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🥵Hot, with a chance of thunderstorms and highs around 95 degrees. Sunset is at 8:19 p.m.
Every summer morning I wake up, check the weather, and turn to a task I don’t want: figuring out what I can wear that looks professional enough for work but won’t feel stifling in the heat.
Jennifer Varekamp, chair of the fashion design department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, has a solution. As our summers get hotter and more humid, consider wearing shorts to the office. She’s not talking about cut-off jorts or repurposed swim trunks. “I think, depending on the style, that these short suits can be just as formal [as regular suits],” she told GBH’s Marilyn Schairer. She explained that there’s historical precedent for shorts in formal settings; in 18th century Europe, men in the royal court wore knee-length breeches. “It was about showing off, sort of, their muscular calves,” Varekamp said. Fashion is cyclical, right? You can read Schairer’s full piece here.
Four Things to Know
1. As people in Maine mourn Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, the 26-year-old whom ICE agents shot and killed in Biddeford on Monday, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said she wants accountability. The shooting in Maine followed the killing of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston. Trump administration officials reportedly told ICE agents to halt “non-urgent vehicle stops” after agents killed Durán Guerrero.
“How is it that you have an individual shot dead in that manner, in front of his wife, his child, and all ICE can say is, 'Sorry, we got the wrong guy.’ That’s not good law enforcement, folks. It’s shameful, and it needs to stop,” Healey said.
2. Nearly 10 months ago, the Worcester Regional Research Bureau suggested the city create an independent body to oversee its police department. That came after federal Department of Justice investigators found in 2024 that Worcester police officers used Tasers on people without cause, hit suspect’s heads and had sexual contact while undercover “in the name of enforcing the law.”
But the city’s mayor and manager have not established an oversight board.
“I’ve been saying for probably the last 3 years — the honeymoon for George Floyd is over,” said Fred Taylor, president of the Worcester NAACP. “So a lot of people are retracting. They don’t feel as bad not giving the community things like a civilian review board. There’s definitely no appetite for that.”
3. Almost 100 people gathered at South Station yesterday to call on state and federal lawmakers to pass laws to speed up wheelchair repairs, which can take months. Medical insurance companies must approve repairs, technicians are in short supply and private equity companies have acquired much of the industry, cutting resources to maximize profit.
“It’s kind of like you going and buying new sneakers. You can go and buy new sneakers like right off the bat. I can’t do that,” said Andrea Higgins of East Taunton, who has been trying to get her wheelchair fixed since May while relying on a backup in the meantime. “And it’s kind of like cutting off my legs, and these are our livelihoods. I mean, how do we get to school or to work or, you know, take care of our families?”
4. Anne Manning Martin, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, won’t be on the Sept. 1 primary ballot. To get onto the ballot, Manning Martin’s campaign submitted 10,692 voter signatures. Two people then challenged the legality of some signatures: her opponent, Republican candidate for lieutenant governor Shawn Oliver; and Democratic Party Executive Director Adam Roof.
While courts threw out Roof’s complaints over a technicality — he did not submit them by certified mail — Supreme Judicial Court Justice Frank Gaziano ruled that Oliver’s complaint was properly submitted and had merit. Gaziano wrote that there was “substantial, if not overwhelming, evidence” that some signers did not, in fact, sign her nomination papers themselves.
As EPA steps back, Mass. lawmakers push for stricter bans on ‘forever chemicals’
At the federal level, the Trump administration plans to delay or undo regulations on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — you know them as PFAS or “forever chemicals,” so called because they take a long time to break down.
But at the same time, some states have stepped up to regulate these chemicals, limiting or banning them in things like firefighting foam and industrial uses, and planning to ensure they can be removed from drinking water. So what’s Massachusetts doing?
“By almost any measure, Massachusetts is not doing enough,” Deirdre Cummings of the advocacy group MassPIRG told GBH’s Craig LeMoult. That’s not because residents aren’t interested: MassPIRG submitted a petition with 10,000 signatures asking state lawmakers to address PFAS pollution.
State Sen. Julian Cyr and Rep. Kate Hogan introduced bills to ban PFAS in food packaging (14 states already do) and firefighting foams — like 17 other states, including every New England state except Massachusetts.
“I think we’ve rested a bit on our laurels here,” Cyr told LeMoult. “And we’re really trying to make the case that we need to take action here, particularly in the face of a federal government that has little interest in evidence-based approaches to protecting human health and our environment.”
Lawmakers have until the end of the month to pass these bills before the end of their session. You can read LeMoult’s full explanation of PFAS regulations here.
Dig deeper:
-5 ways to reduce everyday exposure to “forever chemicals”
-EPA proposes weakening heavy-duty truck pollution rules
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