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☁️Clouds and a chance of afternoon showers with highs in the 60s. Sunset is at 8:20 p.m.
If you’re traveling internationally this summer, here’s something to keep in mind: when you return to the U.S., be aware that Customs and Border Protection agents at Logan Airport are allowed to search smartphones without a warrant, GBH’s Marilyn Schairer reports.
Case law around the practice is not clear-cut, said Esha Bandari, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. But travelers might want to think about moving some data from their phone’s memory to the cloud or using a different phone with less data on it.
“Consider what’s on your device that you don’t strictly need when you’re traveling,” Bandari said. “Do you need all of your social media accounts? Do you need all of your sensitive medical applications, your bank applications or your health tracker app?”
Four Things to Know
1. With Congress considering a 10-year federal ban on new AI regulations, lawmakers in the Massachusetts State House are wondering what their options are for trying to ensure the technology is used responsibly. Fourteen state lawmakers signed a letter to the state’s congressional delegation in Washington asking them to fight the AI regulation moratorium, part of the spending and policy legislation known as the Big, Beautiful Bill.
“Who is going to control or set those standards that we want AI to operate by?” said State Sen. Michael Moore, a Millbury Democrat. “Is it going to be Meta? Is it going to be Google? Who sets the standards — the industry? Is that looking out for your best interest, or their best interests?”
2. Motivating Youth Recover, a substance use treatment program for teenagers in Worcester, is closing because of financial issues, GBH’s Sam Turken reports. UMass Memorial Hospital’s Community Healthlink, which runs the program, says it’s the only such center in the state.
“There’ll be more young people that won’t be able to access services,” said Athena Haddon, executive director at Spectrum Health Systems in Worcester. “Young people not getting services turning to be old people that haven’t gotten services. And there’s more of a need — more than ever.”
3. The head of Boston’s FBI field office has been officially promoted to an unspecified role at the agency’s headquarters. Jodi Cohen had led the Boston office, which covers operations in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island, since 2023.
Cohen was the first woman to run the Boston field office. FBI spokespeople would not say who is leading the bureau’s Boston office now.
4. Summer vacation is here, and with it a shift from kids’ routines — which can mean a change in sleep schedules. Dr. Gene Beresin, a child psychiatrist, told GBH’s Morning Edition that parents who notice their children going to bed much later, or getting far less shut-eye than they usually do, should consider a conversation about sleep habits.
“[Have] conversations with each other about sleep, about activities, about energy, about what they’re doing, all sorts of things,“ Beresin said. Parents can bring up things like exercising, reducing stress and trying to avoid phones and computers before bed. They can also try and spend more time together during the day (if possible). “Actually try to help them in a general sense,” he said. “Their general well-being will enhance sleep.”
When you’re sick in Mattapan, where do you go?
If you get sick or injured, how long would it take to get to your nearest medical center? Even within Boston, a city with a bevvy of hospitals, medical help is not accessible for everyone. Mattapan is home to about 25,000 people, but has no hospitals or emergency care centers.
There is one primary care facility, the Mattapan Community Health Center. About 91% of patients there live below the poverty line, medical director Aimee Williams said.
“Many of our patients have long commutes to work,” Williams said. “They have to work long hours or multiple jobs. And so it’s hard to prioritize health care if you need to prioritize work to pay rent and to afford food.”
But people who need urgent care and don’t have a car have to make the trek to Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital in Jamaica Plain, 3 miles and about 45 minutes away by bus. Until last year, people could go to Carney Hospital in Dorchester, a 1.5-mile, 15-20 minute trip via bus or trolley. But that hospital closed when its owner, for-profit health system Steward Health Care, declared bankruptcy.
“It closed so quickly with little time for anyone to make any changes that were going to be needed,” said Vivien Morris, founder and chair of Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition. Morris is a member of a working group Mayor Michelle Wu and Gov. Maura Healey’s offices put together to make recommendations about how Carney Hospital’s neighbors can access health care.
The working group is suggesting more urgent care, primary care and mental health services at the old Carney Hospital site and at other clinics. But that would require people, funding and more.
“We’re asking for a lot of the services that were provided at the hospital to be provided at more community health centers,” Morris said. “A report is a report. It’s not saying that these things are actually happening.”
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