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.
☀️Sunny and cooler, with highs in the 60s. Sunset is at 6:53 p.m.
Today we have a look at libraries that come to you. But first: City officials in Boston are looking at a redesign of Blue Hill Avenue, the thoroughfare that runs through Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan. The design they’ve proposed includes a center bus lane: picture bus-only lanes in the middle of the road, with car lanes on either side that people would have to cross to get to and from bus stops. And that part of the plan makes some neighbors wary of the project.
“We are not against the project completely,” Boston City Councilor Miniard Culpepper told GBH’s Amanda Keane. “We want the beautification and the safety. We want all of that to happen. But we don’t want to make it even more dangerous than it is now.” You can read more about this project here.
Four Things to Know
1. A group of activists and residents in Worcester are asking questions about what happened when City Councilor Kate Toomey allegedly hit a parked car just after midnight on Sept. 2. Officers who responded to the scene didn’t charge or cite Toomey, who chairs the city council’s standing committee on public safety. No one was injured in the crash, but both cars had to be towed away.
“This is about differential treatment,” said Ellen Shemitz, a member of the city’s Civilian Review Board Coalition. “I have no idea whether the city councilwoman was or was not inebriated. But I also don’t know why the police did not apparently investigate the matter as it would have with a resident who didn’t share the same public visibility as the councilwoman does.”
2. State officials cut checks totaling $300,000 to shellfish harvesters who had to close their fisheries for 12 days when millions of gallons of sewage flowed from a leak in Haverhill into the Merrimack River in June and July.
“Ipswich’s clammers were hit especially hard by these emergency closures during what is normally their busiest and most profitable time of year, so this economic relief is deeply appreciated,” said Ipswich Town Manager Brendan Sweeney.
3. Patriots owner Robert Kraft confirmed that the Kraft Group told singer Ed Sheeran that his opening act, the rapper Macklemore, will be dropped from Sheeran’s tour stops at Gillette Stadium. Macklemore had talked on stage about the war in Gaza, saying “free Palestine” when he opened for Sheeran in New Jersey. Kraft alluded to a 2014 performance in which Macklemore dressed in a costume that caricatured Jewish people, and accused the rapper of more recently “ignoring the actions of Hamas.”
“This decision is not about diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians or denying anyone the right to advocate on their behalf,“ Kraft said in a statement. “Their pain and loss are real. But that advocacy should not come at the expense of the Jewish community or obscure the responsibility of Hamas.” You can read the full statement here.
4. Students in Springfield are back in class after district officials shut down classes because of a cyberattack last week.
“Students are happy to be back. Parents are happy that their students are back again. The students have never been physically unsafe,” Superintendent Sonia Dinnall said. But since the attack is still under investigation and administrators can’t get into all of their systems, some of the classes will be a bit more old-school: think books, pens or pencils and paper instead of computers.
‘It’s like an ice cream truck, but with books!’: Mobile libraries deliver books across Mass.
If you can’t go to the library, your local library might come to you. In Worcester, Marc Lindberg drives a van called Libby, making stops across town where people who aren’t physically able to travel to their branches can still get their books.
Quincy has a book bike, a three-wheeled cargo bike that plays music, “kind of like an ice cream truck,” said Sara Slymon, executive director of the Thomas Crane Public Library. She said the idea of getting “people to come take books from us while they were at the beach with their families was super appealing.”
Dig deeper:
-Worcester Public Schools opening 7 new libraries, but lacks books to fill shelves
-Boston Public Library aims to increase access to a vast historic archive using AI
-For 200 years, the Mass. State Library has recorded democracy at work
GBH Daily
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