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.
😷Still somewhat hazy and hot, with highs in the 80s. Sunset is at 8:18 p.m.
Skies are clearer this morning than they were yesterday, but there are still some plumes of smoke drifting toward us from wildfires in Canada. GBH’s Hannah Reale talked to Dr. Jeremy Weinberger, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Tufts Medical Center, about what this means for how to go about your day.
“For common activities — going out grocery shopping, walking to the bus stop — I don’t think there needs to be any changes to those,” Weinberger said. Kids, older adults, and people who have a medical condition that affects their breathing should be more careful: “For those high-risk groups, it really is probably just mitigating strenuous exercise outside and making sure — if you have inhalers — to have your rescue around,” he said.
Glenn Keith, the director of the air and climate programs at Massachusetts’ Department of Environmental Protection, gave Reale a few more tips: “The key thing is to avoid exposure,” he said. “Stay indoors with windows closed so that you’re breathing indoor air and not the external air. Limit outdoor activity. If you have to be outside, choose less strenuous activities.” So: not the day for a long run outside. You can find Reale’s full explanation of our “Mad Max”-looking skies here.
Four Things to Know
1. What’s the difference between Massachusetts and the states Americans most commonly move to, including Texas, the Carolinas, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Florida, California and New York? A report from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce found that we have higher housing costs and are building fewer homes.
“I think it’s important to move beyond just an idea that this is an urban core, very expensive market kind of problem,” said Jenny Schuetz, vice president of infrastructure and housing at Arnold Ventures. “We need to think about the policy solutions that can work in our urban core, in our suburban communities, and even in small towns and rural areas, which increasingly are facing upwards pressure on housing supply and housing prices.”
2. Gov. Maura Healey published a new plan yesterday to give school districts across the state about $100 million — that’s about $112 per student. The money would come from the surtax collected on income over $1 million, also known as the Fair Share Amendment tax. It’s already sitting in state coffers, and school districts will be able to spend the money however they see fit.
“It will help our schools avoid cutting the programs and services that they need every day for our students,” Healey said.
3. Rep. Seth Moulton said he wants all sitting U.S. senators and Senate candidates to release their health records. “Voters have a right to total transparency about whether the leaders they elect have the capacity to serve a full six-year term and fight for our rights,” he said in a statement. In the last week, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham died at age 71, and Sen. Mitch McConnell said he was missing from the Senate because he was hospitalized after a fall. Moulton, 47, is challenging Sen. Ed Markey, who turned 80 last week.
But: Moulton has not released his own health records. A spokesperson for his campaign said he requested them from the Veterans Administration system and will release them when they’re available.
4. Biking advocates are looking back at a scrapped $300,000 project to redesign streets around Mission Hill. One of those intersections is the one at which Louisa Gag, a city transportation planner, was killed last week when a truck driver hit her as she rode her bike. Galen Mook, executive director of statewide bicycling coalition MassBike and a former colleague of Gag’s, said advocates have had a hard time getting answers from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration.
“We have not been able to really get a clear answer from the city as to what the direction and leadership is,” Mook told GBH’s Morning Edition. “And this is not just the story of one project. The advocates have been tracking about 17 core projects throughout the city that are stalled or paused or canceled that have been touted as road safety projects. Now, we have no idea if or when they might be restarted.”
Will federal changes to research funding promote ‘accountability’ or politicize science?
Susan Gerbi started her career in the 1970s, when President Richard Nixon froze funding for the National Institutes of Health. So she knows about difficult times in science. But she called a recent proposal from the Trump administration to allocate scientific grant funding based on the decisions of political appointees, rather than via peer review, “unprecedented.”
“Instead of having the final decision made by scientists based on scientific merit, which is what currently occurs, the final decisions will be made based on how closely the proposed research aligns with presidential priorities,” she told GBH’s Kirk Carapezza.
Gerbi spent her career at Brown University studying ribosomes and chromosomes through fungus flies. She retired and closed her lab last year, but still advises professors and students.
“We’re already seeing scientists move to Canada and to Europe and to Asia,” she said.
Carapezza has more on the intersection of politics and science here.
Subscribe to GBH Daily
Your essential daily newsletter delivering trusted news, local insights, ways to connect, and can't miss programs from Boston and beyond.
