This is a web edition of GBH Daily, a weekday newsletter bringing you local stories you can trust so you can stay informed without feeling overwhelmed.
🌡️ Hot and sunny, with highs in the 90s. Sunset is at 8:18 p.m.
Two stories we’re keeping an eye out on the national front: Last night President Donald Trump signed an executive order looking to block almost all of Harvard’s international students from entering the U.S. “In my judgment, Harvard’s conduct has rendered it an unsuitable destination for foreign students and researchers,” Trump wrote. Harvard called it “yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration” and said the university “will continue to protect its international students.”
Second: The president also announced a new travel ban to take effect Monday, barring people from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the U.S. The countries come from a report on nations that Trump administration officials claim have “hostile attitudes” toward the U.S. Stay with us for more information about these orders and their impact on the Boston area.
Four Things to Know
1. Changes are coming to the way Massachusetts regulates legal weed: members of the state House unanimously passed a bill yesterday changing how Cannabis Control Commission members are appointed. Under this bill, the governor would appoint the commission’s chair — previously the state treasurer’s job.
If this bill makes it to the finish line, it would also allow for individual people or companies to own more retail licenses, opening the door for dispensary chains with more locations; raise how much marijuana flower one person can purchase in a day from one to two ounces; and put in regulations on hemp-based foods and drinks.
2. Worcester County’s population of homeless people is up about 20% from last year — now at 3,110 people, including almost 1,300 children, 100 veterans and 500 chronically disabled people. And those numbers are likely an undercount because they don’t include people who are living in their cars or staying with friends or family, said Leah Bradley, CEO of the Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance.
The health impacts of homelessness are especially worrying, she said. “We’ve had a lot of folks that had not had treatment for cancer,” Bradley said. “A lot of females don’t get prenatal care, which has resulted in infants not surviving after they’re born.”
3. Worcester police officers are pressing charges against City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj, accusing her of assaulting an officer as immigration agents detained a woman outside her family’s home.
Body camera video from the day, in which Haxhiaj and about 30 other people were protesting against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, shows a Worcester police officer pulling Haxhiaj away from federal agents’ car, and Haxhiaj’s hands making contact with the officer in the process as she yelled “do not touch me.”
4. Chicks, ahoy! Massachusetts wildlife officials put bands around the legs of four baby peregrine falcons yesterday. The birds’ birthplace: a nest 25 floors up, outside the Christian Science Church’s old offices.
Peregrine falcons had effectively vanished from the region in the 1970s because of the insecticide DDT, but their population has grown since the U.S. banned it — Massachusetts is now home to about 45 nesting pairs. “We’ve had huge conservation successes and so it’s great to be able to highlight that,” state ornithologist Andrew Vitz told GBH’s Craig LeMoult.
‘ICE, please get him out’: Family of detained Milford teen pleads for his release
The family of Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, the 18-year-old Milford high school student who U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled over and detained on his way to volleyball practice last weekend, filmed a video addressing ICE directly and asking them to release him.
His younger siblings talked about how they miss saying good night to their brother, watching movies together and having him make them ramen and chicken nuggets.
“I miss my son so bad,” said his mother, Daiane Pereira, sitting with her husband and their two younger children inside his bedroom. “This is the room of my son, and I need my son inside my home. I need to hug my son — please.”
Gomes Da Silva, who was born in Brazil, has lived in the U.S. since he was 5 years old, an attorney for his family said. He has no criminal record.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said ICE was looking for Gomes Da Silva’s father, who she said has a history of speeding at more than 100 miles an hour, according to local authorities.
His father, João Paulo Gomes-Pereira, had a driving infraction dropped by a judge in 2023 and paid a $100 fine for failing to stop or yield on the road. He does not have other pending criminal charges, court records show.
”While ICE officers never intended to apprehend Gomes DaSilva, he was found to be in the United States illegally and subject to removal proceedings, so officers made the arrest,“ McLaughlin wrote in an email to GBH News. He is being held at an immigration facility in Burlington.
In the family’s video, Gomes-Pereira addresses ICE agents directly: “I love my son, we need Marcelo back home,” he said. “We love America. Please bring my son back.”
Gomes Da Silva has a hearing scheduled in immigration court today.
Read Sarah Betancourt’s full reporting here.
