GBH Daily: Stay curious

🥶No more snow, but another freezing day with highs around 31. Sunset is at 4:59 p.m.

Good morning, GBH newsletter enthusiasts and curiosity seekers of all stripes. Your fearless steward of truth, Gal, has graciously (some say recklessly) handed over the keys to today’s newsletter to help ring in GBH’s newest, daily radio show, The Curiosity Desk – hosted by yours truly, Edgar B. Herwick III.

Beginning today at 1 p.m., we will endeavor to bring you an hour of engaging, insightful, surprising radio Monday through Friday, live on 89.7 FM and live-streaming on the GBH News YouTube channel. I hope you’ll join us for deep dives and explainers, examinations of trending topics and historical happenings, and – of course – explorations of the everyday mysteries hiding in plain sight all around us.

When The Curiosity Desk was first launched as a regular radio feature back in 2013, the notion was pretty simple: Ask our audience what they are curious about — and let their questions be our guide.

Really, how else could I have convinced my editors that what the world really needed was a feature about earwax? Or an answer to the question of why there’s a random Star Market over the Mass Pike? Or a short video about a haunted pirate cave in Lynn?

And I’m happy to report that your boundless curiosity will be as much a part of the new show as it’s always been. So. Keep. Those. Questions. Coming! And remember, there’s no question too big. No question too small. No question too weird. Just email Curiositydesk@wgbh.org or fill out the question form on GBHNews.org. Oh, And one quick side note: If your question is “what does Gal Tziperman Lotan

sound like on air,” you might want to tune in this Wednesday. Keep scrolling for a GBH News exclusive sneak-peek of what’s on our premiere show.

Thanks for letting me kick this off, Gal. And thank YOU for reading.

Until next time, stay curious out there!

Edgar B. Herwick III
Host, GBH’s Curiosity Desk

Four Things to Know

1. Protesters gathered across the city over the weekend to speak against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ actions — locally, in Minnesota, and across the country.

Christina Pascucci-Ciampa, founder and owner of All She Wrote Books in Somerville, donated her shop’s Friday profits to the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network. She said she hoped people who attended this weekend’s protests would walk away with “the energy to keep going,” she said. “That’s the hope that I have, is that people continue to take this energy with them and continue to [do] small acts of protest every single or every other day, or at least once a week. It’s better than nothing, right?”

2. Tomorrow marks the end of Temporary Protected Status for 19,000 Haitian people living in Massachusetts. TPS is a designation allowing people fleeing violence, natural disasters or oppression in other countries to legally live and work in the U.S. The Trump administration has been ending designations early or deciding not to renew status for people from countries across the world. Marie, a woman who lives in the Worcester area and works at a day care center, said she worries about being forced to go back to Haiti and leaving her three children behind in the U.S. — but also about losing her job and no longer being able to pay her family’s bills. “What my worst fear is, if I have to leave them, if I have to go back to Haiti. I can’t even begin to think about that,” she said.

A director of a nursing home in Jamaica Plain said ending TPS would cause them to lose about 40% of dietary aides and 15% of certified nursing assistants on staff. And another TPS recipient in Massachusetts, a 19-year-old, said she stopped going to college classes because she worries ICE agents will detain her. “My life right now is stay home, watch movies and then pray to God. I’m praying that a judge can help us get the TPS extended,” she said.

3. In Western Massachusetts, Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan said he would order his office to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute federal immigration agents if they violate people’s rights in Hampshire and Franklin counties.

“If they violate a state criminal act, for example, an aggressive assault and battery, something along those lines, then we have the right to charge those officials and certainly make it through the state system and we’ll see what would happen,” Sullivan said. “We haven’t had the cause to investigate anything in our local district, but this is going around the Commonwealth and around the country, and certainly we don’t expect ICE to stop at anybody’s borders.”

4. The Hyannis factory that makes Cape Cod Potato Chips and Kettle Brand will close in April. Officials with the Campbell’s Company, which bought the brand as part of its acquisition of Snyder’s-Lance, Inc. in 2018, said the Hyannis plant is the smallest one they own and that keeping it running “no longer makes economic sense for the business.” The company is laying off 49 workers.

You’ll still be able to find the chips in local stores. Most Cape Cod chips are already being made elsewhere: company officials said the factory in Hyannis makes about 4% of packages, with the rest made in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

Today on GBH’s Curiosity Desk
By Edgar B. Herwick III, Curiosity Desk host

You know him from CBS News’ Sunday Morning, NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and his podcast Mobituaries. But have you caught Mo Rocca as Milton the Accountant on CBS’ “The Young and the Restless”? The humorist and correspondent joins us to talk about which of his jobs was like working for “an English professor on acid” and why older folks tend to be the best storytellers.

Next, we have part one of an interview with author Ilyon Woo, telling what might

be the most incredible American story I’ve ever heard – the story of Ellen and William Craft. Woo wrote about the 19th century couple’s daring, ingenious escape from enslavement and their remarkable legacy in her 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Master Slave Husband Wife.”

And we’re celebrating Groundhog Day the only way we know how: with a conversation about existentialism. Bill Muray’s 1993 movie “Groundhog Day” has been called an “existential masterpiece.” Would Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus agree?

And for one final look-ahead: this Wednesday at 1 p.m. we’ll meet with researcher Frederico Rossano, who is trying to get to the bottom of a tantalizing notion – that maybe – just maybe – dogs are talking to humans. He’s also a main player in NOVA’s upcoming feature Can Dogs Talk? If you’ve ever dreamt of teaching your dog how to level up their language (like Stella), or need advice on getting them to give their “play” button a rest, we’ll open phone and text lines at 877-301-8970. Get us started by sending a question by email or through our online form. 

OK, Gal, I’m really leaving now.

Dig deeper: 

-Comedian Josh Gondelman’s tour of Boston’s “Roast Beef Riviera”

-Learning to paint from MA’s only certified Bob Ross instructor

-How a stubborn kid turned foul balls into souvenirs

-The surprising story behind Boston’s banned sororities, sea monsters and a monkey ghost