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.
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An update about Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, the Babson College student the U.S. government admitted to mistakenly detaining and deporting back to her native Honduras in November. After a federal judge in Boston ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to facilitate her return to the U.S., she got texts from an ICE agent who said he’d meet her at an airport in Honduras for a flight to Texas. But he wasn’t able to tell her details of her flight, or guarantee that she’d be freed once she got back to the U.S. Lopez Belloza told GBH’s Sarah Betancourt it felt “fishy” — like a trap. She didn’t end up going to the airport or getting on the flight.
“Not knowing what would happen to me — brought me a lot of fear because I don’t know in what type of hands that I’d be landing into,” Lopez Belloza told Betancourt from Honduras, where she’s been staying with her grandparents and taking her classes online. Lopez Belloza’s attorney, Todd Pomerleau, said the agent would not answer any of his questions, either. “The government’s court filings last Thursday made clear it intended to detain and deport Any Sunday, 72 hours after she arrived in Texas,” he told Betancourt.
The decision had legal consequences: last week a federal judge in Boston dismissed her case. “The sad truth is that when Any declined the flight she also waived this court’s only remaining basis for jurisdiction. Any civil contempt dissolved when the government complied with the facilitation order. The petition thus must be dismissed,” Judge Richard Stearns wrote. Pomerleau said he immediately appealed the decision. You can read more about the case here.
Four Things to Know
1. The family of Daniel Flores Martinez, a man from Chelsea who federal immigration agents detained on Mother’s Day after they pulled over the family car with children inside and smashed a window, is now suing the federal government. He’s since been deported to Mexico. His wife, Kenia Guerrero, is a U.S. citizen and remains in Massachusetts with their three children. She is pregnant with the couple’s fourth child.
“My family has been torn apart,” Guerrero said. “It’s been hard in all the ways — it’s emotional, physical. For me and this situation, I feel like it’s tough, and having to deal with the kids on my own.” The family’s lawyer, Mirian Albert with the group Lawyers for Civil Rights, said the case is about accountability. “It’s important that communities know that they’re able to hold ICE accountable under the law,” Albert said.
2. After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. military will no longer send active-duty soldiers to study at universities he described as “woke,” the Harvard Kennedy School — where about 8% of students are veterans — said it will let those students defer their enrollment for four years (past the next scheduled presidential election) or apply for expedited consideration from other schools.
Hegseth himself studied at the Kennedy School under the program he is now saying he will end. “While we hope to welcome active-duty military students to HKS next year, we are fully committed to making sure you get the education you deserve, even if you cannot get it at HKS,” Dean Jeremy Weinstein wrote in a statement.
3. Despite an announcement to the contrary from the Kraft Group (which owns the New England Patriots) and the private group coordinating the hosting of the 2026 World Cup games at Gillette Stadium, town officials in Foxborough said they have not reached an agreement on who will pay for $7.8 million in security costs for the games. The money was supposed to come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency under the Department of Homeland Security, but because Congress decided not to extend funding for DHS, it remains on hold.
Members of the town’s selectboard said they were “shocked and dismayed” that the Kraft Group and Boston Soccer 2026 said they have an agreement in place. They called the news “categorically false.” The Select Board will meet again next week to discuss a permit for the World Cup games.
4. Advocates are asking lawmakers in Massachusetts to pass a bill that would automatically seal criminal records — making them no longer public — three years after misdemeanor convictions and seven years after felony convictions.
Massachusetts State Sen. Adam Gomez, a Springfield Democrat, said he supports the idea in part because of his own experience. He was arrested for cannabis possession when he was young. “I struggled, before I was a senator and city councilor, for a very long time,” Gomez said. “Trying to find housing, trying to find work, trying to put food on the table, trying to find a great job. Because I had this record that followed me.”
Repeal of 1982 nuclear law gaining traction on Beacon Hill; Cape Cod activists object
Building a nuclear power plant in Massachusetts today would require a statewide vote in which a majority of voters from the tip of Cape Cod to the far end of the Berkshires (and everywhere in between) approve it. That’s because of a law enacted in 1982 requiring a voter referendum.
And though there are no functioning nuclear power plants in the state, nuclear energy does have a presence here. The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth stopped producing energy in 2019 but still houses radioactive waste, which workers are cleaning up as part of the decommissioning process. And from across the border in New Hampshire, the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station supplies power to the North Shore towns of Amesbury, Merrimac, Newbury, Newburyport, Salisbury and West Newbury.
Last spring Gov. Maura Healey suggested getting rid of the 1982 law. She said she has concerns about the health impacts of nuclear energy production, but wants to look into nuclear power as a way to make electrical power less expensive and more reliable in the state.
Now, a provision to get rid of the 1982 law is making its way through the Legislature as part of a larger energy bill.
Diane Turco with the group Cape Downwinders said she thinks the voting requirement needs to stay in place.
“It’s a law on the books that protects the public. And how dare our government try to repeal that law rather than follow it?” Turco told CAI. Instead, she said, she’d like to see the state government focus its energy on things like the disposing of nuclear waste and dealing with accidents: “Give us a permanent disposal site for the waste. Have adequate emergency plans. Put all those guardrails in place. Then you’ve solved the argument,” Turco said.
Read more from CAI reporter Jennette Barnes here.
Dig deeper:
-Panel to Pilgrim Nuclear: Why is decommissioning taking so long?
-Water dispute could push Pilgrim Nuclear demolition past 2031
-Is Pilgrim Nuclear evaporation harmful? Harvard study to begin
