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.
❄️A fast-moving snow system arrives this evening, bringing a coating of as much as two inches. Sunset is at 5:10 p.m.
Your daily dose of Massachusetts Olympians: Today speedskater Julie Letai of Medfield is taking the ice for the women’s 500-meter qualifying round. These are her second Winter Olympic Games: during her first, in 2022, she competed without an audience of family or friends because of COVID restrictions.
“I’m excited for the crowd,” Letai said. “I feel like I get energized by the crowd. I think it’s really nice knowing that there are people up there who are going to support you no matter what, and there’s also a lot of people up there who will be really excited for you if you do well.” You can find more of her story (and a quick speedskating lesson) here.
Four Things to Know
1. Rep. Katherine Clark of Revere said Department of Homeland Security officers denied her entry to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Burlington facility yesterday. Elected officials are typically allowed to go into detention facilities unannounced, and Clark has visited the facility before. But on Monday, Clark said, officers in Burlington told her she was not allowed in without permission.
“Every single bit about the way that DHS, ICE and even this facility in Burlington is operating, makes me profoundly angry, and makes me deeply worried and fearful for not only the American citizens who have been detained, even deported, shot and killed by ice agents, but for law-abiding immigrant families that are being terrorized,” Clark said.
2. After a 16-month-long investigation, four employees of the Massachusetts State Police Academy will face involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of a recruit, Enrique Delgado-Garcia. Delgado-Garcia died after he was injured in a boxing match with another recruit in September 2024. He was 25 and had worked as a victim and witness advocate for the Worcester County district attorney’s office.
The four people indicted are Sgt. Jennifer Penton and Troopers Edwin Rodriguez, David Montanez and Casey LaMonte. “Members of the State Police training academy committed a series of wanton and reckless acts in connection with various defensive tactics and physical confrontation training exercises conducted at the academy,” said attorney David Meier, who investigated the case for the state.
3. UMass Memorial Medical Center in Marlborough evacuated more than 70 patients when a water valve broke Sunday evening, flooding the hospital’s basement. With the boiler unable to heat parts of the building, the hospital stopped taking new patients and rerouted ambulances to other hospitals in the area.
By yesterday the problem was fixed and the flooding was contained, but the hospital will be “closed for inpatient services until further notice.” The hospital was taking in some emergency patients, but most appointments were cancelled.
4. Nova Scotia is looking to build up to four offshore wind farms by 2050, and Massachusetts is getting into the planning effort. Gov. Maura Healey and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston signed a memo saying the state and province are willing to share information, coordinate with one another and perhaps one day import wind-generated energy from Canada to Massachusetts.
“We need an all-of-the-above approach to meet our energy needs — solar, gas, wind, hydro, storage and nuclear,” Healey said. Houston said that while they have not started construction yet, he hoped his province could produce up to 5 gigawatts by 2030. “Nova Scotia only uses about two gigawatts of energy at peak demand,” he said. “We’ll have a lot of excess energy. We want to get that to a market somewhere.”
Behind the bill: Pet rent and dog housing
By Katie Lannan, GBH News State House reporter
A tight real estate market means it’s often tough and expensive to find a place to live in Massachusetts. And it can be even harder — or should we say more ruff — if you are a pet owner. Landlords can charge extra fees per pet or prohibit them completely, and homeowners associations can exclude certain dog breeds.
MSPCA-Angell says more than 20% of instances where an owner surrendered a pet to its four shelters last year were because of housing issues, often renters who could not find a place that accepted them and their pets. And while about 39% of rental units in Massachusetts accept dogs, if you look at the ones that accept pets without restrictions on breed or size, that drops to 7% — and those units can be more expensive.
Now animal advocates at the MSPCA are pushing legislation on Beacon Hill that they say would help pet owners looking to find a decent place to rent or buy. The bills include a few different pieces targeting different types of housing: they would place caps on how much landlords can charge in extra rent or fees per pet, and mandate no fees for service animals for tenants with disabilities.
In condos, homeowners associations would be unable to prohibit people from keeping certain types of dogs based on breed, weight, size or appearance. These restrictions often focus on big dogs and pit bulls.
Along those same lines, homeowners and renters insurance companies wouldn’t be able to cancel, refuse to renew or charge a higher premium solely because of the specific type of dog someone owns. And state-aided public housing couldn’t base eligibility decisions solely on the breed, type, weight or appearance of a tenant’s dog.
The bill also has some measures that would apply during a state of emergency. In such an emergency, hotels would be unable to “unreasonably refuse” pets, and families couldn’t be evicted solely for having a dog without written permission for a year after the state of emergency ends.
So how likely is this bill to pass? It depends on how you want to read the tea leaves. Animal bills do tend to be very popular with lawmakers — who’s a better lobbyist than a puppy? But we also just saw a big housing bill passed in 2024, and Beacon Hill tends not to go back to the same topic so quickly. Housing costs and availability are such prominent issues, though, that there’s always more to do.
The most concrete thing to point to is a vote in the House last week. They advanced a version of the bill, essentially giving it initial approval.
Dig deeper:
-Pet debt is on the rise. It’s landing more people in court.
