☀️Sunny and warmer, with highs in the 70s. Sunset is at 6:21 p.m.

The Trump administration is asking nine universities across the country — including MIT — to pledge that they will adopt policies in line with the administration’s priorities in exchange for a promise that they’ll get preferential treatment when applying for federal grant money.

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Among the policies: stricter definitions of gender, a limit on how many international students can enroll and a five-year tuition freeze. The Associated Press reports that the 10-page memo also went to Vanderbilt University, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, University of Southern California, University of Texas, University of Arizona, Brown University and the University of Virginia.

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, told GBH’s Kirk Carapezza that he would tell university leaders not to sign on. 

“This is an invitation to allow the federal government to intrude on some of the basic things in higher education — who we teach, who teaches, what we teach. Institutional autonomy is at risk here,” Mitchell said.

Four Things to Know

1. Undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children may soon be able to apply for legal status under the over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (also known as DACA) program for the first time since 2021after an agreement coming out of a lawsuit in Texas. Any final decisions are on hold until the end of the government shutdown, but immigration advocates say people who are eligible can start to prepare.

“This would be applicable to people who just never filed for DACA before and can now finally file,” Jennifer Bade, a local immigration attorney, told GBH’s Sarah Betancourt. “Maybe they didn’t know they could file; they filed too late and it’s just been pending and in limbo for all this time. And now it can finally be adjudicated.”

2. It’s been a year since 10 communities in Massachusetts banned fossil fuels (oil and gas power) in new buildings: Acton, Arlington, Aquinnah, Brookline, Cambridge, Concord, Lincoln, Lexington, Newton and Northampton. The Department of Energy Resources studied 20 completed projects to assess the effectiveness of energy efficient construction, comparing them with communities that still allow fossil fuels. The study found some improvement. You can read the full report here. 

Lisa Cunningham, who runs the Brookline-based climate advocacy group ZeroCarbonMA, told GBH’s Trajan Warren that state lawmakers should expand the program beyond its initial 10 communities. There’s a bill under consideration that would allow any city or town in the state to do just that. “It shouldn’t just be these rich communities that have access to this program. It should be other communities with higher rates of poverty and higher rates of diversity,” Cunningham said.

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3. A company in Roxbury is releasing a dictionary to help people translate between English and Cape Verdean Creole, a language spoken by about 70,000 Massachusetts residents. The dictionary translates more than 100,000 Kriolu words.

“We saw a huge need with the Cape Verdean Americans who’ve been here for hundreds of years, actually generations, that were kind of missing that piece, that link to the culture through language,” Djofa Taveres, who copy edited the dictionary, told GBH’s Hannah Loss. You can get the dictionary online or at the Dr. Ellie Paris Social Bookstore in Brockton.

4. We’re headed for decidedly unchilly highs in the 80s this weekend but food writer Marc Hurwitz, founder of the Boston Restaurant Talk Blog, has a few suggestions for autumnal eats around the area. Among them: apple cider donuts at Langwater Farm in North Easton, Westward Orchard in the town of Harvard and Connors Farm in Danvers.

He also recommended a spot in Cambridge where you can get a maple creemee — the Vermont-famous soft serve frozen treat: Momma’s Grocery and Wine. “It’s a little food shop on Mass. Ave. They don’t really advertise that they have maple creemees, but they do have it. And it is very good,” Hurwitz said. “I’d say it’s almost as good as some of the ones I’ve had in Vermont.” You can find the rest of his picks here.

‘Home of egg rolls, jazz and blues,’ Chan’s celebrates 120 years in Rhode Island

Add this to your New England day trip bucket list: a venue housed in a converted bank vault that’s part Chinese restaurant, part live jazz-and-blues club. GBH’s Kate Dellis took a trip down to Chan’s Fine Oriental Dining and Lounge in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

The owner is John Chan, whose extended family has owned the place since 1905. It began as a traditional Chinese restaurant until John — while a student at Providence College in the 1970s — suggested adding live music.

“My roommates were DJs for the school’s radio station and they would bring home some of the great new releases — jazz, rhythm and blues, soul albums,” he said. “And I said, ‘This stuff’s pretty nice.’”

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The venue has since hosted notable acts like Leon Redbone, Livingston Taylor and Dizzy Gillespie.

“Shamika Copeland, she’s one of the biggest blues divas in the world today; Monster Mike Welch; Princess Grace Kelly, the saxophonist. I mean, she’s amazing — so they all have played here through the years, and now they’re in their 30s and 40s and they still come back,” Chan said.

There’s also the food: Szechuan string beans, Singapore rice noodles, egg rolls, roast duck and more.

“There’s nothing like it. It’s the hybrid of a world-class jazz and blues club and a real traditional Chinese restaurant, where you come into a room and you see paper dragons hanging from the ceiling and some of the great jazz and blues players performing,” said Jeremy Berlin, piano player for the band Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish.

You can see what the club looks like — and hear what it sounds like — right here.