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🌤️Mostly sunny, with highs in the 40s. Sunset is at 4:22 p.m.
Now that the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history is over, Environmental Protection Agency worker Lilly Simmons says she feels relief — and uncertainty.
“Folks are glad to be back doing the work that they love and the work that helps protect the public and human health,” Simmons, who works in the EPA’s Boston office and serves as president of the local union, told GBH’s Craig LeMoult. “Like, that’s what we want to do.” But, she said: “It’s likely to happen again. And hopefully it won’t be this bad.”
The law funding the government through January includes a provision to give federal workers back pay and reverse layoffs imposed by the Trump administration during the shutdown.
“I will be looking forward to getting that money, that back pay, and being able to pay back my in-laws for the money they loaned us for the mortgage and everything without our checks,” Simmons said. “And for other people ... They’re not in as good a situation. Maybe they had to take loans from the bank or maybe they had take up gig work.”
Simmons said she’s also concerned about whether contractors working with the EPA and other agencies will be paid.
Four Things to Know
1. Rep. Stephen Lynch said he believes lawmakers who voted to end the federal government shutdown without extending subsidies that make Affordable Care Act marketplace health plans affordable were in the wrong.
“I think some members had other priorities other than the well-being of the people that they represent. That’s plain and simple,” he said. “It’s not just the ACA tax credits that were passed in ARPA. It’s also the fact that Medicaid — Medicaid is going to be cut by a trillion dollars over the next 10 years.”
2. Earlier this month, 56% of Somerville voters approved a non-binding ballot question asking if city officials should stop doing business with companies that ‘engage in business sustaining Israel’s apartheid, genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine.’ It’s not clear what will happen next. Mayor-elect Jake Wilson said he had concerns about whether the measure would be enforceable. A spokesperson declined to answer questions about it this week, saying instead that “Mayor-elect Wilson is immersed in the transition work to ensure the new administration is ready to hit the ground running on January 2.”
“We’ve had many conversations with him as a councilor,” said Amina Awad, an organizer with the group Somerville for Palestine. “I personally went to his house and met with him with a collection of other Palestinian Somerville residents. ... At that time, he really met us with empathy, and I’m hoping to see that shine through.”
3. The new garage at Framingham’s Logan Express stop — where travelers can park and take a shuttle directly to the airport — is now open. The new garage has three extra levels, double the parking spaces and 2,600 solar panels that meet its energy needs. Parking costs $7 a day, and bus tickets to Logan are $9 each way. Last year, passengers took more than half a million rides between Framingham and Logan.
“We are ready to ... make sure that our customers over the coming holiday season will have as a quick, seamless and hopefully enjoyable travel experience as possible,” Massport CEO Rich Davey said. Next up: remodeling the Logan Express garage in Braintree.
4. Your weekend shuttle bus rundown: The Orange Line won’t run between Forest Hills and Back Bay today through Sunday, and the Red Line will be out of service between North Quincy and Braintree from Saturday through Nov. 23. You can take a free (but slower) shuttle bus or, in some cases, hop on the commuter rail.
For our readers in Western Massachusetts: Amtrak trains that usually run from Springfield to Washington, D.C., will be replaced by buses between Springfield and New Haven at least through Monday.
‘We welcome the stranger’: Boston archbishop urges Catholics to help immigrants
What made Boston’s Catholic Diocese leader, Archbishop Richard Henning, want to participate in drafting a rare special pastoral message condemning the “indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and the “vilification of immigrants”?
“The message is an attempt to remind us as Catholics of the foundational truths of our faith — about human dignity, and about Catholic social teaching — with regard to how we welcome the stranger,” Henning told GBH’s Sarah Betancourt yesterday.
Henning and three other bishops wrote a draft of the message after their plenary assembly in Baltimore earlier this fall. Nearly every Catholic bishop in America was in favor of releasing it: 216 voted to approve it, five voted to reject and three abstained.
“We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care,” the bishops wrote. “We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.” (You can read their full message here.)
The last time the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a special pastoral message was in 2013, when they spoke against an Affordable Care Act requirement to cover contraceptives. This time they did not mention any specific politicians, parties or government agencies. They wrote that they “pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”
Henning said he hopes Catholic parishioners will take heed.
“Knowing that our politics can be so poisonous, it was an attempt to speak at a more human level,” Henning said. “And so my hope is that that it would be received that way, that people would take it to heart rather than to argument.”
Read Sarah Betancourt’s full story here.
Dig deeper:
-‘It’s my responsibility’: In the wake of ICE raids, youth support their families
-Feds end the automatic renewals of most immigrants’ work permits
-Family members of detained Allston car wash employees speak out
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