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🌂Showers likely with highs in the 70s. Sunset is at 8:24 p.m.
World Cup wrap-up: The Tartan Army of Scotland fans is heading out of town, having watched their team beat Haiti and lose to Morocco in Foxborough. Their next game is in Miami on Wednesday, against Brazil.
In the meantime, two of the largest immigrant groups in Massachusetts saw their countries of origin square off Friday: Brazil beat Haiti 3-0. GBH’s Sam Turken found two watch parties in Everett just two blocks apart. At La Perle Restaurant & Lounge, “The [music] is Haitian. The food is Haitian,” said Haiti fan Benji Peralte. “Everyone is speaking Creole, and we watch Haitian football.” The loss means Haiti is now out of the tournament.
Down the street, at Oliveira’s Bar and Grill, Brazil fan Jonas De Souza said the restaurant “feels like my house in Brazil.”
Next up in Foxborough: England plays Ghana tomorrow. Ghana fans are already excited, said Seidu Sumani, president of the Ghana Association of Greater Boston. “One of the chants that I bring up and I was even saying it when we weren’t playing them on the 17th is 'Beat England. Beat England, beat England, beat England,” Sumani told GBH’s Esteban Bustillos. “That’s what we want to do.”
Four things to know:
1. You won’t see a ballot question asking Massachusetts voters to lower the state income tax from 5% to 4% when you vote this fall. The state’s highest court removed it from the ballot on a technicality, saying a summary that Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office wrote was inaccurate. The office said the question would not lower the long-term capital gains tax rate, and the Supreme Judicial Court found that it would.
“It does not change the underlying reality: Massachusetts remains one of the most expensive states in the nation, with too many residents leaving in search of greater opportunity and a lower cost of living,” said Colin Reed, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance. The Massachusetts Budget & Policy Center analyzed the proposal and found that those in the top 1% of earners would see average tax breaks of about $30,000, and those in the bottom 20% would get average tax cuts of $44.
2. Like the rest of the state, Boston saw a decline in the number of people dying of opioid overdoses last year: 120 — the lowest number in a decade. That’s less than half the 2023 total of 272.
But there are disparities, said Greg Davis, executive director of Metro Boston Alive: the city data show Black and Latino people made up 48% of those who died of overdoses last year. “Folks have got to understand cultural sensitivity,” he said. “They have to understand that you can’t just treat the symptoms — you’ve got to treat the whole family. Everyone’s impacted by the substance use disorder of a family member.”
3. Two high school classes have graduated since Massachusetts voters decided students no longer must pass the MCAS to earn a diploma. The state’s K-12 Graduation Council has been working on a statewide standard to replace it and last week released its recommendations: classwork that meets state standards; course assessments, such as tests or projects; a plan for students’ career and academic futures; and a capstone project or academic portfolio.
All of these changes would take time. The council suggested starting with the class entering ninth grade in the fall of 2027. Students who graduate before 2032 will not have a statewide standard, only standards set by their local public schools.
4. Dr. Stanley Sagov had retired as a family medicine physician when his own doctors found Stage IV metastatic melanoma in both his lungs three years ago. He received treatment and, during his recovery, produced an album called Coming Back to Life, available for free streaming or purchase on Bandcamp.
“Music does what words cannot do,” Sagov told GBH’s All Things Considered. “The music’s happening in real time — and it’s here and it’s gone, and it’s here and it’s gone. And that emotion that you had, you already had it. You can’t control it. You can’t stop having had it. You can’t un-feel what you feel. And of course, that’s why we love it. And especially because it communicates bittersweetness in a uniquely effective way.” You can hear the full conversation here.
For Black women farmers, tending the land is ancestral and healing
By Paris Alston, host of GBH News Rooted
“The land was the scene of the crime. … But the land was never the criminal.”
That’s a line that will forever stick out to me from Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm in Upstate New York, where I recently spent a week learning and growing in more ways than one. Yes, it was for a story – which you can read about here or watch on YouTube – but it was also personal.
I am the granddaughter of a woman who was a tenant farmer in North Carolina in her early years, and the great-great granddaughter of a woman who owned land there and used its bounty to heal others. I was so grateful to infuse this lineage and legacy into an exploration of Black women and land stewardship, which includes a critical look at the ways racism and sexism has tainted the bond between this demographic and land.
This is also true for Indigenous women and peoples. All of this dates back to this country’s founding when tribes were stripped of their land and forced to relocate, and enslaved Africans were kidnapped from their homes and forced to use their knowledge and expertise for the foundation for American agriculture. But more and more, Black, Indigenous and other people of color are reclaiming their rightful place on this land.
Today, as we’re fresh off Juneteenth and approaching America’s 250th birthday, I am following in my foremothers’ footsteps. I grow herbs, flowers and tomatoes in the garden bed outside my building.
The biggest delight – next to the harvest, of course – is connecting with my neighbors around it. Particularly, there is a young girl who is learning about gardening at school and is always excited to share her knowledge with me. Just as seeds were sown for me as I am today, I am sowing seeds for the next generation and whatever the food system looks like in their tomorrow.
You can read the full story, in collaboration with The 19th, right here.
Dig Deeper:
-Why are Black disabled women still fighting for autonomy? With Nila Morton
-Could 'AI Literacy’ be the key to economic power for the next generation?
-From the archives: The Food Project united kids from the city to the suburbs
GBH Daily
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