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.
🌧️Morning rain, afternoon snow, with highs in the 40s and overnight lows in the teens. Sunset is at 4:36 p.m.
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton of Salem introduced a bill yesterday that would reverse the large increase in funding Congress gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year, reducing the agency’s budget from $75 billion over five years to its previous funding level of $10 billion annually.
So how likely is this bill to pass? Republicans have a majority in both chambers of Congress, and approved the large increase in ICE funding less than a year ago. But Moulton, who is a Democrat, said he believes there may be room to negotiate.
“A lot of GOP colleagues are privately concerned about ICE,” Moulton told GBH’s Saraya Wintersmith. “One approached me after the Minnesota shooting and said that, as a former law enforcement official himself, he thinks it’s criminal what happened, but they won’t say any of this out loud because they’re too scared of Donald Trump.”
Four Things to Know
1. Saqar, a Northeastern University student who grew up in Iran, told GBH News she’s been trying to reach family back home amid large demonstrations and a government-imposed communications blackout there.
Earlier this week, she managed to reach a family friend. “That person said they were OK, but the lines might be monitored by the government, so a lot of people tend to not speak and give details about what’s going on,” Saqar told GBH News. She doesn’t know whether her family has been participating in protests. “I don’t know if they’re feeling OK because the massive internet shutdown, which the government repeatedly uses to isolate people.” You can hear more from local Iranian-Americans here.
2. More than a dozen people came to Worcester’s city council meeting this week with the same question: When will the council consider a civilian review board for the city’s police department? In the fall, the Worcester Regional Research Bureau recommended such a board, which would have the power to issue subpoenas and independently investigate police conduct. At the time, City Manager Eric Batista said he’d bring the suggestion to the city council.
Mayor Joseph Petty has since said he doesn’t think a review board is necessary, since Worcester already has a Human Rights Commission and the police department’s Bureau of Professional Standards. But Worcester residents who spoke this week pointed out that calls for a civilian review board date back to the 1970s. “It’s unacceptable that a publicly funded institution is not accountable to the public,” Sarah Bertrand said. “Holding a publicly funded institution to a higher standard is not disparaging nor radical. It’s what our community deserves and has been asking for.”
3. About 3 million people in Eastern Massachusetts get their water from the Quabbin Reservoir in Western Mass. But the towns neighboring the 87-year-old human-made reservoir don’t have access to its water, despite having to abide by stricter regulations to keep it clean. Instead, they receive about $2.9 million annually from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.
Now a group of local residents is asking the authority for what they call a more “equitable partnership,” in which communities that use the Quabbin’s water pay more to support the towns around it. “We really feel left behind in a lot of ways,” said Sue Cloutier, who lives in New Salem. “In some ways that’s helped [protect] the Quabbin, because not as many people came to live here.”
4. Researchers with the Center for Coastal Studies searching for North Atlantic right whales from the air saw 33 whales in Cape Cod Bay on Saturday. They’ve spotted 54 right whales off Cape Cod so far this winter. “We actually saw three of them feeding,” Bartlett said. “Then another one popped up, so all of a sudden we just had four whales in close proximity to each other, coordinating feeding, and moving around together. And that’s always really cool to see.”
There are an estimated 380 North Atlantic right whales left in the world. “If you happen to see one while you’re on the water, keep your distance,” Bartlett said. “What’s really great about right whales in Cape Cod Bay is that oftentimes they’re very visible from shore,” Bartlett said. “And that’s the safest way to watch them.”
399 and counting: one man’s quest to survey Fresh Pond’s mushrooms
While it may seem that most of the plant world is in hibernation in the winter, there are still whole kingdoms of living things out there. Case in point: the work of Larry Millman, a man on a quest to find and catalogue every mushroom in Fresh Pond Reservation in Cambridge. So far he’s found 399 different species. He looks for them in the summer, when rain and heat make them more visible — but also in the dead of winter, when some fungi can freeze, rehydrate, and survive.
“You have to look harder for things now, but you’re still going to find them,” Millman told GBH’s Hannah Loss, who joined him on a recent walk to look for mushrooms after December’s snow.
He shared a few tips he finds helpful in looking for fungi.
First: know where to look. Turn over logs and move leaves around. “Think of the leaves and the logs as parkas. And essentially, you’re stripping away the parka to expose what you’re looking for,” Millman told Loss.
On their walk together, he spotted small white fungi called hairy fairy cups. “Look how delicate they are,” Millman said. “And yet, they’re doing just fine in the cold weather
— while certain members of the Homo sapiens species are shivering half to death.”
Second: don’t expect to find anything for dinner. Almost none of the fungi Millman found around Fresh Pond are edible. He was out seeking mycological discovery, not a mycelium-grown meal. When he found a yellow mushroom he thought might be new to him, he tore off a piece and put it into a plastic container so he could later examine it under a microscope at home. He also donates specimens to Harvard’s Farlow Herbarium, which has collected plants from Fresh Pond since the 1880s.
Third: once you identify a mushroom, look deeper into its history. Millman found a tree branch covered in a brown, gelatinous fungus called witch’s butter. “It was once thought in Eastern Europe when you saw some of this near your house… that you had been cursed by a witch,” Millman told Loss.
You can read more about and see more photos from Millman and Loss’ walk together here.
Dig deeper:
-No matter where you’re from, this Concord, Mass. resident has a song for you
-After last year’s fire, volunteers track new life at Blue Hills
-Massachusetts ecologists build a winter ‘hotel’ for snakes
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