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☀️Sunny day with a chance of afternoon showers and highs around 90. The July 4 holiday weekend forecast looks clear and bright, with no rain and highs in the 80s and 90s. Sunset tonight is at 8:24 p.m.
If you’re stuck in endless, crawling traffic heading in or out of Cape Cod on the Bourne and Sagamore bridges this weekend, here’s a little detour to consider. About 2.5 miles away from the Sagamore Bridge (less than a 10 minute drive in optimal conditions) is the Cape Cod Canal Visitor Center, a free museum run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers where you can learn about what it took to build the bridges: about 700 people working around the clock without much machinery as part of a federally funded effort to get people back to work during the Great Depression. When the Cape bridges opened in 1935, the Boston Globe published a story saying they would cure the traffic woes caused by the drawbridges they replaced.
The Bourne and Sagamore bridges just turned 90 last month. CAI’s Jennette Barnes writes that they will likely be replaced before their 100th birthday, with $4.5 billion plans underway. Surely the new bridges will solve our traffic woes. (Side note: the CapeFLYER, the train that runs from South Station to Hyannis on summer weekends, is running a little extra service for the holiday weekend today and tomorrow.)
GBH Daily will be off tomorrow for the Independence Day holiday. See you back in your inbox with the latest news on Monday.
Four Things to Know
1. Massachusetts is among 20 states suing the Department of Health and Human Services for sharing data about Medicaid recipients with the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. While immigrants without legal status typically don’t qualify for all Medicaid benefits, some are allowed to access benefits at the state level. The information shared includes Medicaid recipients’ names, addresses, Social Security numbers, immigration status and their healthcare information.
“Disclosing individuals’ private health data for the purpose of immigration enforcement puts lives at risk,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said in a statement. “Congress has made it clear that emergency Medicaid coverage extends to all individuals, regardless of immigration status.”
2. A Jewish student from Concord-Carlisle public schools withdrew from the school system after other students subjected them to racist slurs and Nazi salutes, according to a lawsuit from the Anti-Defamation League.
“In refusing to acknowledge and address the root cause of the targeted harassment against Jewish students, Concord-Carlisle has exacerbated the antisemitism in its schools and further isolated its Jewish students,” the lawsuit reads. Superintendent Laurie Hunter said the schools have “thorough response protocols, an anonymous reporting system and ongoing training for students and staff.”
3. Immigrants from Honduras living in Massachusetts under Temporary Protected Status are on edge: their legal status is set to expire on Saturday, and they don’t know whether the Trump administration will renew it — or, as it has done for TPS recipients from other countries, revoke it.
“They can say, ‘We did make a decision about TPS and we’re immediately gonna cancel it,’” said Jackey Baiza, a TPS recipient who came to the U.S. at age 3, after a hurricane, and has kept up with her TPS renewals, along with paperwork and fees, every two years. “If the latter happens, then yes, I — and everyone with Honduran TPS — immediately becomes illegal in this country. And we lose our work authorization. We lose our ability to support ourselves, and support our families.”
4. Since some court-appointed attorneys stopped taking on new cases in May to protest low pay rates, more defendants in criminal cases who can’t afford to hire legal help have been left without a lawyer. Now a justice from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is considering whether to dismiss some of their cases.
Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt is considering whether to let prosecutors dismiss cases against people who don’t have an attorney, with the understanding that the state can bring charges again when the work stoppage is resolved.
Martha’s Vineyard reflects on ‘Jaws’ impact, 50 years after the iconic film’s release
It’s been 50 years since Martha’s Vineyard played the role of fictional Amity Island in Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws.” While the sharks in the movies were fake, the settings were very real: the crew shot on the island’s beaches and in its waters, employing locals on set and as extras, GBH’s Kate Dellis reports.
“How many movies can you walk, drive or swim through all the major locations?” said Bow Van Riper, research librarian at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. “That neat little seaside world wasn’t just a Hollywood backlot — this was a place you could actually go and visit.”
A lot on (and off) the island has changed in the last 50 years: the population has gone from 6,000 to a bit more than 20,000. Housing has gotten more expensive, creating more inequality. Summer blockbusters, a genre “Jaws” is credited with starting, are ubiquitous.
But you can still find locals who worked on the movie, like Eric Ropke, a carpenter known on set as “the hippie with the hammer.” He built a tear-away dock and Quint’s boat, both designed to be destroyed during filming.
“I would say this is not just a hippie’s dream but anybody’s dream if you could live in a place like this,” he said. “And of course, it’s gotten more complex and difficult as various things have happened to make [Martha’s Vineyard] more famous.”
And some of the island’s residents say the mechanical sharks were so effective that they’re still scared to swim.
“Our family, as many Wampanoag families, fish during the winter, and during the summer we clam. ... It’s a close relationship with water,” said Berta Welch, who runs Stony Creek Gifts with her sister in Aquinnah. “In terms of swimming, it’s been ruined by 'Jaws.’”
Read more:
What makes the “Jaws” score so memorable, delightful and frightening? On Under the Radar, GBH’s Callie Crossley talked to music experts to break it down.
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