GBH Daily: Nail tech finance

🌥️Partly sunny and chilly, with highs in the 60s. Sunset is at 5:54 p.m.

Massachusetts has almost 20,000 licensed nail technicians — people who shape, buff and paint nails for a living, often for low pay and in difficult conditions. Researchers talked to nail techs and salon owners and found that nearly 80% of technicians make $40,000 or less a year, and a majority said they deal with issues like headaches and dizziness while working.

That’s not to say nail technicians don’t want to keep doing their jobs. “A lot of folks are just in a place of saying, ‘We really love this art and we love doing this craft and bringing beauty to other folks,’” Kevin Lam, co-executive director of the Asian American Resource Workshop, told GBH’s Magdiela Matta. “Bettering the conditions within the nail salon industry doesn’t just benefit owners and workers, it actually benefits consumers who are also going into those businesses.” You can read Matta’s full story here and dig into the report here.

Four Things to Know

1. Governing without a backup: Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue said he’d ask his running mate, Shawn Oliver, to resign if they win the election. Oliver was arrested on drunken-driving charges over the weekend. Massachusetts has gone without a lieutenant governor before: from 1985 to 1987 when John Kerry ran for Senate, when Jane Swift was elevated to the governor’s seat in 2001, and Tim Murray resigned to work in the private sector in 2013.

Oliver is still listed on the ballot — mail-in and early voting are already underway for the Nov. 3 election. The latest poll, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and WCVB, has incumbent Gov. Maura Healey leading Minogue 57% to 32%.

2. AI walkout today: Groups of local college students, professors and workers are planning to walk out of their classes and jobs today to call on governments to freeze AI development and regulate the technology.

“When I talk to students, their concerns are about finding jobs after college, and also if there will be a society and democracy when they graduate,” said Ari Rosenthal, one of the lead organizers. “It’s a bunch of people who are saying, ‘Hey, our futures are changing because of how AI is being developed, and it’s being developed incredibly irresponsibly.’”

3. Celtics’ early bird special: Good news for people who love the Celtics and hate staying up late: The team’s first game of the season begins today at 3 p.m. They’ll face the Detroit Pistons in Michigan as part of an NBA tripleheader.

The two other games on the schedule are the defending champion New York Knicks hosting Philadelphia at 7 p.m. and the San Antonio Spurs taking on the Oklahoma City Thunder at 9:30 p.m. The Celtics will be back at the TD Garden Friday, playing the Knicks in their home opener.

4. Welcome to Logan: From a pool of almost 6,000 people vying to be the voice of Logan International Airport, eight finalists have emerged. They include a Boston Public School teacher, a law student, a boxer who also works as a bartender and more. You’ll be able to hear their voices and vote for who you’d like to record the welcoming announcements at Logan starting Saturday at VoiceofLogan.com.

“We the people of Boston are unapologetically accented,” finalist Samantha Edwards said. “We’re loving, we’re diverse and I represent all of that. So here I am.” You can read about more of the finalists here. 

Have you met Andrea James? She’s running to be your governor.

By Adam Reilly, politics reporter, GBH News

For the Massachusetts media, Andrea James’ candidacy — she’s running for governor as an independent — presents a conundrum. Realistically, her chances of winning are slim. Then again, she did qualify for the ballot. She would be the first Black woman to govern Massachusetts if elected.

And if she were granted a place on a debate stage with her rivals, or given a fraction of the media attention they’ve received ahead of the Nov. 3 election, her chances might look very different.

She told GBH News that criminal justice issues are what ultimately motivated her to enter the race: she founded the prison-abolition groups Families for Justice as Healing and the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, focused in particular on eliminating prisons for women. She’s won national recognition for her work.

She helped change state law to end the shackling of female prisoners during labor and childbirth, and to allow judges to consider primary caretaker status — for example, a parent with a young child or an adult caring for an older parent — when handing down sentences for certain crimes.

“I have a very specific purpose,” James said. “I think the time is right for a person who has direct experience — who actually knows what it is not only to have struggled but to stand in the heat and be [held accountable].”

Right now, the standard metrics used to assess a campaign’s viability suggest that James is — to put it kindly — a long shot to win. No poll has shown her with more than single-digit support. And most polls haven’t included her at all.

James also appears to be struggling when it comes to fundraising, pulling in about $55,000 and spending just over $50,000 over the last two years. Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, has raised more than $11 million while in office. On top of fundraising, Republican Mike Minogue has injected $17 million of his own money into the race.

But there is inevitably a circular quality to arguments that justify the exclusion of candidates like James from debates. After all, if they aren’t given the same platform as the other candidates to get their message out, how can they gain enough ground with voters and donors to be taken seriously?

The first gubernatorial debate consisted mainly of Healey blaming Trump for Massachusetts’ problems and Minogue blaming Healey for blaming Trump. In contrast, James wants to also talk about reparations, which she supports as a way to close Massachusetts’ racial wealth gap, and the use of micro-housing to address the state’s addiction and affordability crises.

“I know from watching the debate that just took place, I would’ve brought into the discussion some things that need to be talked about, some issues that needed to be raised that neither of them talked about,” James said.

Maybe, James wonders in her office in Nubian Square, it’s simply not possible to run a campaign without millions of dollars behind you.

But she hopes that’s not the case.

“It’s one of the things we’re trying to do with this campaign,” James said. “It’s a grassroots, people-led campaign. And as long as we don’t have candidates who are of that — who are actually representing the people that they are on the ground with every day working with, and they come from those communities — we’re going to have a bunch of millionaires who don’t understand the struggle of everyday people.”

You can read the full story about James’ campaign and the media landscape here.

Dig deeper: 

-Debate recap: Affordability and accountability dominate Healey-Minogue finale

-Early in-person voting in Mass. has begun. Here’s what you need to know.

-Who’s funding the effort to repeal legal recreational weed? It might not be who you think.