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🌂Cloudy with a slight chance of rain and highs in the 60s. Sunset is at 7:02 p.m.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu earned a 48-point lead over challenger Josh Kraft in yesterday’s preliminary election — getting 71% of votes to Kraft’s 23%. Even with that margin, both of them will now advance to a final election in November. The other two candidates on the ballot, activist Domingos Darosa and former police officer Robert Cappucci, got just over 2% of votes apiece and will not continue to November’s election.
“The next 8 weeks are about more than the remaining two names on the ballot,” Wu said. “It’s a test of who we are. It’s a test of whether we believe in our city as a place of possibility and promise — whether Boston will keep going as a home for everyone.”
Kraft, the son of Patriots owner Robert Kraft, told supporters last night that he will stay in the race. Public records show he has financed his campaign with $5.5 million of his own money so far.
“We are still in this race,” Kraft said. “And we know the road ahead is not going to be easy, but neither is life in Boston for too many families.” GBH’s Adam Reilly and Saraya Wintersmith have your full election night rundown here.
Four Things to Know
1. Massachusetts is changing how it conducts environmental reviews on some construction projects — part of an effort to speed up the process of building new housing, state officials announced yesterday. The streamlined process will apply to projects located near public transit, outside flood zones and in areas with existing water and sewer infrastructure.
“The bottom line is: we can maintain our strong environmental standards and build housing and also have nature-based solutions to address rising climate mitigation, rising climate needs and mitigation,” Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll said.
2. The state’s public defender agency hired 22 new lawyers over 17 days last month, the first batch needed to fill a goal of 320 new attorneys over the next two fiscal years.
The agency, called the Committee for Public Counsel Services has, until now, represented about 20% of defendants in criminal court who can’t afford to hire their own lawyers. The rest are represented by bar advocates — independent attorneys who stopped accepting new cases in May to protest low pay rates. Their action led to a$20-per-hour raise over two years and a commitment to hire more public defenders.
3. Lowell Public Schools Superintendent Liam Skinner said that as the school year begins, his district is trying to better support students from immigrant backgrounds, English language learners and students dealing with instability in their families or home lives.
“When we hear about new escalating raids or when ICE vehicles are spotted in the city, our tension goes up and it does among our community members,” Skinner said. “We feel very protective of our students in particular and their families. I believe we have done a good job of assuring them and providing them with reassurance that their students will be safe in schools.” Also in the works: helping paraprofessionals in the school system become teachers.
4. Can you feel a crispness in the air? A slight chill down to your bones? That can only mean one thing: October will be here three weeks from today, and Salem is preparing to welcome its annual deluge of Halloween visitors.
Salem’s year-round residents are asking that as you prepare for your visit, you keep the locals in mind. They suggest you take public transportation (the Commuter Rail will have expanded service) and generally be respectful. “Salem is not just Halloween central. We need to go to school, grocery store, doctor’s office and a hundred other places while others celebrate Halloween,” police chief Lucas Miller said.
Unlicensed and injecting: Alleged fake Botox case shows health risks in local med spas
You might remember that in late July, reporter Liz Neisloss came to GBH Daily readers with a question: Have you had a bad experience or medical issue after getting an injection at a med spa or aesthetic clinic?
Today we bring you the result of her reporting: Massachusetts has little oversight of aesthetic injectors, people who administer things like Botox and fillers outside of medical settings.
“If med spas are owned or controlled by a licensed doctor or nurse practitioner, the businesses don’t need to be licensed by the Department of Public Health,” Neisloss writes. “And if a business isn’t licensed by DPH, the agency doesn’t have the authority to conduct spot checks or regular inspections.”
The result is that some people seeking injections might end up in the hands of someone without the proper training or oversight, said Dr. Matthew M. Avram, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Dermatology Laser and Cosmetic Center.
“In Massachusetts, perhaps surprisingly, we have among the most lax oversight of who can inject patients,” Avram said. “It’s kind of like the wild west out there.”
And that can have consequences: there’s a cluster of 18 suspected botulism cases all tied to injections at Rodrigo Beauty in Milton. The owner of Skin Beauté Med Spa in Randolph, Rebecca Fadanelli, was arrested in November with federal prosecutors claiming she injected clients with counterfeit substances. And a local dermatologist who treated a patient with complications from an injection gone wrong told Neisloss he could not find a state authority responsible for investigating it.
So what can you do if you’re looking for a reputable injector? Check the state’s medical licensing database to see if your injector has a valid license and do your research.
“If for some reason, they’re advertising and selling it for a price that seems too good to be true, well, then that’s exactly what’s happening,” said Emily Brems of Medical Aesthetics in Hingham.
There’s a lot more in this investigation that we could not get into in one email. You can read the whole story here.
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