GBH Daily: Have you gotten your flu and COVID shots yet?

🌫️ Fog turns to sun later in the day. High of 76. Sunset will be at 6:48 p.m.

💉Years ago, I decided that if I ate a salad every single day for lunch and get a decent amount of exercise, I would probably never get sick. 🥬 I’ve more or less kept up with that plan (just ask my co-workers, who have witnessed my salad intake), but around the time I turned 50, I realized I wasn’t quite as invincible as I’d thought. That’s when I started getting annual flu shots.

Now that it’s mid-September, it’s a good time to get vaccinated against both the flu and COVID. The city of Boston has just announced a series of 20 free vaccine clinics across the city, and health officials are recommending that everyone 6 months and older get vaccinated this year, given the severity of last year’s flu season. And while I don’t live in Boston, I plan to follow that recommendation — even if it did take me around 50 years to start.

Four Things to Know

1. Unintentional killing of endangered species will no longer be prohibited: For decades after its passage in the 1970s, the Endangered Species Act has been interpreted to prohibit the killing of endangered species, even when unintentional. A federal directive issued on Sept. 14 is set to change that, saying an action is prohibited only if the killing was done intentionally: “The person must intend to act on an animal and must do so for the purpose of affecting the animal,” the memo says.

2. Immigration lawyers demand due process in court: At least 50 immigration attorneys, clerks and advocates gathered at Boston’s immigration court this week to call for fair hearings, stronger due process and experienced, unbiased judges who are appearing in person — not hundreds or thousands of miles away via video call.

“They don’t understand the law that they’re applying. It’s like replacing the U.S. Olympic diving team with a bunch of kids told to do belly flops — that’s what these judges are doing. They’re following orders,” said Heather Yountz, senior immigration staff attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. “They aren’t using discretion. They aren’t weighing facts. They aren’t applying the law. Trump doesn’t want judges who think for themselves.”

3. Sharp decline in GLP-1 usage: Early data suggests that as a result of many health insurers dropping coverage of GLP-1 drugs used to help people lose weight, spending on the drugs in Massachusetts will decrease by about $662 million this year.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kiame Mahaniah said in March that he’d “be really surprised if within two years, we don’t see a major price crash in terms of how much GLP-1s cost” and predicted that within two to three years, “we’ll be back to full coverage.”

4. FBI: Springfield school cyberattack included data breach: School officials in Springfield said Tuesday night that the district’s data has been breached, a result of a cyberattack around Labor Day. “It is possible that the breached information could include Social Security numbers for staff, though that is not confirmed,” the officials said in a statement.

Gauging interest: Mashpee company aims to bring micro tide gauges to an inlet near you

Boaters launching out of Childs River in Falmouth motoring out from the public dock toward Waquiot Bay pass a tall piling. Affixed near the top is a small tide gauge designed to provide real-time information for anyone navigating this inlet. It looks like a foot-long PVC pipe with a small solar panel on top.

Robert Mawrey, who knows first-hand that waterways like this can get pretty shallow when the tide is low, designed and installed the gauge. Mawrey learned the hard way not to rely on tide charts which are based on NOAA estimates, and not real-time local data.

“Many of the bays in Cape Cod, there are no NOAA gauges,” he explained. “The closest to this is Woods Hole. And Woods Hole has very different tides to Waquoit, very different to Popponesset or, even to some extent, Falmouth.”

So Mawrey produced his own tide gauge.

“I’ve lost count how many versions of these I made,” he said. “The original first ones looked like a, you know, shower cap – so stuck out too far. Long, skinny pipes. Wires and boxes. And now it’s a small thing you hold in your hand.”

Across GBH:

📻 LISTEN: Boston Public Radio, 11 a.m., on GBH 89.7 FM: Shannon O’Brien, the state’s former top cannabis regulator, will discuss her lawsuit against Treasurer Deb Goldberg.

🧐LISTEN: The Curiosity Desk, 1 p.m., on GBH 89.7 FM: On tap is our Friday misfit news panel, and a celebration of Fluff with Jessica Eshleman ahead of the “What the Fluff?” festival in Union Square.

🎨 LISTEN: The Culture Show, 2 p.m., on GBH 89.7 FM: Jared, Joyce Kulhawilk and Maurice Emmanuel Parent lead our arts and culture week-in-review

📺WATCH: Stories from the Stage, 8 p.m., on GBH 2: In “Heart First,” three storytellers explore what happens when we are taught to protect the heart … but then love asks us to lead with it.

📺WATCH: My Music with Rhiannon Giddens, 8:30 p.m., on GBH 2: Emer Mayock, devoted daughter of County Mayo, visits Rhiannon at the Bridge Street Pub in Castlebar with her flute and uilleann pipes.

📺WATCH: Joffrey Ballet: The Next Movement, 9 p.m., on GBH 2: Get to know the winners of the Joffrey Ballet choreography competition through interviews, new footage and archival film and photography. See the challenges faced by emerging talent.

JOIN US SATURDAY: 2026 What the Fluff? Festival, Saturday (9/19) from 1 to 5 p.m., in Union Square, Somerville: Get ready for a serious sugar rush as GBH teams up with Somerville’s What the Fluff? Festival as its exclusive public media partner! Everyone’s favorite aardvark, Arthur Read, will be in attendance to take photos with fans.

WATCH ON SATURDAY: New Seasons of America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country, Saturday (9/19) at 3 and 3:30 p.m., on GBH 2: Bridget Lancaster and Julia Collin Davison with their teams present Season 27 of America’s Test Kitchen featuring new test cooks and Season 19 of Cook’s Country with familiar favorites like Bryan Roof and Morgan Bolling.

WATCH ON SUNDAY: Trespasses, Sunday (9/20) at 10 p.m., on GBH 2: A forbidden relationship emerges, in 1970s Northern Ireland, between a Catholic teacher and a married Protestant lawyer. Stars Lola Petticrew, Tom Cullen (Downton Abbey, The Gold) and Gillian Anderson.

🧑‍🍳COOK: Cook’s Country: Tucson Tacos

🎯PLAY: Can you guess how much Antiques Roadshow finds are worth? Test your skills with our daily game.

GBH Daily is written by Gal Tziperman Lotan with contributions by Katrina Ávila Munichiello and edited by Anna Fort and Jackie Bruleigh.