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.
🌤️Noreaster no more: mostly sunny with highs in the 60s. Sunset is at 6:01 p.m. It’s day 15 of the federal government shutdown.
After 28 years in prison, Ricky “FuQuan” McGee walked out of a courthouse in Boston yesterday after prosecutors said his case contained “a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice.” McGee was accused of shooting and killing Geta Yalew, a convenience store clerk at Christy’s Market in the Fenway, during a robbery in 1997. McGee has consistently maintained his innocence, asserting that police officers overlooked another potential suspect and instead coerced a 15-year-old friend into testifying against him.
The case is not over: a judge still has to decide on vacating McGee’s murder conviction. But for now, McGee is at his mother’s home in Dorchester.
“We’re gonna take one day at a time, that’s all I can say — just one day at a time,’’ said his mother, Miriam Merriman. “Let him get used to his surroundings, just one day at a time.” You can read Liz Neisloss’ full report from the courthouse here.
Four Things to Know
1. U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a Salem Democrat, announced he will challenge Sen. Ed Markey in next year’s primary election.
“We’re in a crisis, and with everything we learned last election, I just don’t believe Senator Markey should be running for another six-year term at 80 years old,” Moulton said in his campaign announcement. “Even more, I don’t think someone who’s been in Congress for half a century is the right person to meet this moment and win the future. Senator Markey’s a good man, but it’s time for a new generation of leadership.”
2. Winter heating bills are approaching, and Gov. Maura Healey asked the state’s Department of Public Utilities to look at all the charges tacked on to gas and electric bills to see which can be lowered or eliminated. Your bill likely includes extra costs like a fee to help utilities replace old gas lines and a renewable energy charge, but most of the cost goes to generating or importing the energy.
“We’re a great state, but things cost too much. And I know our families and our businesses need relief, and that’s what I am looking to provide,” Healey said. “Every dollar has to be justified. If there isn’t a real customer benefit there, it should come off the bill.”
3. Two brothers from the Western Massachusetts town of Sheffield who were part of a flotilla trying to enter Gaza earlier this month before a ceasefire went into effect are back in the U.S. Tor Stumo, one of the brothers, told GBH News that Israeli guards beat him while he and his brother were in custody.
“Every moment that the guards were not being observed, they were violent and they hit us,” Tor said. “I remember lying there unable to feel my hands. I couldn’t even sit upright because I would pass out again. I remember thinking, if they — the greatest ally of the U.S. — treat a U.S. citizen on a humanitarian mission this way, how much worse are they treating these Palestinian prisoners who often have no charges, men, women and children?”
4. Quincy’s government can’t install two 10-foot-tall statues of Catholic saints outside its new public safety building while a legal challenge from city residents goes to court, a judge ruled yesterday. Mayor Thomas Koch commissioned the statues, of Saint Michael and Saint Florian, for $850,000 in public money. He claimed in an affidavit that “there was nothing religious” about them.
“Our argument is: by choosing to install religious figures that are primarily associated with one religion — in this case Catholicism — on a public building violates this principle because it’s elevating one religion above others,” said Rachel Davidson, an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts representing city residents who oppose the statues.
‘It’s my responsibility’: In the wake of ICE raids, youth support their families
Yoana Pleitez Romero is 22 and suddenly in charge of a lot. Until recently, her stepfather worked at two pizzerias and her mother at an East Boston bakery. Romero, who wants to be a pediatric nurse, had signed up for classes at Bunker Hill Community College.
But federal immigration agents detained her stepfather in September. Her mother, who is undocumented, is afraid to leave the house and cannot go back to her job after she says her employer withheld her wages for months.
So Romero is now taking her three little sisters — ages 12, 9 and 4 — to and from school, while working full time as a receptionist at a health clinic in East Boston. She also drives for Uber Eats to help her family pay the bills: $2,100 in rent, $1,100 for their car and insurance, plus groceries, utilities and internet. She’s also spent time trying to find out where federal immigration authorities have taken her stepfather, who was moved from detention in New York to then Mississippi. And she’s searching for a lawyer who might be able to help her family, as the Trump administration limits bond hearings to pressure detained immigrants into leaving the country. She’s not sure if she’ll be able to go to her nursing classes when they start in January.
Romero can put on a smile in front of her little sisters, but she worries, she said.
“I have to be strong for them,” she told GBH’s Sarah Betancourt. “I don’t cry in front of them — I can’t break down in front of them. Even my mom, she will break down even if we mention it.”
In her reporting, Betancourt found that, as ICE agents detain and deport more people, stories like Romero’s are becoming more common.
“Her case is an example of that trend that we’re seeing on the ground ... a lot of young people that should be going to college, that should be enjoying their time as young people,” said Patricia Montes, executive director of Centro Presente, a nonprofit working with Romero’s family. “Now they are taking responsibilities because of this inhumane immigration policy that we’re seeing.”
You can read Sarah Betancourt’s full story here.
Dig deeper:
-Burlington Town Meeting votes to condemn ICE center
-Local Suya Joint manager released after nearly 100 days in ICE custody
-Amid ICE surge, Somerville becomes a focal point for arrests
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