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🥶Bundle up: sunny but freezing, with highs in the 20s. Sunset is at 4:11 p.m.
Anyone hoping to check out Kuya Jay’s Ube Kafe, a new Filipino café in Somerville, was met with disappointing news posted on the café’s social media and front door in all-caps: “CLOSED BY THE BOARD OF HEALTH.”
The issue isn’t about sanitation or health practices, but rather mix-ups and a bureaucratic maze of licensing, the café’s owners, Sarai and Jay Ricciardi, told GBH’s Azusa Lippit. The couple took over the space from another business owner and thought they were still covered by her license. City officials said they were not.
As the Ricciardis posted on social media: “...they said we served an illegal sandwich.”
“We’re just kind of sitting here like, well, Somerville just doesn’t want us to be there,” Sarai Ricciardi said. “What do we need to do to open these doors?” Lippit has the full story here.
Four Things to Know
1. Since the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights closed its New England office in March, advocates for students facing discrimination based on race, gender or disability say they’re worried about where to turn. The office has resolved just one case since President Trump’s inauguration, down from an average of eight per year between 2021 and 2024.
“We’re taking away one of our key oversight and enforcement mechanisms that can empower parents to advocate for their young people,” said Leon Smith, a lawyer and executive director of the Boston-based nonprofit Citizens for Juvenile Justice. “... We need to do more on the state level to be able to fill that void. But on the state level, there’s a need for significant improvement.”
2. How did Brockton overspend its school budget by $18 million in 2023? A new report from the state inspector general blames leadership failures in budgeting, monitoring spending and responding to warning signs.
“The circumstances that resulted in the city’s — and its school district’s — overspending by $18 million, it’s unconscionable. It’s highly disturbing, and the answers for how it happened are far from satisfactory,” Inspector General Jeffrey S. Shapiro said. “I acknowledge that those are real expenses. On the other side of it, they’re the same expenses that every other school district is dealing with, and we don’t have other school districts that have overspent.”
3. Two-thirds of parents of middle and high school students surveyed said they would support banning cell phones and other personal devices in schools, according to a new poll by the MassINC Polling Group. However, most supporters said they’d want a way to contact their child during the school day.
The Massachusetts State Senate has already passed a bill that would ban cell phones during school hours starting next fall, but the House has yet to vote on the measure.
4. Gather ‘round for a reading of the political tea leaves: with the election nine months away, what does the 2026 U.S. Senate race look like in Massachusetts now that Rep. Ayanna Pressley says she’ll run for reelection instead of challenging Sen. Ed Markey? Markey now faces challenges from Rep. Seth Moulton of Salem and Acton resident Alex Rikleen.
“What the polling data told us, when we put Ayanna Pressley on the … test ballot was that Democratic voters, progressive voters, are willing to consider a younger alternative provided that the progressive bona fides are being met,” Pollster David Paleologos of Suffolk University told GBH’s Adam Reilly. “Meaning they were willing to take a flier with Ayanna Pressley against Ed Markey, but not willing to take a flier, at least at this point, with Moulton against Markey, because Moulton’s not seen as progressive enough for Democratic primary voters.”
Brandeis bets big on rebuilding the liberal arts around real-world skills
Starting in the fall of 2026, students at Brandeis University in Waltham will receive two end-of-semester transcripts: one with their classroom grades and another summarizing the skills they learned. The idea is to focus not just on knowledge but on practical career-readiness.
“American higher education is really changing dramatically at the moment,” Brandeis President Arthur Levine told GBH’s Kirk Carapezza. “The United States is moving from a national, analog industrial economy to a global, digital knowledge economy.”
Levine has been pitching what he calls “The Brandeis Plan:” an increased focus on skills rather than credit hours, with students job shadowing, getting career counseling and gaining work experience. While there’s nothing new about college students working internships or co-ops, the Brandeis students Carapezza spoke with said they appreciate the changes.
Miriam Grodin, a Brandeis junior who wants to be an editor, has been job shadowing at Brandeis University Press on campus.
“Having a conversation with someone who actually works in publishing and finding out the tangible things that they do is just really interesting,” she said.
And senior Matt Chafin from Canton, Mass., said he’s been appreciating his experience job shadowing at financial investment firms. “It’s opened my eyes to find a career in a job that aligns with what I want to do exactly,” he said.
Read Carapezza’s full story here.
Dig deeper:
-How a college in Vermont built a home for students who learn differently
-Colleges hope to ‘AI-proof’ their offerings as new tech changes job expectations
-International student enrollment falls sharply in US, early data show
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