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.
🌤️A mostly sunny day with highs in the 70s. Sunset is at 6:28 p.m.
Prof. Carlo Rotella’s English course at Boston College requires students to put away their phones, leave their laptops behind and open physical books.
“I think you should encounter people in your education who show you how to use AI and other technologies,” Rotella told GBH’s Kirk Carapezza. “But if you want to get stronger and faster, you need to move the weight yourself and you need to run the distance yourself.”
When Carapezza visited Rotella’s class, they were reading “The Rise of Silas Lapham,” a 19th century novel set in Boston about social mobility, by William Dean Howells. Rotella said a classroom free of digital technology can train students for citizenship.
“It’s equipment for living,” he said. “It’s the same skill you use when you think about the State of the Union Address or the state of your neighborhood.” You can step into the classroom yourself here.
Four Things to Know
1. Congress is back in session today to try to pass a bill that would keep the federal government funded and prevent a shutdown on Wednesday. And in Massachusetts, members of the state government have been trying to figure out which agencies would need help with payroll or government functions should a shutdown occur. Some potentially vulnerable programs: MassHealth’s Medicaid waiver services, federal highway money and Federal Emergency Management Agency funds.
“A shutdown could create challenges for certain spending accounts in the General Federal Grants Fund, revenue collected through federal reimbursement and for programs run and funded primarily by the federal government,” according to a memo obtained by the State House News Service from the Office of the Comptroller and the Executive Office for Administration and Finance.
2. With November’s election just over a month away, the two candidates for Boston City Council’s District 7 are taking different stances on supervised injection sites — proposed places where people would be able to use illegal drugs under medical supervision to prevent overdoses.
“I’ve found needles. My dog has found needles in the yard,” Rev. Miniard Culpepper said. “I think the safe injection sites give those that are struggling with the disease of addiction at least a safe place to properly dispose of those needles.” Said “Coach” Ahmed said he had more questions. “Those things are things that I personally need to do more research about to see what is the impact, what is the benefit,” Ahmed said. “Where is this going to be exactly? Who [was] there before that?”
3. How will new Cape Cod bridges, planned replacements for the Bourne and Sagamore, impact the environment around them? A new report from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation predicts minimal impact: some impacts on monarch butterflies and their habitats, but minimal effects on North Atlantic right whales, fish and shellfish in the Cape Cod Canal.
State officials are also hoping new bridges will lead to less traffic. “The most significant factor in the reduced emissions of air pollution is the reduced congestion,” said Luisa Paiewonsky, executive director of the Megaprojects Delivery Office in the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. “And that involves making the bridges more functional, but also making the interchanges more functional, because they’re contributors as well.”
4. Beware of the buzz: two more people in Massachusetts have now been diagnosed with the mosquito-borne West Nile virus — one in Middlesex County and one in Boston. The state has had eight human cases of West Nile virus this year. About 80% of those infected won’t experience any symptoms. Most of the remaining cases will involve flu-like symptoms, while a very small number may develop severe illness affecting the nervous system, which could require hospitalization.
So how do you avoid it? Do your best to prevent mosquito bites. “Covering up when you are outdoors, particularly during dusk to dawn, wearing a long sleeved shirt, wearing longer pants, which is easier to do now that it’s cooling off a bit,” Boston’s commissioner of public health, Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, told GBH’s Craig LeMoult. And keep using bug spray. “Insect repellant is not just for the summertime.”
Local Suya Joint manager released after nearly 100 days in ICE custody
After nearly 100 days in ICE custody, Suya Joint restaurant manager Paul Dama is free.
Late last week, two days after an immigration judge granted him legal status through the asylum process, a correctional officer at the jail where he was being held in New Hampshire told him to pack his things. Agents drove him to Massachusetts, where his elated sister picked him up.
“I feel so excited. I feel very joyful. I wasn’t even expecting to have left yesterday,” Dama told GBH’s Sarah Betancourt in an exclusive interview on Friday. Betancourt has been closely following his case.
Dama’s case, like many others, involved two separate legal processes: deportation proceedings — which began in June when federal agents detained him on his way to church because he had overstayed a visitor visa and had a past arrest for drunken driving — and a petition for asylum, an immigration status pathway for people fleeing their home countries in fear for their safety. Dama filed his because, back in Nigeria, he had been kidnapped and tortured by members of the group Boko Haram. Asylum applications can take a long time to process through backlogged immigration courts; Dama’s was pending when he was detained.
After he was detained, he went before a judge in his deportation case asking to be released on bond until the next hearing in his separate asylum case. That judge declined, and kept him in ICE custody. That happened to others who were detained with him, he told Betancourt.
“I saw a lot of people do that when people who lost their bond, who were not approved for their bonds, just come back and just sign up for voluntary departure because at that point you feel like, well, all hope is lost,” he said.
Dama said his family and friends convinced him to keep waiting.
“I gained all the strength and even the confidence to go before the judge, knowing that I had that kind of support from the community,” he said. “Without it, I don’t think I would be here right now.”
Though he was granted asylum, government officials can still appeal that judge’s asylum ruling or proceed with his deportation case. It’s not clear what will happen next.
“I hope to see my therapist, as well, as soon as possible so we can get back on my therapy sessions,” he said. “It was a difficult time for me at the jail. I kind of used some of the coping techniques and tools that she gave me.”
You can read Sarah Betancourt’s full story here or watch a video of their full interview.
-Local restaurateur Paul Dama granted asylum after more than 3 months in ICE custody
-Detained manager of Suya Joint denied bail or release with electronic monitoring
-Manager of award-winning Boston restaurant detained by ICE
Subscribe to GBH Daily
Your essential daily newsletter delivering trusted news, local insights, ways to connect, and can't miss programs from Boston and beyond.
