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☀️Mostly sunny and slightly above freezing, with highs around 38. Sunset is at 5:11 p.m.
The Patriots’ Super Bowl loss is behind us, but some MBTA buses still have their digital screens — the ones that show the route number — displaying “Go Patriots” banners. The MBTA set the messages to appear before the game and, because of a programming error, have not yet removed them from all buses.
“All of the buses have to be reprogrammed and that work is underway,” an MBTA spokesperson told GBH’s Jeremy Siegel. “We expect it to take about a week for all buses to receive the programming that removes the ‘Go Patriots’ heading as an option to display.”
Four Things to Know
1. An immigration judge in Boston has blocked the deportation case against Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts graduate student detained for six weeks last year because she had co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts student paper against the war in Gaza. Öztürk, who is from Turkey, is working toward a Ph.D. in child development.
“Essentially the immigration judge found that the government didn’t prove its case,” said Mahsa Khanbabai, Öztürk’s immigration attorney. “It didn’t prove that her visa was revoked properly; basically it said that she’s still here in lawful student status. A court rules that she is here on lawful student status and therefore she is not deportable.” The Department of Homeland Security can appeal the decision.
2. Massachusetts’ Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler is leaving his job at the end of the week to head Walker Therapeutic & Educational Programs, a nonprofit in Needham that runs special education programs, a school and residential services for kids.
Taking his place as the head of Massachusetts’ education policy will be Salem schools superintendent Stephen Zrike. Zrike’s resume includes six years leading Salem’s public schools, five overseeing state receivership of schools in Holyoke, and stints as superintendent in Wakefield, a school principal in Boston and chief of elementary schools in Chicago.
3. Auditor Diana DiZoglio is suing House Speaker Ron Mariano, Senate President Karen Spilka and the state’s House and Senate clerks over the 2024 ballot question in which more than 70% of voters said her office should have the power to audit the Legislature. Legislative leaders in the state have since said they will not allow the audit and believe it would violate the state’s separation of powers.
“This is not just about an audit anymore,” DiZoglio said yesterday. “This behavior is permeating state government and it is causing people to lose trust and faith in their state government, in their leaders, in their courts, in their lawmakers — across the board.”
4. Southborough’s own Korey Dropkin won an Olympic silver medal in mixed doubles curling yesterday. He and his curling partner Cory Thiesse lost to Swedish siblings Isabella and Rasmus Wranå in the event’s finals.
Meanwhile figure skater Maxim Naumov, who trains at the Skating Club of Boston in Norwood, scored an 85.65 in the men’s short program, coming in 14th and moving on to the next round. At the end of his routine, he looked up and said “Look at what we’ve done” — a message to his parents, coaches and world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who died in a plane crash last year. “I didn’t know if I was going to cry, smile or laugh,” he said afterward, “and all I could do was look up at them. And man, I still can’t believe what just happened. I think it’s going to take me a few hours or maybe a few weeks to know.”
Catching the Codfather: A foreign invasion
By Ian Coss, host of The Big Dig and Catching the Codfather
Picture this: you board a whale watch boat from the tip of Cape Cod. It’s a clear day, great visibility, and you head out to sea. But just a few miles from shore you see, in the distance, a series of long gray shapes.
As you get closer you realize those shapes are huge vessels, lined up one after another like an armada of warships, circled by flocks of hungry birds. They’re fishing boats from other countries — Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Japan — and they are camped out here, just a few miles from shore, where they catch, fillet, freeze and can thousands of pounds of fish a day.
Fifty years ago that picture was reality. Episode One of “Catching The Codfather,” out today, tells the story of how all that changed. It involves an unlikely alliance between New Bedford fishermen, a riverboat captain from Alaska and the first openly gay congressman in American history.
As part of my research I met with a Congressional staffer who worked on fisheries issues for many years. He keeps the two posters you see above in his office — I especially like the second one, which details the size, length and crew of the Soviet fishing fleet.
Remember — if you want to binge the entire series right away (and support the show), go ahead and sign up for our membership program. I’ll be back here next week with some notes on Episode 2. Take care out there.
Listen to the first episode of “Catching the Codfather” here.
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