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⛅Cloudy morning, sunny day, with highs just above freezing at 34. Sunset is at 5:12 p.m.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu encouraged Bostonians who see federal immigration agents trying to enter a home without a warrant to call 911. Expanding on her recent executive order, she said the city’s police officers are “prepared to respond.” That does not mean they’ll arrest federal agents, she said. But city first responders are ordered to de-escalate, verify that agents are who they say they are, provide medical aid and create a record of what is happening.
“This is not to provoke conflicts between multiple armed officers of different levels of government,” Wu told GBH’s Boston Public Radio. “Should the federal government choose, for example, to violate these orders, we are not asking or requiring or encouraging our officers to enter into any kind of conflict, but we will be there to document the violations of laws happening, to record with body-worn cameras, to use official police reports to release all of that information, to be there in numbers with whatever technology we have to document any violations for future legal accountability also when that reckoning does come.” You can watch the full conversation here.
Four Things to Know
1. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it will not consider a new mRNA flu vaccine that Cambridge-based Moderna developed after the company ran a 40,000-person clinical trial. “The FDA didn’t come out saying that there’s safety concerns, or there’s efficacy or effectiveness concerns. It’s stating that: ‘We think that we need more information,’” said Maggie Lind, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University. “This is not an indication that these vaccines are dangerous or not effective or not safe.”
Jerry Avorn, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, called it “a kick in the face for this very promising mRNA vaccine technology.” “The fact that such a draconian and really very, very unusual decision not even to review the application can be made this late in the process is worrisome for, frankly, all drug companies — and all doctors and all patients — because it calls into question this time-honored process,” Avorn said. Moderna has requested a meeting with the FDA and can appeal the decision.
2. The family of Enrique Delgado-Garcia, the 25-year-old state police trainee who died after being injured in sparring matches at the State Police Academy in 2024, is gratified that four academy employees have been indicted on involuntary manslaughter charges, but wants to see more systemic change.
“Nothing is going to bring Enrique back and they know that and they understand that,” family attorney Michael Wilcox said. “They want his legacy to be that there’s going to be some change as a result of this, some real reform, not some sort of window-dressing reform. Something meaningful [for] the entire way that they train these young men and women, so that you don’t put them in harm’s way for unnecessary reasons.”
3. Transgender patients at UMass Memorial Health in Worcester have had upcoming appointments and surgeries with a doctor specializing in vaginoplasties, also known as bottom surgeries, canceled without an explanation. That’s left them wondering what’s happening to UMass Memorial’s gender-affirming care program, to their surgeon, Dr. Ashley Alford and to their own medical care and futures.
“I’m crushed. I can’t stop crying,” said one patient, who scheduled her surgery almost a year ago and recently got a call saying it was canceled. “This surgery was life-changing because it finally gives me the body that’s right for me. It has been ripped away with no explanation or follow-up plan.”
4. More than 100 people came to an event meant to connect Asian business owners and entrepreneurs with investment money. Asian-owned businesses contribute $4 billion in payroll to the Massachusetts economy, but 40% of business owners surveyed by the Asian Business Empowerment Council said they did not get any outside funding and another 24% said they got investment only from friends and family.
“We’re really here to demystify what access to capital means, but in a way that’s really accessible, plain and simple,” said QJ Shi, senior director of the Asian Business Empowerment Council.
A long journey home: Hundreds of disabled people have new homes thanks to court settlement
Let’s go back to 2022: A group of people with disabilities sued the state, saying they were stuck living in nursing homes even though they could and wanted to live more independently. Medicaid could pay for their nursing home stays, but if they wanted to live on their own in a place that offered some accommodations — maybe with personal care attendants who could help them with everyday tasks like cooking and bathing, or in a living situation more stable than a homeless shelter — it was difficult to find.
In 2024 Massachusetts agreed to help them. At the time, state officials set a goal of moving 2,400 people out of nursing homes and into apartments, group homes or other places where they’d get the proper supports by 2032.
“I’m doing a lot better,” Richard Caouette, a 66-year-old who moved from a nursing home to a group home with round-the-clock aides in Northborough, told GBH’s Meghan Smith. “I got my American flag. I got my diploma from the military. I got my Patriots sign up on the wall … with the Super Bowls that they won.”
Caouette is one of more than 350 people who have been able to move out of nursing homes so far.
“Some folks have been able to return back to their own homes with modifications, some have gone with families, some have gone into group homes or supportive housing settings,” Paul Lanzikos, co-founder of Dignity Alliance Massachusetts, told Smith. “The important thing is that the people are able to live their lives in ways of their own determination — and actually that’s a win for them and a win for taxpayers, too.”
Steven Schwartz, a lawyer at the Center for Public Representation who worked on the lawsuit, said Caouette’s path out of the nursing home was “unnecessarily painful.” He had applied for a program that gives people leaving nursing homes more support and had been rejected. A few different attempts to get him into a different home before and during the lawsuit failed. And the original plaintiff in the lawsuit, John Simmons, died in a nursing home before the state agreed to a settlement.
Still, Schwartz said, Caouette’s story is proof of what can happen when people get the support they need.
“I think he’s a powerful and close personal example of what the case is about, what community living can mean,” Schwartz told Smith. “There have been many others.”
You can read Meghan Smith’s full story here.
Dig deeper:
2024: 'Transformative’ agreement will help thousands of people leave Mass. nursing homes
2024: After state settlement, disabled people stuck in nursing homes hope to find homes of their own
2023: A lawsuit could force the state to help thousands of people with disabilities find housing
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