roller coaster for these colleges.

Rath: Of course, the Ivy League takes a lot of the oxygen in the media spotlight. But you’ve been reporting on the pressure on college presidents everywhere. That’s why more schools, including Emerson and the University of Michigan, are adopting what we’ve been talking about this last year, this phrase "institutional neutrality," basically staying away from hot button issues.

Carapezza: Exactly. Presidents from all kinds of schools have been scrutinized for what they say or don’t say about broader political issues like systemic racism, abortion, the war thousands of miles away in Gaza, and especially how they handle campus protests here at home. Some critics argue it’s these leaders who are making things more political by constantly weighing in on these issues instead of focusing on their school’s core mission. Brian Rosenberg is a visiting fellow at Harvard and former president of Macalester College. He says this year, the top job on campus became not just more political but nearly impossible at certain schools.

Brian Rosenberg [recorded]: So no one really is paying a lot of attention to the politics of the presidents of community colleges or regional public colleges or small, rural, liberal arts colleges. And the reality is that’s where most students go. We’re really talking, for the most part about wealthy, selective institutions.

Carapezza: Now, Rosenberg’s not saying all this criticism has been fair, but he and many others believe these top-tier schools need to at least own their role in making things more political and sparking this conservative backlash.

Rath: And there’s been a lot of backlash this year. Let’s talk about DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). This was another big story on campus this year, right?

Carapezza: Colleges are facing not only legal threats, but political pressure. And they’re backing off race-based or even just race-conscious programs. Now, this comes a year after the Supreme Court ruled colleges can’t consider race in admissions. And some schools like Harvard have seen Black student enrollment drop. Others, like Duke, have seen an increase, and HBCUs have seen applications and enrollment spike. Shaun Harper teaches education and business at the University of Southern California, and he told me the principles of DEI and affirmative action have always been under attack. But he traces this year’s swift backlash to the summer of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, when there was this national racial reckoning in the U.S.

Shaun Harper [recorded]: The country was forced to have a long, overdue conversation that frankly, many Americans didn’t really care to have. That conversation lasted about six weeks in most communities and in most workplaces.

Carapezza: Fast forward to this year, and several states, including Virginia, Arkansas and Missouri, have already dismantled DEI programs. Others, like Wisconsin and North Carolina have just defunded them. Boise State in Idaho is the latest to gut DEI, and other state universities are expected to follow suit. Now, advocates point out that these are moves to preemptively avoid legal challenges and political fallout from the incoming Trump administration.

Rath: And of course, talking of the incoming Trump administration, Trump’s reelection is adding a whole new layer of uncertainty to colleges, right? Everything we just talked about.

Carapezza: Right. A second Trump term is leaving a lot of students and colleges wondering what comes next, whether it’s the fate of student loan debt forgiveness or immigration restrictions affecting international enrollment, or the rise of apprenticeships. I think one thing that is clear is that career and technical education programs will be central to education policy over the next few years. And in many ways, Trump’s victory was a repudiation of elites and academic institutions like Harvard. After all, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance railed against colleges on the campaign trail for being too expensive, too partisan and too woke. Here’s Vance quoting Richard Nixon/

JD Vance [recorded]: The professors are the enemy.

Carapezza: And then last month, Trump picked Linda McMahon, the former WWE CEO, with the little higher ed experience, to lead the Education Department. Behind closed doors, administrators told me that they’re really anxious about the future and potential threats, things like a potential endowment tax or congressional probes, and cuts to federal research funding. And not to be that guy, Arun, who’s always like, you know, listen to my podcast, but please listen to our podcast College Uncovered. In our latest episode we discuss what’s on the horizon, not just for students, but colleges.

Rath: It’s definitely worth checking out. I mean, even even if you don’t know anybody in college right now because all of it is just incredibly relevant. Kirk, looking ahead, what are the key things you’ll be looking at in this new year?

Carapezza: Enrollment. Enrollment. Enrollment. Enrollment. That’s the thing everyone in higher ed is talking about. This industry is facing a crisis of confidence. Only about a third of Americans say they have a lot of trust in colleges. That’s compared to nearly 60% a decade ago. Now, overall enrollment has rebounded since the pandemic, but freshmen enrollment, especially at four year colleges, has dropped by 5%. Now, this follows the botched rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. And at least 16 nonprofit colleges announced closures this year. That’s up slightly from 14 in 2023, which was the previous record. And new international student numbers have been flat for the past two years. Then we have the demographic cliff that’s coming in 2026; that’s when we’re going to see a sharp drop in the number of high school grads with no rebound in sight. So what I’m looking at is how are these colleges going to adapt? And how are they transforming their services right now to better support students in a future when there are just more seats than students?

Rath: Kirk, you’ve had a busy year and it’s going to be another one coming up covering higher ed. Thank you so much for recapping all of this for us.

Carapezza: Thank you, Arun.

Rath: We'll be marking the end of 2024 with a week of year in review conversations. This is GBH's All Things Considered.

Mark Herz: This is Morning Edition. We’re reflecting on the year in news. And this year, GBH’s Paris Alston has taken us on a walk down the block in a number of Boston communities through her series with the same name. And as 2024 comes to a close, she’s here to talk about what she’s discovered on those blocks and where things will go from here. Paris.

Paris Alston: Hey there, Mark. It’s so good to be here with you and back with the Morning Edition fam.

Herz: I love it. It’s so good to have you here. So what have been the highlights for you in your walks down the block this year? Let’s get to it.

Alston: So first of all, I love taking a good walk anywhere, but especially down a block. And I especially remember taking a walk down the block in Mattapan Square, right along Blue Hill Ave. to look at transit changes. And that evolved into a strong connection to the liquor license bill that was passed this year by the legislature. I also reminisce on our look at tour sites important to Boston’s complicated history of busing, and a walk down the block we took in one Jamaica Plain neighborhood that takes Halloween really seriously and had some help from the city’s Spooky Streets grant to put on a big fall celebration. Here is resident Dorothy Fennell, actually, who was a recipient of that grant, talking about the value of that kind of investment in everyday community members.

Dorothy Fennell [previously recorded]: These are the people that are living in these spaces, who know the landscape, who know the block, who know the neighborhood. And I think that a city government should be enabling them to do the good work that they want to do.

Alston: So as you can hear, it’s really leaning into that civic engagement on a pavement level. And by telling stories about all these places, I’m becoming a better neighbor as we speak.

Herz: Well, that’s really great to hear. So it’s not just bringing great stories. It’s expanding things for you personally. That’s really neat. And another highlight this year has been the regional Edward R. Murrow Award that the series won. Amazing. Congrats. Welcome to the club and tell us more.

Alston: So I, along with many wonderful and talented folks here at GBH who helped make the story possible, earned the Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award for the Walk Down the Block we took in Nubian Square on the radio and online and on YouTube last year to explore what a banner year for Boston’s Black communities meant for that area, which is really ripe for revitalization, much of which was spurred by the Nubian Square Coalition, leading the push to change the area’s name. Here’s a clip of longtime resident Rufus J. Faulk talking about its past and potential future.

Rufus J. Faulk [previously recorded]: There aren’t as many stores, there isn’t that much activity, but I think I feel like there’s so much potential to sort of rebuild that, though. How do we bring the sort of traditions that made Roxbury what it was, sort of update them so now we can sort of expand upon it and make sure that it’s like the culture hasn’t died, that we could sort of build upon it.

Alston: Now beyond just the on the ground reporting we did for that story, we did some community engagement with residents and community members after we reported that story about what more we could have done. Because by nature, Mark, you think about any block, right? Just going to take a walk is purely a sample size. There’s so much nuance and many of these stories never end. And there are things that we do miss. And so I’m looking forward to continuing to dive into those stories so that we can get to some of those other parts.

Herz: Well, so how’s the engagement going to continue then?

Alston: So we want to go down more blocks and beyond Boston. We still want to definitely check out our communities right here in our backyard. But communities across the state and across the region and maybe even revisit some places that we’ve been already. And this is the really important part. We want to hear from people who want us to visit their blocks. So you can email thewakeup@gbh.org or follow @WalkDonwtheBlock on Instagram to get that conversation started. And of course, you can find all the stories we’ve done for the series at GBHnews.org.

Herz: Fantastic. You know, there’s an old journalism phrase, shoe leather reporting that we all have great respect for and we respect what you’ve been doing. It’s really wonderful. That was GBH’s Paris Alston reviewing a walk down the block for 2024. More to come. Paris, thank you.

Alston: Mark, thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

Herz: This is GBH.

Arun Rath: This is GBH’s All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath. As we continue our year in review series, today, we’re zooming in on politics. This year was filled with extraordinary political moments and events. And here to discuss some of them is GBH political reporter Saraya Wintersmith. Saraya, welcome.

Saraya Wintersmith: Hi, Arun.

Rath: So tell us what’s on your mind as you look back on 2024.

Wintersmith: Yeah, Arun, there were so many standout moments in politics. I’m thinking just nationally, the incumbent president suddenly ending his reelection bid and then nominating that historic candidate to take his place. And then that, of course, leading to our first former president convicted of felony charges. Be reelected to office. And in the meantime, we had billionaire owners of two of the nation’s biggest newspapers directing their editorial boards to withhold endorsements. And those are just national stories. But you and me only have a few minutes here. So I whittled down my local choices by trying to think about the biggest stories that tie Boston or Massachusetts to larger political trends.

Rath: What did you come up with?

Wintersmith: Well, first thing is this rightward political shift nationally. And I think it’s best captured when we look at the so-called "Trump bump." So even though Trump was defeated here in Massachusetts, he did pick up some victories in cities and towns here on his way to ultimately winning the 2024 election. Our tally showed that Trump won about 80 communities in Massachusetts, with lots of fans in Hampden, Worcester, Plymouth and Bristol counties. Those areas include some of the nearly two dozen cities and towns he flipped, when we compare this run to his last win against President Joe Biden back in 2020. And then, Arun, The Boston Globe also reported that Trump’s portion of votes grew in all 22 wards across the city of Boston, with the most apparent shift being in Southie. So to me, even though Massachusetts is solidly Democrat dominated, these details about Trump are a local manifestation of our sort of rightward shift in politics. I think it’s further embodied when I think about Governor Maura Healey telling prospective migrants "there’s no more room" in Massachusetts despite our longtime right to shelter law. I’m also thinking about Senator Elizabeth Warren facing a challenger and getting reelected — but her challenger got 40% of the vote, which is a little bit more than her challenger in 2018 got.

Rath: That’s a lot. What else are you thinking about?

Wintersmith: I’m also thinking about this Boston tax shift drama, Another thing linking Boston to what’s going on in cities around the country. You know, Mayor Wu went through this whole ordeal, getting her proposal approved by the city council and then one chamber of the state house and then going back to the drawing board and renegotiating. And ultimately it sank without a vote in the Massachusetts Senate by this lawmaker who used this informal session technicality to block it. Wu had said throughout the whole ordeal that she was trying to keep residents from seeing a big property tax spike in their bills. Here’s how she responded once it was declared dead.

Michelle Wu [recorded]: For me, what’s most heartbreaking is that the very people who will be most impacted by this are used to things like this happening.

Wintersmith: And Arun, I think this links Boston to the nation in two big ways. One, we are not the only place that’s still adjusting to new hybrid work patterns brought on by the pandemic, which is what prompted this whole tax shift proposal. But two, and I think more importantly, that procedural frustration that you hear the mayor talking about captures the kind of lack of faith and trust in public officials and the ways that they function — which brings me to my last thing, Arun.

Rath: All right. Take us home, Saraya. What’s your final pick for 2024?

Wintersmith: Massachusetts voters explicitly giving the state auditor the right to audit the Legislature. More than two-thirds of voters approved it. It is now solidly a bipartisan effort to see it through, even though the Legislature is resisting it. And Arun, to me, this feels very reminiscent of Trump’s first campaign rallying cry to "drain the swamp," expose and expel government waste and corruption. Our state auditor has not gone that far in her rhetoric, but I think Massachusetts voters caught a whiff of that sort of populist wind and will likely see it manifest as a drawn-out court battle in the new year.

Rath: And something you’ll be continuing to cover this new year. That’s GBH’s Saraya Wintersmith with the year in politics. Saraya, we covered so much. Thank you.

Wintersmith: Hey, happy to do it.

Rath: We're marking the end of 2024 with a week of year in review conversations. This is GBH's All Things Considered.

Mark Herz: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. With 2025 on the horizon, we’re looking back at some of the biggest stories of the year in the world of social media. We’ve seen a TikTok ban that’s being challenged in court, some more neutral platform alternatives to X and a major shift in how organizations and businesses engage with their audiences on social media. To delve into all that, we’re joined by GBH, senior social media strategist Zack Waldman. Thanks for joining us, Zack.

Zack Waldman: Thanks for having me, Mark.

Herz: It’s great to have you. So let’s start with the nationwide TikTok ban legislation. Give us a refresher on where that stands at the moment.

Waldman: Sure. So back in April, President Biden signed a bill into law that would make it illegal for TikTok to be available on Apple and Google’s app stores unless its Chinese parent company, Bytedance, could find an American buyer within a year. The law is supposed to take effect Jan. 19. A couple of things: one, Bytedance filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of Appeals alleging that the law infringes on freedom of speech rights protected by the First Amendment. Earlier this month, a three-judge panel denied that petition to overturn the law. TikTok and Bytedance then filed an emergency motion to pause the ban. That, too, was denied. President-elect Trump has done a complete 180 on the platform, initially trying to ban it in his first term and then reversing course on that stance in his most recent run to the White House, although it’s very unclear if will actually go through with not enforcing the ban. So unless the Supreme Court is willing to take on the case, it’s looking more and more like the only way Americans will retain access to TikTok is if Bytedance sells off its U.S. operations by that Jan. 19 deadline.

Herz: Well, what would be the impact of this ban eventually going through?

Waldman: It’s pretty huge. TikTok has over 170 million users in the U.S., including 7 million small businesses that would be impacted. And 40% of all young adults in this country regularly get their news from TikTok. Big picture, I think it speaks to the emerging trend of greater government oversight around how these platforms function and operate. I will say that Chinese ownership or not, it is a very dangerous precedent for Congress to shut down entire social media platforms because of simply the threat of national security without any real evidence to prove that threat.

Herz: Okay, let’s transition to another platform, X, formerly known as Twitter. Of course, we’ve seen tons of people leaving this platform. But is there significant traction being gained by any of the alternatives? What are you seeing?

Waldman: Last year, all the buzz for a less volatile and healthier alternative to X, formerly Twitter, was around Meta’s threads. This year it’s BlueSky, which was actually started by former Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey back in 2019. But it wasn’t until just recently that the blue butterfly app really started generating headlines. It has doubled in size to nearly 25 million users in the last three months, and it saw a traffic spike of 500% in the days immediately following the presidential election. The timing of it all is no coincidence. More than 100,000 X users deactivated their accounts after the dust settled on the big race, the largest ever mass exit from the platform. X’s loss has been BlueSky’s gain. Brands, organizations, newsrooms, journalists continue to struggle with the uptick in hate speech and misinformation on X, as well as owner Elon Musk’s very heavy and loud influence over the platform. Will BlueSky have long term staying power? Your guess is as good as mine. Ultimately, only time will tell.

Herz: Finally, we’re seeing a shift when it comes to how brands, organizations and influencers are using social media. And it’s kind of about our dislike of being shunted around from one place to another, right?

Waldman: Yeah, there has and continues to be a philosophical shift with brands, organizations, newsrooms, content creators, utilizing social media platforms now as news and entertainment destinations, not promotional vehicles to drive traffic elsewhere. Regardless of how the TikTok ban legislation shakes out, the vertical video obsession that the app popularized and really normalized is not something you can just slap red tape over. It’s been adopted by so many other platforms now: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. It’s everywhere. Good stat here, in fact: video now accounts for nearly 60% of average time spent per day with social networks. Sixty. I don’t think that’s changing anytime soon. The days of 'go click on this link to read my article on our website’ are really becoming extinct. In my opinion, if they haven’t already, the quicker that all media makers are able to meet audiences where they are on social, the better positioned they’ll be to survive and even thrive in 2025 and beyond.

Herz: GBH senior social media strategist Zack Waldman. Thank you for your perspective on all this.

Waldman: Thanks, Mark.

Herz: You’re listening to GBH.

Arun Rath: This is GBH is All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath. 2024 has been a wonderful year for music. Already this week we ran through the best jazz releases with Al Davis and Classical with Brian McCreath. To close out the year, we’re lucky enough to be joined by my friend Marco Werman, co-host of The World, produced right here at GBH, to find out what caught his attention in global music in 2024. Marco, thanks for joining us.

Marco Werman: Hey, Arun. It’s great to be here.

Rath: So you and I have joked about this before and here I am doing it. We’ve brutally broken music down into jazz, classical and "other." I’m used to being in the "other" category. I know you are too, but the planet’s big, Marco! Is there — is there a single way to capture a theme or a trend globally in music?

Werman: You know, it’s hard because, I mean, just look at the Grammys. I mean, there used to be this category known as "world music." And coming up in 2025 with the Grammys field number seven, I was just looking at it. You’ve got — that comes after pop and rock and R&B and country western — field seven is divided into all these global categories: best Mexican, including Tejano, best tropical, Latin, best global music performance, best global music album, best African music performance, best reggae. I mean, it goes on and on. Even New Wave. So, you know, I look at the world and, you know, you’ve got in Korea a well-established K-Pop industry that’s deeply informed by Western boy and girl bands. You’ve got rapper Kendrick Lamar on his latest album, GNX, inviting a legendary mariachi singer from Mexico, Deyra Barrera, to duet with him on his new album. So I think less about trends than I do about how sounds kind of continue to evolve and even accelerate across the planet and collide, intersect and influence each other. For me, that’s what’s most intriguing on our show, The World, when it comes to music. And that’s what we kind of follow.

Rath: Give us an example.

Werman: Well, let’s start off with an album that came out this year from Chilean rapper and singer Ana Tijoux. The song is "Fin del Mundo" from her new album, "Vida." And you know, Ana Tijoux, I’ve been a fan for a while. Reporter Gisele Regatão brought us news on the show of Tijoux’s first album in ten years, this album Vida. She’s a French Chilean rapper. Incredible rhyming. And you really hear how well Spanish is suited to her flow. She’s also just a great melodic singer and, frankly, a magical artist. Even a song like "Fin del Mundo" — that’s on its surface about the end of the world, it’s also about an end of a relationship — she seems to make upbeat. Those lyrics in English mean "I no longer know what’s going to happen to us. I just know that I can’t stop thinking how much time do we have left when we meet again?" It’s a voice that at times does kind of feel more suited to the Def Poetry Jam space than than rap. But then at the same time, on the same album, she’ll have this song about people who had disappeared during the Pinochet years in Chile in 1973, or even giving a song like "Fin del Mundo," The End of the World, a positive feel. I don’t go.

[music]

Werman: Yeah. She’s a remarkable performer, Ana Tijoux. And I’m so glad she’s making music again after ten years.

Rath: Marco, I know you have your ears tuned to a lot of different music, but The World also has a bunch of great reporters out across the globe. Tell us about some of the stuff they’ve kept you informed about this year.

Werman: Well, we Gisele Regatão tell us about Ana Tijoux. And we also had a Gerry Hadden in Spain. He’s got a critical set of ears. And this year, he brought us this great comeback story about a girl duo called Hinds out of Madrid. Hynes our Carlotta Casials and Ana Perrote. About ten years ago, they recorded this demo in their bedroom in Madrid. The tune got good traction not in Spain, but actually in the UK. They got a record deal, released two albums, and then suddenly, boom, they were brought down by the pandemic after like headlining clubs in the U.K. They lost a record deal, lost their drummer and bassist, and we’re back to basically just two young musicians trying to make it. But they said "never say die" and spent all their savings on a new album called "Viva Hinds." And evidently they still had enough juice to get Beck to join them on this track called "Boom Boom Back."

[music]

Rath: OK. That is awesome. And Marco, it gets to this disappearance of walls that might help listeners pin down where music is coming from. Like, you know, aside from the language, I would have had a hard time with that. Is that a good thing.

Werman: For my money? It’s what makes music around the globe these days so compelling how artists and sounds mutate and influence each other. There’s the impact, obviously the internet and artists listening to new sounds that they’ve never been exposed to. There’s also just mobility across the planet. That means, like Kendrick Lamar can be sitting at the World Series in L.A. and hear a mariachi singer and say, "Wow, that speaks to me. I want to feature her voice next to mine." We actually got into this on the world this year in India in an interview I did with the legendary music producer Joe Boyd. He’s got a new book out called "And the Roots of Rhythm Remain," the titles taken from a Paul Simon song. And some people might recognize that song from his album "Graceland," called "Under African Skies." Joe Boyd, through several fascinating examples of this dynamic, starting with Paul Simon in the 1980s, hearing this banging compilation of South African township jive and then, of course, one to South Africa to record on musicians whose livelihoods were being effectively eclipsed by apartheid. Anyway, that idea of an outsider raising the profile of a culture that might rub some people the wrong way, but along with just the organic influences that are happening all of the time, it’s also how we’re exposed to new things. And I asked Joe about that.

Joe Boyd [recorded]: A great quote by [Mikhail Bakhtin], a philosopher, who said that in order to really understand a culture, you need to be outside it. And I think that many of the greatest recordings have been somehow inspired or supervise or produced or somehow inflected by outsiders who see things differently than people inside the culture do.

Rath: Yeah. Marco, I mean, that really speaks to me, you know, as someone who’s a product of mixed cultures myself and so much of the music that I love, I mean, my mind goes right away to Philip Glass or John McLaughlin studying Indian music or Ry Cooder going to Cuba before, you know, the old is new again. Right. We’ve got one of it’s a social club. And, you know, it doesn’t always work out. There are plenty of bad examples, too.

Werman: Yeah, I no, that’s totally true. Especially when a producer only wants to add like, the unfamiliar sound for effect. On the other hand, as you know, it can be utterly beautiful. Like this year with the ensemble American Patchwork Quartet. This is a group whose mission is precisely to underscore the diversity of the U.S. that really makes music in this country so cool. Clay Ross is the leader and guitarist with the South Carolina Gullah inspired roots rock band Ranky Tanky. He founded American Patchwork Quartet, and this year they made their Grand Ole Opry debut in Nashville, where they performed — it’s kind of remarkable — they performed this folk gospel standard, "Wayfairing Stranger." I want you to listen to a vocalist, Falguni Shah, who has a background in Hindustani music here on vocals.

[music]

Rath: Oh my God, Marco, that one — that’s worth the price of admission right there.

Werman: Well, I got to say, Arun, if you like that one, I think you’ll appreciate this one as well.

[music]

Rath: So. OK, Marco, I’m going straight to the record store after here. What am I buying?

Werman: Pretty much everything that I’m playing for you right now. When I first heard Nicoletta Hoang, I was just slayed. I mean, she leads this band, Nicolette & the Nobodies out of Toronto. She wrote this song — I don’t even remember how I spotted her — but she wrote this song about a friend who was in a bad relationship, "Love Unrequited." And I got to thinking about the idea of leaving a bad situation. The thing is, I mean, as country as that sounds, she was never really drawn to country music. Her parents are from Vietnam. Nicolette grew up with Vietnamese music. She listened to French pop singers like Francoise Hardy, also pulled from her parents record collection the drama and cry in Tammy Wynette’s voice. And she discovered that that led her to Loretta Lynn, George Jones. But as a daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, she told me she brings a different voice to the genre.

Nicoletta Hoang [recorded]: I often hear people saying the same thing, which is that they didn’t know they liked country music, but they like this. There’s definitely a stereotype to country music. It’s a very white, male dominated genre. It’s about pickup trucks and drinking. And when people see me, it doesn’t look like that.

Werman: And I got to say, the video for "Show Up" is just delightful. I mean, it’s it’s a little show. She’s on stage, but she’s also in the back room being herself. And it’s really lovely.

Rath: I love everything about that.

Werman: Let me leave you with one last highlight from the year from global music. And for this, we’re actually going to go back to an artist who was uplifted around the globe thanks to the label [Real] World Music. This album is called "Chain of Light," a posthumously released recording by the late great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the peerless Pakistani qawwali vocalist. I know you knew about this album, Arun. Nusrat, of course, died in 1997, but in the archives of Peter Gabriel’s Real World label where Nusrat recorded are these exquisite recordings, like this track where his vocal range and skills are on full display.

[music]

Rath: That just takes me to such a good place. Marco. I love his music so much.

Werman: I have no words to describe it, so we’ll just let Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan take us out. So there you have it around a few highlights from the year in global music.

Rath: That was brilliant. That’s Marco Werman, co-host of GBH’s The World. Marco, thank you so much and happy new year.

Werman: Same to you. It was a pleasure to be here and talk about music with you.

Rath: We'll be marking the end of 2024 with a week of year in review conversations, so tune in to GBH is All Things Considered all week long for more.

Mark Herz: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. We’re reflecting on the year in news. The GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting has dug into a series of stories this year that affect people across the Commonwealth. Among other things, we took a closer look at the state’s massive consumer debt industry, its reliance on the courts, and the often unseen health impacts of the region’s growing shipping trade. GBH is Jenifer McKim heads up the investigative team and is here to talk about it. Thanks for joining us.

Jenifer McKim: Hey, Mark.

Herz: Good to have you. Let’s start with what you found out about what’s going on with personal debts and the state’s court system. I think what you found there was a real eye-opener, wasn’t it?

McKim: Thanks so much for asking, Mark. We decided to look at small claims courts in Massachusetts, which were initially created to help people resolve legal issues without a lot of legal complications. But what we found was that they are swamped by big companies suing people for oftentimes old credit card debt. We found 85% of cases in small claims court, that’s like 70,000 cases last year, of big company suing people for debts as little as $2,000. Many times for people who didn’t even know they owed the debt at all.

Herz: Wow. So what happened to these people in the courts? What did you find out?

McKim: Well, we found out that oftentimes people never even showed up because they didn’t recognize who was suing them. They never got the letters. And then they got these crazy large judgments that would last for 20 years with large interest rates. We also found some people had been sued by debt buyers, debt collectors who actually went in and repossessed their cars in the middle of the night. We found one man in particular who’s been sued more than 20 times by folks, including the state attorney general’s office, for allegedly wrongfully taking people’s cars as a way to get them to pay their debt. So there was a lot of stuff that we found and we’re looking right now focusing on for the last piece this year related to thousands of folks who are getting sued in state courts for student loan debt, which a lot of people can recognize as something they’ve had to deal with.

Herz: Sure. There’s a lot of people that would relate to that. That sounds really important. Also this year, Jenifer, your team focused on health impacts for people living near ports in our region. And there are some concerning findings there, too, right?

McKim: Exactly. Christopher Burrell on our team decided to focus on issues related to the state and country’s growing shipping industry, which is a great economic boon for many people, but also is, as he discovered, creates environmental health problems for folks, especially around port communities who often are people of color, low income people. So he looked at Boston Harbor. He actually traveled all the way to Newark [and] Rhode Island, to look at places where there’s actually more activism and community folks fighting to create cleaner ports.

Herz: And what’s going to happen there? I mean, is there any fix on the way?

McKim: It’s interesting because he showed that how Massport, which controls the largest amount of shipping traffic in Massachusetts, had lost an EPA grant to do some cleanup. But just last week, they announced that they’re going to spend $60 million to try to electrify part of the shipping ports to make the air cleaner for everybody.

Herz: Yeah. Really important work there. And speaking of things that you dig into that have impact and really help people who might be vulnerable, what’s on the docket for next year, Jenifer?

McKim: So we’re digging to many things for the new year. One of the things that we do plan to focus on is work with senior investigative reporter Phillip Martin, who is an expert in covering issues related to the alt right white supremacy. This project we are informally calling now the Keepers of Democracy. He did some great work last year, going up to New Hampshire and working and talking with election officials who were trying to make sure that everybody who is legally allowed to vote could vote. Now he’s focusing on the first part of the year and the incoming Trump administration and looking at how local politicians, advocates, community folks are working to protect the most vulnerable in our community and the institutions of democracy, including folks like immigrants and human trafficking victims who, in the past Trump administration, definitely had troubles.

Herz: So a year of really important work and more important work on the way. GBH is Jenifer McKim. Thank you so much.

McKim: Thank you very much, Mark, for having me on.

Herz: Sure. You're listening to GBH.

Mark Herz: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. We’re reflecting on the year in news. And each week this year, GBH’s host of The Culture Show and executive arts editor Jaren Bowen has taken us into the world of the arts in and around Boston, including to stages, to movie theaters and home screens, to local museums and more. Jared joins us this morning to talk about some of the biggest trends in the arts this year. As always, thank you for joining us.

Jared Bowen: It’s great to be with you.

Herz: So let’s start with AI. Jared, we’ve seen AI intersecting with every facet of life over the last year, and the arts is no exception. So what’s been the impact there?

Bowen: Well, this is really, really huge. I think a lot of this we saw come in with the actors and writers strikes because artificial intelligence is going to have a huge impact on jobs in the entertainment industry. One of the biggest stories that we saw over the last year or so was Tyler Perry shutting down the construction of his studio in Atlanta. I think that was basically the equivalent of an earthquake throughout the industry to realize that suddenly artificial intelligence can change the number of jobs that are required because artificial intelligence in just a few keystrokes can do what teams of studios used to do together and collaboratively. We’re also looking at musicians having to guard their intellectual property because you can have Johnny Cash singing the Barbie song. We have artists who realize that their own material may be appropriated because AI can just essentially scavenge the Internet and pull up images and create new works. But it’s really based on existing works because of course, AI is an algorithm. It’s not its own artist. So we’re seeing major copyright issues as well. So when you boil it down, what we’re going to be facing and what we have already seen these huge signals about is potential loss of jobs, potential loss of intellectual property, and then where do we move forward with this and how do we live with AI? Because it’s not going away and there has to be a collaboration ultimately.

Herz: Does it change how art is actually made?

Bowen: I think it’s very much going to change how art is made because we’ll have entire generations who will now come up with again realizing that so much can be done in front of a computer with keystrokes. Artists will always exists. Artists will always strum instruments, and they will always take a paintbrush to the canvas. But I think we are going to see a huge impact and this will be a whole new growth field. I think, in terms of artists who are specializing in AI capabilities. And by the way, it’s not all bad because it will give people opportunity, people who don’t necessarily have the artistic prowess with the hand or the brain in terms of creativity, but maybe in a different way.

Herz: Okay. And so from this big, overarching, exciting and concerning change to a more local change. This has been a year with a lot of changing of the guards when it comes to leadership of important local arts organizations. Tell us about that and maybe how you see it changing things for patrons of the arts.

Bowen: I think we are in for a very, very sizable shift, and it’s really interesting to watch a lot of our arts institutions, whether you’re talking about the performing arts or museums. Leaders have been in place for a decade or longer, and these have been a very difficult number of years. As we looked at racial reconciliation, as we looked at COVID and the impact and low attendance figures and then trying to get their institutions back on track. Now that they have done that, in large measure, we see a number of them stepping down. So the director of the Harvard Art Museum stepped down. The director of the Museum of Fine Arts has announced he’s stepping down next year. We saw the director of Speakeasy Stage Company announce that he’s stepping down next year. Casey Soward just took over the Boch Center. So that’s a lot of — we have a number of institutions here in this region, but that’s a lot of change all at once. So I think the opportunity here is that we have people coming in, so far, the hires that have been made, Chad Smith at the BSO, he did start at the end of 2023. But we started to get a sense of his leadership here. The same with the director of the Harvard Art Museums. They’re all looking at institutions that have a really, really solid footing. And then with fresh eyes in both cases, these are individuals who’ve come outside of Boston. Chad Smith coming from Los Angeles, Sarah Ganz Blythe, she had actually been at the RISD museum, so not too far away, but they’re coming in with fresh eyes and getting to know our city. And I think they’ll be a huge advantage in that in trying to figure out what the new need is as there is institutional change. This is also big at the ICA, where director Jill Medvedow will step down in March of next year and Nora Burnett Abrams from the Museum of Contemporary Art from Denver steps in. As I take a look at what she’s done in Denver, they have $5 after 5 p.m. admission. So, you know, I often talk about free admission and accessibility. I fully expect that she will carry that and expand what Jill and her team have already done at the ICA. So I think we’re in for major cultural change.

Herz: I guess the theme of this Year in Review really is change, because the final thing I want to get to is about change. And you mentioned race briefly in there too, and it has something to do with that too. And that’s what a super exciting and very significant year it’s been for country music. So with Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter and Shaboozey reigning over the country charts, you know, we’re seeing Black artists shaking things up. And I’ll just make a side note and say, and this is not your Charley Pride hits of the 60s or even Darius Rucker more recently. And it’s not just Black artists. So tell us how you’re hearing it, Jared.

Bowen: Well, you just illustrated it all right there, that country music has always shifted and country music has its roots in Black music. The performative nature has its roots from Mexican traditions in terms of costumes. And we think back to those early days of country music and hee haw and that era. And now where we find ourselves where Beyoncé dropped this major album this year. We also saw major pushback to Beyoncé. There were country music stations that didn’t want to play her album, arguing that it wasn’t country. Well, when you have Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton participating in your album, that ship has sailed. And so we are seeing this major moment where executives in Los Angeles are now hiring out of Nashville, where we see a lot of the streams, the top artists on Spotify, are country music. And we’re seeing this crossover. And going back to what you were just saying, I think it’s really interesting to see how country music has evolved in our sound, going from Hank Williams to maybe somebody like Orville Peck, who is one of the very few gay country singers out there. I recently spoke to him when he was touring in Boston about what it is like to be performing all across the country as a gay country singer.

Orville Peck [previously recorded]: When I play these like red state country festivals and I’m probably the only gay person on the bill, if I can sort of make some people feel comfortable and sort of show them like, Hey, look, we’re the same, and we have this thing in common, which is this love for country music. If I can bring people closer together and educate people, that’s even better.

Bowen: And I think this all comes down to people love the form. They love the song. Maybe the faces, the identities, the personalities, the people who are sharing that with us is changing. But people ultimately love the vocal quality. They love the folksiness. They love the roots of this all. And I think it’s going to be really exciting to watch where this all goes. Country isn’t number one yet, but I think it’s trending in that direction.

Herz: GBH’s Jared Bowen, thank you for sharing your year in review in the arts.

Bowen: Great again to be with you and thank you for having me.

Herz: You're listening to GBH.

Arun Rath: This is GBH’s All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath. It’s been a big year for sports in Boston: The Celtics won a championship, the Patriots got a new head coach, and Boston got a pro women’s hockey team. Joining us now to talk about the year and what to look forward to in 2025 is GBH’s Esteban Bustillos. Esteban, hi.

Esteban Bustillos: Hey, Arun.

Rath: So it’s been a big year, like I mentioned. What should be on people’s radar for 2025?

Bustillos: Right. So first I want to do something a little bit different. I’m going to give you four numbers that define 2024, so we can look forward to 2025. How’s that?

Rath: I like that. Different is good. What’s the first number? [00:00:35][3.0]

Bustillos: All right. So the first number we got is five, which is the number of times this century — including this year — that the Patriots have had a losing record. Now, as it stands now, even if they win out, the Pats, they can’t finish above 500. Now, to make things worse, the Patriots are currently in a spiral to the bottom of their division, the AFC East, with the New York Jets. And if New England comes in last place, it would be only their second time ever in the history of the organization that the team has been at the bottom of the division for two straight seasons. So, it’s lots to fix for the first year, head coach Jerod Mayo and company — if he ends up staying at all.

Rath: Yeah. And well you’ve got an even smaller number for us next, right? [00:01:18][4.

Bustillos: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the next number is number one, which is this time representing the number of games that the Boston Fleet was away from winning the first ever Professional Women’s Hockey League championship earlier this year, the Walter Cup. Now, as we’ve covered before, Boston and the rest of the PWHL, they played their first season without a proper name. And now, with a year in the league under their belts, the Fleets are looking to finish what they started last year. Here’s team GM Danielle Marmer speaking last month.

Danielle Marmer [recorded]: You’re a sports team in Boston, the expectation’s that you’re winning the whole thing. So that’s you know, we’re not afraid to say it. A lot of teams don’t want to talk about championships too early. I think that’s the thing. You know, we made it to the final game of the final series of the Walter Cup finals. And this time we’ve got some unfinished business to attend to.

Rath: Well, that’s awesome. That’s something something to look forward to for this year. So some smaller numbers. Now, you’ve got a big one to throw at us next, right?

Bustillos: Huge one. Right? So this number is $91 million. Now, that’s the new projected total that the White Stadium renovations will cost the city of Boston, as first reported by The Boston Globe. That original number was about $50 million. And the expected overall total for this project now may be twice the original price tag of $100 million. After community feedback and other considerations. Now, this is just the latest hurdle that’s come to BOS Nation FC, the upcoming National Women’s Soccer League team, in recent weeks. First, there is the team’s disastrous rollout of its name and the, quote, "too many balls" campaign, which who could forget? Now, the team quickly distanced itself from that slogan. And over Thanksgiving week, something that a lot of people may have missed: They quietly announced that they may be considering a name change. So that’s something to look out for in 2025. Now, demolition on White Stadium was originally supposed to start in the fall. We’ve clearly passed that deadline now. And with the team set to start to play in 2026, any further delay could significantly hurt the project. Jennifer Epstein, the team’s controlling partner, struck by the team’s plan to use White Stadium during an introductory press conference for team GM Domènec Guasch.

Jennifer Epstein [recorded]: Alongside the city, transforming it into a modern and accessible stadium that is a worthy home for the Boston Public Schools students and our club, while restoring it as a treasured asset for the community, requires significant capital investment.

Bustillos: Now, some local residents, of course, they’ve pushed back significantly against this whole project, basically saying that it amounts to privatization of White Stadium. A court date and a lawsuit against the project is set for March 18th.

Rath: All right, Esteban, what’s our last number?

Bustillos: So the last number this goes to the Celtics, the reigning NBA champions, and that is the number four. That’s the number of NBA teams that have won consecutive titles this century. The Lakers did it twice. They had a three peat at the beginning of the 2000s, and then again 2009-2010. The LeBron-era Heat did it down in Miami, 2012-2013. And of course, the Golden State Warriors did it in 2017-2018. The Celtics have the chance to join that exclusive club if they can defend their title, something oddsmakers currently have them favored to do.

Rath: That would also be awesome. That’s GBH’s Esteban Bustillos breaking down the year in sports. Esteban, thank you.

Bustillos: Thanks, Arun.

Rath: This is GBH's All Things Considered.

Arun Rath: This is GBH is All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath. All this week on GBH’s All Things Considered. We’ve been looking back at 2024 events in the news, but also events and great things in culture. And we’ve been diving into music. We’re talking with Brian McCreath about classical music with Marco Werman of GBH’s The World about world music. And today we have GBH jazz host Al Davis to talk about the year in jazz. Al, welcome.

Al Davis: Thank you. Thanks. This is wonderful being here this afternoon. How are you, sir?

Rath: I’m doing well. It’s great to talk to you. And this is going to be the first conversation of many because we should just be talking about about jazz more, because you’re right down the hall.

Davis: That’s correct.

Rath: And we’re going to talk more about GBH’s music and jazz before we wrap up. But let’s get into some of this music. And I should say at the outset, we’re not going to have time to get through all of your favorites because we’ve got about seven minutes here. So we’ll make a list of all your favorites ... and whatever we don’t get to people can know to go out and get some good music.

Davis: Excellent.

Rath: So what have you got to start us off?

Davis: Well, the first one has been pretty popular for the last several months now. And that’s Antônio Adolfo’s most recent recording, it’s the music of Cole Porter. And it’s been hanging around on the charts for several months now, for almost six months now. And it’s a wonderful arrangement. The way it’s put together, the style of music. Cole Porter, you can’t go wrong there.

Rath: No. I was just singing Cole Porter this weekend at a Christmas party.

Davis: See? There you go. So this is a big band arrangement, but it’s really soothing from beginning to the end of it. And it has a nice tempo to it, a nice flow to it. And the music is just wonderful. The arrangement is fantastic. So that’s one of my favorites for sure. Antônio Adolfo. It’s called "Love Cole Porter."

Rath: Let’s hear a little bit of that.

[music]

Rath: Yeah. And that’s. That’s kind of nice for the holidays, isn’t it?

Davis: That’s right. Correct. Yes. You see it has a beautiful cover on it as well.

Rath: Awesome. What do you got up next?

Davis: So the other thing, too, is we have one of my favorite vocalists. Her name is Kandace Springs, and Kandace is a pianist and a vocalist. And the first time I heard her perform on television, I thought she was a drummer, you know? And she was with Daryl Hall. You know, he had her — invited her to his place, and she’s driving his car. And, you know, I see all that here, you know, flapping around and so forth. So when she comes in, I immediately think she’s a drummer. But I was wrong on that. And so it turned out she was a pianist and a vocalist. Her and Darryl did a song, a composition together. Then all of a sudden, you know, Darryl said, "well, why don’t you do one on your own? And she started to sing that. And that just melted my heart and soul. So I had to do some history on her, you know, a little background. And she’s worked with Prince for many years. You know, she used to go by his house and they’d do these jam sessions together. Then finally, she decided to go out on her own. And I remember her doing a tour, started up in Maine and worked her way down through Massachusetts and Rhode Island and out to other parts of the country. And she’s been fabulous ever since. And I’ve heard her with a big band, a WDR big band as well. You know, not just piano, just her vocals. And it just is just fabulous. So this new one that she has out is called "Run Your Race." No strings I think is involved with this, but it’s just a wonderful arrangement for vocalist Kandace Springs.

[music]

Rath: That is a voice. That’s a that’s a voice we should know.

Davis: And that’s for sure. And if you you know, there’s been some reissues have been arriving at the station as well. Here’s one that really has a nice sound, too. Everybody knows Oscar Peterson, has heard of Oscar Peterson.

Rath: Love and adore.

Davis: Yes. This was a live recording that was done back in Munich of 1994 of Oscar Peterson and his quartet. And this has been a reissue. And I guess say the estate is releasing all these compositions, live music from Oscar. And this is one of them that just come in and is absolutely wonderful, the arrangement. You can’t go wrong with Oscar Peterson. Right. You know? And so it’s called "City Lights." And like I mentioned, it was recorded live in Munich in 1994. And the piano work is is absolutely phenomenal.

Rath: Here’s some Oscar Peterson.

[music]

Rath: And you have like like you said, you can’t you can’t go wrong with that.

Davis: That’s correct. That’s correct. Another thing that I’ve noticed that’s coming in through the library and through the station in terms of jazz, there’s a lot of women playing jazz nowadays. So, I mean, I’m not talking about vocalism, I’m talking about playing saxophone. You know, you’ve got the DIVA big band and you have an alto saxophonist, the name’s Lakecia Benjamin. And she’s a she’s been — she’s won an Oscar, and quite a few awards. And so she’s up and coming. Well, she’s been around for a while and she’s come to Berklee every now and then to perform. But there’s a new saxophonist by the name of Sarah Hanahan, and she plays alto saxophone. Her new release is "Among Giants." And this young lady can play — there’s no doubt about it. She’s on the Blue Engine record. She has wonderful band members with her. And they just, she really performs a top performance. She’s looked like she’s been playing for a long, long time. And so it’s just a wonderful artist to listen to. Her name is Sarah Hanahan, and it’s release is called "Among Giants." Let’s take a listen.

[music]

Rath: I can see from the record in your hand, she sounds older on the horn than she looks.

Davis: That’s right. That’s true. Yes. So she’s she’s new. And it’s good to hear young people, especially women playing jazz. There’s a bunch of them out there now that’s not just big band, but the quintet quartet kind of thing and also doing vocals. So women in jazz has escalated over the years. And I think it’s a wonderful thing.

Rath: That’s awesome. And Al, but before I let you go, I wanted to talk a bit more about some of the stuff that’s going on with GBH Music and jazz specifically. Can you tell us a bit about what’s going on where people can actually come and see?

Davis: Well, there’s few things else. We have jazz every weekend, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and myself and my co-host, Va Lynda Robinson. And she does a wonderful job on Friday nights, and I’m usually on Sunday night, but we alternate the Saturday nights. So the hours are from 9 to 1 Friday and Saturday night and nine to midnight on Sunday nights. Then we’re also we have the Boston Public Library, which we have people come down and perform live. It’s a free event. It’s every second Thursday of the month. So the other part of it, too, is the GBH newsletter, myself and Va Lynda interview artists. We had folks like Greg Gilbert, Pat Metheny, Christine Fawson is another one, and Shawnn Monteiro, Sonny Carrington, who is Terri Lyne Carrington’s father, and a lot of history there. And then we had saxophonist James Carter come in and have a conversation with him as well. So we have all that going on. So we do this at least once a month, myself and Va Linda Robinson, and we talk with these artists who talk about their music, their career and what’s what’s new with them and in the music in general with the direction jazz and music is going nowadays. So which is great.

Rath: That’s great. Al This is it’s great talking with you. And yeah, we’re going to make this a regular thing because this is so, so fun to talk about new music with you and talk about old music with you.

Davis: Yeah.

Rath: That's GBH jazz host Al Davis. This is GBH is All Things Considered.

Mark Herz: This is GBH is Morning Edition. We’re reflecting on the year in news. And in disability news this year, we saw a major lawsuit locally and a viral moment on a national political stage. GBH’s Megan Smith joins us to talk about those stories and more. Good morning.

Meghan Smith: Good morning.

Herz: So for the local disability community, there was a major settlement to help people leave nursing homes for more appropriate housing. Tell us about that. [00:00:25][7.7]

Smith: That’s right. So back in April, the state settled a lawsuit, Marsters versus Healey. And the lawsuit argued that there’s thousands of people across Massachusetts that are essentially being warehoused in nursing homes because the state hasn’t done enough to help them move out, there’s not enough support for them. And they said that it was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. So this new settlement will create new programs, help people move out. And a lot of the advocates I talked to said that this is really transformational. They said it could be a pretty dramatic change to how the state supports people with disabilities. And also they hope it can change the culture around nursing facilities so that they’re not a place where people just go and get stuck if there’s no other place, nowhere else for them to live. And, you know, very sadly actually, the original plaintiff in the suit was a man named John Simmons, who I met when I did my original story. Sadly, he passed away before he could leave a nursing home and before the settlements. But I did meet a woman back in the spring, Lorraine, who was living in a nursing home in Worcester. And because of the settlement, she was getting ready to move out onto her own into a group home in Shrewsbury. She’s really excited too. She told me she’s real excited to have a kitchen. She’s going to cook, you know, curry chicken — that’s her favorite thing — and have her grandkids over. So it’s a pretty big deal in the local community.

Herz: Yeah, it’s great to hear and it’s really important that people find housing that really supports them fully as full human beings.

Smith: Yes, definitely. I mean, housing is always an issue, as we know, in Massachusetts. And for disabled people, it can be an even bigger challenge.

Herz: Sure. Now, in the neurodivergent realm, one moment that really went viral this summer was Tim Walz’s son at the Democratic National Convention. How did that resonate here, Meghan?

Smith: Yeah. So back in August, when Tim Walz was giving his acceptance speech at the DNC, his son Gus, who was 17 at the time, he was caught on camera cheering really enthusiastically. He had tears in his face. He was saying, you know, "That’s my dad." He was with his mom and sister. And that went viral across social media. And I talked to some of the parents of neurodivergent kids here in Massachusetts. They said that they loved seeing this moment of joy is what they called it on a national political stage. They loved that the Walz family didn’t try to hide him or encourage him to tamp down his emotions. He was really his authentic self. And here’s one mom, Noreen Donovan, talking about that moment.

Noreen Donovan [recorded]: Just brought us to really appreciate our own neurodivergent son and how much we really treasure him and really emphasize his uniqueness and how that is such a special thing, right?

Smith: Yeah, and Gus has a nonverbal learning disorder. I talked to a woman who has the same condition, and she said that, you know, this moment could have the potential to raise awareness about the condition and also just lead to more acceptance of people in public who might express themselves differently. Another mom I talked to, who has two sons with autism, said that this moment was really important to her because when her kids were young, there was very few — there were very few public examples of family like hers. This moment gave her really a sense of belonging.

Herz: That’s wonderful. Now you’re part of the new Equity and Justice Reporting Unit, and you all have been telling more stories on different platforms. Why is that? What’s the aim there?

Smith: Yeah, we’re trying to tell some stories that might not always make it to traditional broadcast platforms, but they’re important to these communities. So we’re hopefully going to tell stories on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, reach new audiences. I went to an accessible fashion show which highlighted models and designers with disabilities, which was really fun. Around election time, I followed a blind voter as he voted for the first time to see what that process was like. I met a Paralympic gold medalist who was visiting Spaulding Rehab Hospital where she had previously been a patient. And I did a story about a program at the Museum of Science that was using classical music to teach blind people about whales and marine science. So these are all stories that are really important and have resonated with people online in different ways. We’re hoping that we can just do more stories like that.

Herz: Megan Smith, who’s been reporting on disability news this year. Thank you so much.

Smith: Thanks, Mark.

Herz: You're listening to GBH.

Arun Rath: As we wrap up 2024, it’s time to look back on a year filled with unforgettable classical music. And with our extensive classical music programing with our station WCRB, we’re lucky to get unique, direct insight into the world of music. Joining us today to guide us through some of this year’s standout records is someone with a keen ear and a deep knowledge of the music landscape. Brian McCreath, director of production at GBH Music. Brian, thanks for joining us.

Brian McCreath: It’s great to be here, Arun. Really fun.

Rath: And as you know, I’m a music nut and coming into this I thought it’d be fun with my own list of 2024 favorites. And I’m curious to see if any of our choices match up. So I don’t know what you’ve brought in, so let’s just dive right in. What topped your list this year?

McCreath: Well, well, and there’s so much out there that it’s so hard to nail it down and come up with just a few. So whether we overlap or not, I think it’s going to be really fun to walk through some of these things. Let’s start with Marc-André Hamelin. Marc is one of the world’s great piano virtuosos. His technique and his interpretations of just the most demanding piano music are astonishing. But Marc also turns out to be a composer. And so the first selection I’ve got for you is a disc that Marc released this year of his own piano works. The thing about Marc is that he is a really funny person, I’ll confess. He’s a friend of mine — which I’m very fortunate to say, because when I hear him play, it’s astonishing. It is as it is for anybody. But I also kind of know a little bit about what’s going on. And what I love about this release is how much it says about Marc as a person. You really get the sense of his reverence for previous generations of piano virtuosos, reverence for composers of music of across the centuries, as well as a wit and a curiosity and a sort of omnivorous way of looking at music. So kind of hard to describe everything that’s on this particular release. But I wanted to focus for our sound just to get a little sample of it on what he calls a "suite in old form." So there are movements that are like what you’d find in a baroque suite. But let’s hear a little bit of the prelude to this suite. What I love about this is that you immediately understand just the ferocious technique that Marc has. It’s unbelievable what he’s doing at the piano to begin with. And then I love it — I love what he does by seducing you into thinking just for a second or two that you’re going to hear a baroque suite, and then the harmonies just begin to go a little off kilter, until they go really off kilter. And it’s just his wit, his fun, his technique that filter into this piece.

Rath: It’s wildly virtuosic and so accessible to like I mean, you get a mood and a feeling right away.

McCreath: Exactly. And that’s how all of his pieces are on this disc that, just like I said, really reflects the curiosity, the wit, the humor, and again, the amazing abilities of Marc as a pianist.

Rath: Definitely going out to buy that once, once we finish. So what do you got next?

McCreath: Well, there’s a really great choral ensemble that is based in Boston called Skylark. And Matthew Guard is their founder and director. They’ve done a lot of amazing projects over the years and been nominated for several Grammys, as it turns out. They’re nominated again this year for an album called Clear Voices in the Dark. And it really represents something about Matthew’s approach to programing and putting things together in unusual ways. But also, again, like with Marc-André Hamelin, the execution is astonishing. So Clear Voices in the Dark takes this piece by Francis Poulenc called Figure Human, which was a piece written for a cappella chorus by Poulenc during World War II, in secret in occupied France. And it is based on surrealist resistance poetry of the time. And what Matthew did is he paired it with Civil War songs of our own country, so that you go back and forth between this intense 20th century, very mournful, almost scary music from France with this also mournful, but also in a way, hopeful music of the Civil War. So I wanted to offer you just a combination of those two things. What we’ll hear is the end of one of the parts of the Poulenc that’s called The Day Shocks Me and the Night terrifies me. That transitions into the well-known hymn Abide With Me. Let’s hear a little of that.

Rath: My goodness.

McCreath: What you have is this a very harmonically intense and complex 20th century music by Francis Poulenc and an almost simplistic but very pure American harmony with these hymns. Yet they both emerge from worlds that are falling apart, that are under complete threat of even being in existence at all. You feel in each one both terror and hope. And it’s a it’s a brilliant combination that I’m not sure I’ve heard in any other setting. And as I said, Matthew Guard leads Skylark in a really stunning recording of these pieces.

Rath: Hearing this for the first time, it’s really transporting it, really. I mean, you talked about that hope. It’s almost like it takes you to a too hopeful place. Physically, almost.

McCreath: Well, I think the part of why this struck me this particular year, it won’t surprise any listener, of all Things Considered, to know that the world is in such a perilous state in so many parts of the world that are at war right now. And so this music resonates especially well in 2024.

Rath: You know, it provides a direct connection to what’s actually our first overlap on our list. So this is our own Boston Symphony Orchestra performing Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie. Tell us about this, because I love this.

McCreath: I love to hear that. And, you know, we produced the broadcast of the performances at which this recording was made, and it was astonishing in the moment. It’s even more astonishing now listening to it. Turangalîla is a ferociously demanding piece for orchestra involving not just an amazing virtuoso piano part played by Yuja Wang, but also the old martenot, an early electronic music instrument that sounds it’s basically the flying saucer theme from sci-fi movies in the 1950s. Especially in this performance and in this recording, you don’t hear it as a novelty. You hear it as this integrated part of Messiaen’s color that the sound that he envisioned when he composed this piece, a huge orchestra, a long piece of music, but one that is absolutely, again, astonishing to hear. An astonishing one is played really well. Let’s hear a little bit of this.

That’s the old martenot again, so beautifully integrated into the texture of the orchestra. And Turangalîla, what’s really significant about this particular recording is that the Boston Symphony premiered this piece that was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky and premiered 75 years ago exactly. And it was led by Leonard Bernstein, as it turns out. But it’s a piece that lots of orchestras have played, but it’s also so demanding that to have an orchestra of the of the character of the BSO, not just in terms of its virtuosic abilities, but also because of their rich history, not only with Messiaen, but with all of French music that has a glow to it, especially in the slower parts that is really unmatched among other recordings that I know of Turangalîla-symphonie.

Rath: Brian, it’s been so much fun talking with you. We only got to three recordings, so I’m going to direct people to our website where we’ll have the fuller list of some wonderful music that came out this year. But fantastic. Thank you so much.

McCreath: It’s been my pleasure, Arun. Thanks so much.

Rath: That's Brian McCreath, director of production at GBH Music.

Henry Santoro: This is GBH’s Morning Edition. As 2024 comes to an end, we’re reflecting on some of the biggest news stories of the year. There was no shortage of news happening in Worcester this year. For instance, there continues to be a shortage of affordable housing that’s pricing families out, and people are still coming to grips with the damning findings from a federal investigation into Worcester police conduct. Joining us to talk about those stories and more is our Worcester bureau reporter Sam Turken. Hey, Sam.

Sam Turken: Hey, Henry. Thanks for having me.

Santoro: This situation with the Worcester Police Department has been going on now for two years. Can you tell us more about what the investigation found and what was the fallout?

Turken: Yeah, so this was a huge federal investigation. Earlier this month, U.S. Justice Department officials, they released their findings — this 41 page report — and it was scathing. It confirmed police have routinely used excessive force. We’re talking about things like unnecessarily tasering people, hitting them in the head, having police dogs bite them. The other main finding was the police department allows undercover officers to have sex with women suspected of being prostitutes — behavior that investigators called outrageous.

Santoro: It is outrageous.

Turken: It is outrageous. And you know, Henry, the police department has been battled for years because there have been a lot of accusations for this type of misconduct. And as you can imagine, now that the federal report is out, it’s been a major blow to the city. The police department’s outside lawyer slammed it as inaccurate and biased, and so have police unions. But City Manager Eric Batista — he oversees the department — he says he’s committed to restoring trust in it and he’s creating a city hotline to report police misconduct, among other steps. But it’s still early. Folks are just waiting to see what actually happens.

Santoro: As a reporter, have you been able to get any officers to speak?

Turken: No. No. You have to go through the top officials at the police department.

Santoro: On to the housing issue in Worcester. What are you seeing on the ground?

Turken: Unfortunately, it’s more of the same. There just aren’t enough affordable apartments and homes for people, as is the case across the state. More folks in Worcester County are becoming homeless as a result. We reported on that quite a bit this year. And for people who do have apartments, another thing we’ve reported on is how many have to settle for really shoddy living conditions because they just have nowhere else to go. Worcester’s tried to use federal COVID relief money to help fund the construction of more affordable housing, and state leaders are doing the same. But it’s a slow process and the gap is just, it’s huge. Some experts estimate that just in the state’s 26 Gateway Cities, which include Worcester, we’re going to need 80,000 new homes over the next decade. And if we don’t meet that need, people will continue to leave the state, which obviously hurts the economy.

Santoro: And that’s going to cost billions of dollars.

Turken: Exactly.

Santoro: You mentioned COVID relief money from the federal government. There’s criticism that Worcester officials are awarding it unfairly. Can you tell us about that angle?

Turken: So we’re talking about the American Rescue Plan Act, which was passed by the federal government, and we’re talking about ARPA money, which is the abbreviation for American Rescue Plan Act. And it had to be committed for the end of this year. It came from the federal government and went down to states and cities. And the feds wanted the money to go to underserved communities, plain and simple. And in line with that, Worcester officials had said they would prioritize these small, grassroots organizations led by people of color that help those communities. But it turns out that a lot more money has gone to larger, established nonprofits with deeper pockets that don’t necessarily specialize in helping Black and brown communities. And this has led to complaints that the funding process is inequitable. Worcester officials have said strict federal eligibility requirements make it hard for the city to give money to groups with less of a track record managing these large grants. But I’ve reported that the requirements, they’re actually more lenient for this type of funding. Now, just real quickly, there’s no money left to give these organizations, but the latest I’ve heard is that the city is now trying to set aside the interest on the funds. So it’s kind of like the leftovers, about $2 million, for those groups that haven’t received as much.

Santoro: That is Sam Turken discussing news out of Worcester over the past year. Sam, thank you so much. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays.

Turken: Thank you, Henry. Same to you.

Santoro: I'm Henry Santoro. You're listening to GBH.