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.
🌤️Mostly sunny with highs in the 80s. Sunset is at 8:25 p.m.
Boston is trying something new with something old: when you open a rideshare app in the city, you’ll be able to order a taxi. And instead of watching the meter tick up as you ride, you’ll see the price of your trip on the app when you use it to hail the cab. The goal of this one-year pilot program is to give taxi drivers a boost and increase overall driver supply. There are exceptions — you won’t be able to use Uber or Lyft to get a car from Logan Airport.
“For drivers, opinions are kind of mixed because a lot of drivers see it as additional competition, especially delivery drivers,” Gayrat Akhmaedov, a moderator for the Facebook group Boston Driver, told GBH’s Diane Adame. “There are also other drivers that see it as a way to kind of, like improve vehicle availability during peak times and on large demands, large events like World Cup and airport traffic.” You can read her full story here.
Four Things to Know
1. A Brockton resident came to a city council committee meeting to talk about how a moment with now-mayor Moises Rodrigues made her feel uncomfortable after two teenagers accused him of inappropriately touching them at public events. “Eight months ago, I met Moises Rodrigues, and he made a comment regarding my pregnant belly, and that somehow upon meeting me and holding my hand, that he was the one that impregnated me,” said Alba Cordero Soto. She’s a nurse at the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center, and met Rodrigues at a ribbon cutting there.
“I personally felt uncomfortable, but I didn’t feel victimized by him,” Cordero Soto told GBH News. “I’m an adult. I have every capacity to keep my distance from this person that I feel like is inappropriate, and I don’t have to be in the same room with him. I’m more so speaking to the vulnerable individuals such as our children that he shouldn’t have access to.”
2. If you use a wheelchair and have health insurance through a Medicare Advantage plan, you currently have to wait for prior approval from your health plan to fix your wheelchair when it breaks. That can take up to three weeks — and then you also have to wait for parts before the repair can begin.
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley introduced a bill to eliminate that prior authorization requirement. She pointed out that people on Medicare plans don’t need it, and said it makes sense to have the same standards. “If you break your leg and you go to the ER, they’re not waiting for preauthorization before they start to set your leg. The same is true here,” Pressley said. “This is a major challenge for wheelchair users.”
3. Brockton’s own AJ Dybantsa is the No. 1 pick of the NBA draft, headed to the Washington Wizards. The team is in the Eastern Conference, so Dybantsa will likely return to Boston to play the Celtics regularly.
“Brockton bred, 508,” he said after the pick. He wants to use his platform to help kids where he grew up. “I mean, I do everything for them. I like helping back in the community and just kind of giving kids hope. There’s a lot of kids that play basketball out there and think that they can’t make it. But once they see me, they’re like, okay, like they might have some hope.”
4. Trans artists at the A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton are working on a quilting project. The idea is to honor the tradition of giving people quilts at big moments in their lives, like weddings or births, said Cordy Joan, who started the Transmissions Quilts Project in 2023.
“Quilts have been used to celebrate people changing their lives,” Joan said. “It’s not like with a name change or with a medical moment. It’s just kind of — who might need a little love from the community right now?” You can see photos from the gallery here.
At this local barbershop, the World Cup is a celebration of two homelands
We’ve seen World Cup watch parties in public parks, City Hall plaza, bars and restaurants, but today GBH’s Esteban Bustillos took us to one at his barbershop, Atlas Barber Shop in Brookline.
Owner Ayoub “Jake” Snouti said cheering for Team USA and for Morocco, where he was born, lets him celebrate the places that made him.
“I’m a combination of two flavors, of two nations, of two hearts,” he told Bustillos.
On the menu: food that took two days to prepare. “Moroccan food is a gastronomy food, man,” Snouti said. “Like, one dish can take you four, five, six hours.” It included rice and beef tagine, a flaky meat pie called bastilla and more.
You can see more from the shop here.
⚽Dig deeper:
-Ghanaians across Massachusetts celebrate Ghana’s draw against England in the World Cup
-World Cup fans embrace trains to ‘Boston Stadium’, despite the steep price tag
-On this South Walpole street, homeowners earn thousands selling front-lawn parking to World Cup fans
GBH Daily
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