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ICE arrest of a man with cancer shows increasing difficulty of detention amid serious illness

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 16, 2025 4:06


It's getting harder for immigrants to win release from custody, even when they're in dire health.

Cautious employers, cautious workers: Recruiters are navigating a slow job market

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 15, 2025 4:19


The job market is lagging, according to numbers and firsthand accounts from job recruiters. The people who help connect job seekers and employers say navigating the job market has changed significantly compared to prior years.

Judge halts saints statues from going up in Quincy

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 15, 2025 5:53


“We chose the statues of Michael and Florian to honor Quincy's first responders, not to promote any religion,” said Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch.

Congressman Moulton launches primary challenge against Sen. Markey, calling for generational change

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 15, 2025 4:17


In a campaign video released Wednesday morning, Moulton said the Democratic Party "has clung to the status quo," and it's time to "change course."

Parents in Maine use landlines to dial back kids' smartphone demands

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2025 5:23


For many parents, giving a child their own smartphone is a fraught milestone. But some are finding ways to avoid its pitfalls and still keep their pre-teens connected to friends: they're getting landlines.

Can a Maine oyster farmer defeat Sen. Susan Collins and save the Democrats?

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2025 6:42


In the few weeks since announcing his run for Senate, political outsider Graham Platner is drawing big crowds and raising lots of money. But Maine's incumbent, Republican Sen. Susan Collins, is no easy political mark. Nor is Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who may soon enter the race.

At 125, Boston's Symphony Hall still sings

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2025 5:26


On its opening night in 1900, Boston's Symphony Hall drew patrons in more than 250 carriages and headlines nationwide. Today, the landmark's revolutionary acoustics — engineered by a Harvard physics professor — continue to set the standard for concert halls worldwide.

In Chelsea, an air, water, land fight for environmental justice

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 9, 2025 7:06


Chelsea is an industrial hub for the region and has a troubled highway overpass that cuts through it. But there's a real cost. Chelsea residents have been fighting to improve the city's environment and in turn, their own health. The latest setback to that ongoing battle: the cancellation of a federal grant to mitigate flooding.

'They're feeding America' — Northern Maine students learn work ethic on annual harvest break

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 9, 2025 4:38


Every year in the early weeks of fall, Aroostook County potato farmers race to dig up their fields before the first frosts hit. Since at least the 1940s, students get a break from school to help out during the busy season.

For environmental architect Justin Brazier, change comes from community

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2025 4:44


Cities are confronting waves of extreme climate challenges in their neighborhoods. Solution-driven designers and architects like Brazier are engaging communities in new ways.

Artist crystal bi cultivates space for collective imagination

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2025 4:35


Artist crystal bi is transforming Boston's public spaces with interactive events that invite residents to reflect on memory, belonging, and the power of imagination. Through collaborative experiences inspired by ancestral traditions and local history, bi encourages Bostonians to envision a more inclusive and hopeful future for their city.

Artist Lani Asunción confronts the injustice of climate change

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2025 4:26


In downtown Boston, the artist's installation “SONG/LAND/SEA: WAI Water Warning” rings out a message about climate change.

Jake Blount's dystopian folk music is an omen for the present

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2025 6:03


The Providence musician released his first album of Black mountain music during America's racial reckoning. Amid Trump's DEI purge and environmental collapse, his Afrofuturist folk hits different.

As ICE ramps up activity in Mass., this group bears witness

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 7, 2025 7:42


Activists connected through an immigrant advocacy group called LUCE are documenting arrests throughout the state. The "ICE watchers" record the names of those detained to make sure they're accounted for, and help family members connect to resources.

Community artist Tanya Nixon-Silberg finds power in repair

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 6, 2025 4:18


Known for projects that explore heritage, motherhood, and resilience, Nixon-Silberg uses repurposed fabrics and deep-rooted storytelling to help Boston's young people find meaning in their histories and repair what has been lost — one stitch at a time.

Jo Nanajian interrogates memory's durability through natural forms

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 6, 2025 4:10


Using materials like plaster, glass and wire, the artist creates abstract, textured wall sculptures inspired by forms found in nature. Nanajian tries to represent all the ways that human memory can be preserved, changed or lost.

Andre StrongBearHeart is reviving Indigenous culture and decolonizing the land

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 3, 2025 4:57


The Nipmuc cultural steward teaches traditional Indigenous arts and advocates for Indigenous communities to be able to access, and even help manage, conservation land.

Inside the MBTA's aging signal system as it gets a $295 million upgrade

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 3, 2025 4:25


If you ride the MBTA, chances are you've seen an alert about a signal problem delaying your train. The T is in the middle of a project to improve the signal system on the Red and Orange lines so it can react to problems faster.

Filmmaker Homa Sarabi maps her place in the world

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 3, 2025 3:53


The Iranian-born artist transforms memories and conversations into visual stories. Exploring longing, displacement, and belonging, Sarabi charts connections between cultures, people and place, even from oceans apart.

Dancer Marissa Molinar combines movement with activism

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 2, 2025 4:18


The Boston artist is using her background in environmental science and activism to train and empower the next generation of dance leaders. “Culture is really an integral part of resiliency and survival,” Molinar said.

Sound designer Skooby Laposky amplifies the hidden lives of plants 

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 2, 2025 5:00


The audio explorer and plant DJ collaborates with gardens and trees to turn up the volume on their hidden role in our environment.

Frank Baker says he'll bring 'balance' if he returns to Boston City Council

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 2, 2025 6:06


The Boston mayor's race may be all but decided, as incumbent Michelle Wu runs unopposed, but there are other races afoot. In the election for City Council, a conservative-leaning, "lunch-bucket Democrat" says he wants to bring more “balance” to a largely progressive body.

Rocking the vote: Guitar in hand, former Mass. senator Scott Brown brings the noise the N.H. campaign trail

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 29, 2025 4:32


Scott Brown and the Diplomats — the name a nod to his time as ambassador — played a string of dates this summer across New Hampshire. Brown is an unlikely frontman considering he is again running for New Hampshire's U.S. Senate seat in 2026.

A quest to end breast cancer slows as the Trump-Harvard dispute drags on

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2025 5:07


Joan Brugge's research into breast cancer is one of hundreds of projects at Harvard caught up in an ongoing dispute with the Trump administration over the university's handling of antisemitism on campus. Last spring, the administration froze nearly $3 billion in research grants and contracts to punish Harvard.

Quincy mayor apologizes for, then defends comments about clergy sexual abuse

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2025 4:04


Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch has defended comments he made this week that the clergy sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Archdiocese of Boston in the early 2000s was more about homosexuality than pedophilia.

Local orgs pick up the slack after feds slash suicide hotline funding

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 24, 2025 4:27


Local suicide prevention organizations are trying to fill a gap left by President Trump's policies. Reporter Paul C. Kelly Campos takes us inside a group based in Fall River that's working to provide the care people need.

Quincy voters may get to roll back their mayor's 79% salary bump

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 24, 2025 5:02


The City Council last year approved a pay raise that would put Mayor Thomas Koch's salary above the mayors of Boston and New York City. That sparked a movement that had its first big win this week — a signature drive to get a question on the November ballot that lets voters decide on the pay hike.

Acclaimed Boston restaurant struggles to stay open after manager arrested by ICE

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 23, 2025 5:03


Suya Joint owner Cecelia Lizotte has served up Nigerian dishes at her Roxbury restaurant for 10 years. But early this summer her brother and operational manager, Paul Dama was detained by ICE. Typically, he helps run the restaurant, but his absence has upended Lizotte's business. It's an example of how Trump's immigration actions can take a toll on restaurants.

Scientists are racing to save a tiny songbird that nests on New England's alpine summits

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2025 3:55


Bicknell's thrush travel thousands of miles every year to nest and raise their young in some of the most rugged places in New England. But their populations are declining, and scientists are trying to learn more about them in hopes they can reverse the trend.

Mass. leaders push back on potential Trump National Guard deployment

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2025 6:59


The president has not called out Boston as a city in need of a military presence, but Boston has been doing battle with the Trump administration in other ways for months. Most local elected leaders are united against any National Guard presence in Boston. But the nation, and some in the city, are deeply split.

A mobile wellness initiative is providing drive-by therapy to Mass. college students

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 19, 2025 4:35


Telehealth vans parked outside Harvard and Northeastern are connecting college students with counseling support.

What you need to know about this year's fall bird migration in Massachusetts

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 19, 2025 2:42


Fall migration in Massachusetts is to birds as Sept. 1 is to students in Boston: some are moving in, some are moving out, and others are just passing through. Here are three things to keep in mind if you want to head out to see or hear these commuters.

After Kirk murder, Republican college students in Boston say they fear what's next

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 18, 2025 6:27


While Kirk espoused many controversial views, he also provided comfort to conservative college students who often feel dismissed, unheard or threatened.

30 years gone: Boston man leaves prison after landmark court decision

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 18, 2025 6:35


A Supreme Judicial Court ruling changed Nate Benjamin's life. In January 2024, the state's highest court ruled that those under 21 who commit a crime cannot receive life without the possibility of parole sentences. 

Hundreds were detained in ICE's Burlington office for multiple days, data shows

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2025 4:45


ICE has said it's rare for people to be detained inside its Burlington field office for more than a few hours, but a new WBUR analysis finds that hundreds were detained for more than a day this past spring and summer.

Chelsea school enrollment drops as ICE cracks down on Mass.

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 16, 2025 3:56


Hundreds of students have left Chelsea public schools this year, as families exit a community — and a state — that's become a prime target for immigration enforcement.

Josh Kraft bows out of Boston race for mayor

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 12, 2025 4:23


Josh Kraft has dropped out of the Boston mayor's race, two days after incumbent Michelle Wu trounced him in the city's preliminary election.

After 17 years, DNA tied a man to her rape. Under Massachusetts law, it was too late

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 11, 2025 8:28


Massachusetts has one of the shortest deadlines in the country for prosecuting rape, even when DNA could help prove the case.

Wu dominates Boston preliminary election as she and Kraft move to November face off

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 10, 2025 3:03


Mayor Michelle Wu and challenger Josh Kraft will go head to head on the November ballot for Boston mayor.

Rural health care clinics in Mass. brace for Medicaid cuts

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 9, 2025 5:41


Hundreds of thousands of low-income Massachusetts residents could lose Medicaid coverage over the next 10 years — a result of the massive tax and spending bill President Trump signed in July.

ICE launches new immigration enforcement surge in Mass. 

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 9, 2025 2:56


The Department of Homeland Security did not specify how long the ICE crackdown would last around the state. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said she expects federal agents to follow local and state laws, warning "we are prepared to take legal action at any evidence to the contrary."

Legal experts call DOJ lawsuit against Boston 'unconstitutional'

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2025 4:01


Legal specialists say the federal government can't require Boston to carry out its deportation agenda and predicted the lawsuit will fail in court.

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