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🌂Scattered afternoon showers, with highs in the 60s. Sunset is at 7:51 p.m.
When the sun peeks out from behind rainclouds this weekend, look for some May flowers in bloom. Karen Daubmann, director of the garden and programs for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in Wellesley, gave our colleagues on Morning Edition a few local spots where you can look for spring flowers this weekend:
- The Garden at Elm Bank in Wellesley celebrated Tulip Mania this week and may release dates for visitors to pick their own bulbs, depending on availability.
- Parsons Reserve in Dartmouth has a wooded trail dotted with daffodils, though the blooms are nearing their end.
- Heritage Gardens in Sandwich has a “wonderful accredited hydrangea collection,” according to Daubmann.
You can check out her recommendations for some local garden clubs here.
Four Things to Know
1. A poll from Emerson College shows Sen. Ed Markey and challenger Rep. Seth Moulton are closer than in previous surveys: 37% of respondents said they favored Markey and 32% favored Moulton, with 29% undecided. About 1% each favored Alex Rikleen and William Gates.
Moulton, a representative from Salem, announced he is running against Markey for a U.S. Senate seat in the September primary. Markey has been in Congress since 1976 and in the Senate since 2013. We have political analysis of the race here.
2. About 3.75 million Massachusetts residents have obtained REAL IDs — driver’s licenses or state IDs that meet stricter federal identity verification requirements. That’s about 67% of all IDs in the state.
Michael Gayzagian, president of AFGE local 2617 — the TSA officers union in New England — said most travelers passing through security at Logan Airport are aware of the year-old requirement to carry a REAL ID or passport. “It’s been surprisingly smooth,” he said. “We really thought that the public might have some problems adjusting to the rules, and they haven’t.”
3. A local survivor of human trafficking appointed to the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking said he resigned from the position in protest of the Trump administration’s policies. Jose Alfaro was appointed to the council in 2024, under former President Joe Biden. But under the current administration, he said, officials removed LGBTQ+ survivors from reports about human trafficking and asked all council members to sign a contract saying they would not participate in diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“It’s not an honor when your own community has been targeted by this administration. And you can’t even speak to the issues that are impacting your community,’’ Alfaro said. “It just didn’t feel right for me anymore to continue.” Alfaro said he will keep advocating and has already spoken with organizations that work with the LGBTQ community and with homeless youth.
4. The thunk, thunk, thunk sounds near the Sagamore Bridge in the coming months are not part of the construction on the bridge’s replacement. Crews are testing three types of piles for the foundation but won’t officially start building a new bridge for another year and a half.
Construction workers are driving piles 75 to 90 feet into the ground to see how they perform in the soil. “When it gets in place, we’ll use jacks to do a vertical load test, a tension load test and a lateral test,” said John Smith of infrastructure firm HNTB. We have video of the piling work here.
Net Your Problem throws a line to artists working with maritime waste
Out at sea, fishing ropes and nets clutter the ocean. On land, there’s Kim Edwards, a fiber artist from Westerly, Rhode Island, who came to a warehouse in New Bedford looking for materials for her art.
Edwards makes baskets and other woven sculptural pieces — including jellyfish — out of recycled fishing line. She often finds her materials discarded or washed up on beaches. When she needs more than she can gather, she heads to a New Bedford warehouse run by a nonprofit called Net Your Problem, which stores old ropes and nets that can no longer be used. The ropes cost 75 cents a pound, while debris collected by members of the Center for Coastal Studies’ volunteer Beach Brigade is free.
“I just pulled this right here, which has lavender and this pink,” Edwards told CAI reporter Amy Kolb Noyes. “Right now it looks very dirty, and once you wash it, all these bright, beautiful colors come out.”
What doesn’t get picked up by artists like Edwards is shipped to recycling facilities around the world, said Nicole Baker, who founded Net Your Problem in 2018.
“It really, really helps if people buy products that are made from recycled plastic,” she told Kolb Noyes. “Providing that demand for the product will encourage companies then to make it, and to source the plastic from us or from the recyclers that we use.”
You can read more about the recycling process and see the warehouse and some finished artwork here.
Dig deeper:
-Free art exhibit: How Masako Miki brings new life to Japanese folklore
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