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By Jay Fitzgerald and Keith Regan

03/09/2018

‘Shoots of rebellion’ | It’s time, Part II | Fashion show postponed

Happening Today

Baker in western Mass., Warren open house, Maple Month

-- The Supreme Judicial Court hears oral arguments in three cases, John Adams Courthouse, Courtroom One, Second Floor, Pemberton Square, Boston, 9 a.m.

-- Senate President Harriette Chandler attends the Worcester Common Ground legislative breakfast, 5 Piedmont St., Worcester, 10 a.m.

-- Gov. Charlie Baker, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash, Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer and legislators gather for an event at the Berkshire Innovation Center, City Hall, 70 Allen Street, Pittsfield, 10:30 a.m.

-- Gov. Charlie Baker addresses the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce., with U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash attending, MassMutual Center, 1277 Main Street, Springfield, 12:30 p.m.

-- Francois-Laurent Nivaud, the executive director of the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, attends and delivers remarks at the kick-off of Massachusetts maple season, 409 New Lenox Road, Lenox, 1 p.m.

-- Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito joins Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Matthew Beaton, Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources Commissioner John Lebeaux and local maple syrup producers for ‘Massachusetts Maple Month,’ Mill Brook Sugar House, 409 New Lenox Rd, Lenox, 1 p.m.

-- U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren holds an open house to greet voters and answer questions, Springfield Technical Community College, 1 Armory Square, Scibelli Hall, Building 2, Springfield, 1:30 p.m.

-- Gov. Charlie Baker, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, National Guard Adjutant General Gary Keefe and others participate in a ribbon cutting ceremony for recently completed renovations of the primary aircraft maintenance hangar at the Barnes Air National Guard Base, Barnes Air National Guard Base, Westfield, 3:30 p.m.

-- UPenn Law School professor Amy Wax talks about free speech on college campuses on ‘Nightside,’ WBZ NewsRadio 1030, 9 p.m.

For more calendar listings, check out State House News Service’s Daily Advances (pay wall) and MassterList’s Beacon Hill Town Square below.

Today's News

WHERE IS CHARLIE BAKER?

THIS IS OBSCENE!

THEY'RE POORLY PREPARED, POORLY ORGANIZED AND PEOPLE SUFFER AS A CONSEQUENCE.

Power outages persist

A day after the latest storm to hit the region, there were still about 170,000 customers without power early this morning in Massachusetts, reports the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. WBUR was all over the story yesterday and the Boston Globe has more.

MEMA

It’s time, Part II: Baker to file climate-change resiliency bill next week

He was talking in vague terms about something like this earlier this week, but now he’s going to get more specific next week. From SHNS’s Katie Lannan at the Greenfield Recorder: “As Massachusetts continued to clean up Thursday from its second nor'easter in a week, Gov. Charlie Baker said he plans to file legislation next week addressing climate change. Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito surveyed storm damage on the North and South shores last weekend, and Baker said it occurred to him then that ‘fixing whatever it is that's there may just translate in something similar happening again at some point.’”

WGBH’s Adam Reilly has a good piece on what’s been holding up, until recently, climate-change resiliency legislation on Beacon Hill. Writing at the Globe, Chris Reed, a professor of landscape architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, says that Massachusetts policymakers need to pick up the pace and think bigger on how to deal with climate-change readiness.

Greenfield Recorder

Lowell police: Please don’t drive like this guy

Still on the subject of recent storms: Lowell Police yesterday posted a photo on Facebook of a driver whose car was covered with snow – with just a tiny bit of the windshield showing. “Please clear snow from (your) car before driving, this driver will receive a citation and fine,” the LPD message read. Dan Glaun at MassLive has more. Meanwhile, Louisa LaSalle, via Universal Hub, has a photo of similar obnoxious driver. As Universal Hub puts it, the driver is clearly a “beta Masshole,” since an “alpha” Masshole wouldn’t have cleared any of the back window.

Storm Team Coverage: State House hit with ‘extremely messy pipe break’

It’s not like the Cape’s loss of Liam’s Restaurant the other day, but the State House did spring a leak due to the most recent storm. From SHNS’s Andy Metzger: “An ‘extremely messy pipe break’ soaked a first-floor hallway in the State House on Thursday morning after a late-winter nor'easter piled up snow around the region and prompted the closure of the state capitol. ... Workers set up lights and blew fans in the hallway between the two elevator banks in the original Bulfinch part of the building. Light fixtures were broken, water dripped from the ceiling and a chunk of the ceiling's surface was missing.”

And, while we’re at it, here’s the latest on Liam’s Restaurant in Orleans, via CapeCod.com.

SHNS (pay wall)

Shoots of GOP rebellion in New Hampshire …

Lots has been written about potential Democratic challengers to President Trump in 2020, including our very own Elizabeth Warren, Deval Patrick and Seth Moulton. But the Globe’s Astead Herndon writes that the “shoots of rebellion” are also starting to appear in New Hampshire among potential Republican candidates for president, including Arizona Senator Jeff Flake and Ohio Governor John Kasich, both of whom are planning visits to the Granite State in coming weeks.

Boston Globe

Recalling 2010, Baker says Patrick would make a ‘formidable’ presidential candidate

Speaking of presidential politics: Charlie Baker knows all about Deval Patrick, who cleaned Baker’s clock in the 2010 governor’s race. So it comes as little surprise that the now Gov. Baker, a Republican, is saying the former Gov. Patrick, a Democrat, would make a ‘formidable’ candidate for president if he decides to run, reports the SHNS’s Matt Murphy. "I ran against Gov. Patrick in 2010 and he is one heck of a campaigner," Baker said yesterday on WGBH's Boston Public Radio. "If he were to choose to get in, and obviously it's a big decision, he would be a formidable candidate.”

SHNS (pay wall)

Hey, there’s a gubernatorial election this year …

Speaking of gubernatorial races (past and present), the Herald’s Howie Carr, coming from the conservative right, asks: “What exactly has Charlie Baker accomplished as governor?” But the Herald’s Joe Battenfeld is basically asking: What are the three gubernatorial candidates doing? His answer: “Flailing away, failing to stir up much money or interest in their uphill battle to unseat Baker.”

The politics of riding the T

It’s an issue, albeit a small one, that probably will never go away for Gov. Charlie Baker, to wit: Why doesn’t he ride the T? His answer, as SHNS’s Colin Young reports (pay wall), is that his schedule doesn’t lend itself to taking the T. In an editorial, the Herald says Baker, a Swampscott resident, should probably ride the T now and then, just to see what riders endure on a daily basis. “But to hound the governor for not relying on mass transit every day to keep his complicated schedule is really just dopey,” the Herald says. Democratic gubernatorial candidates, obviously, have a different viewpoint.

Btw: There was a T train derailment yesterday (MassLive) and a man was struck by an MBTA commuter rail train in Belmont (Globe). Just saying.

Warren goes after Kushner’s company loans

This may spark another round of Pocahontos insults from the president – but we have a feeling Elizabeth Warren doesn’t care. The Massachusetts senator, along with other Democrats, has sent a letter to Apollo and Citigroup asking about the timing of loans to Jared Kushner’s company, Politico is reporting. This is most definitely an escalation in the never-ending fight between Warren and Trump, Kushner’s father-in-law.

Miceli is back

Good news: State Rep. Jim Miceli, who recently collapsed at the State House and had to be rushed to the hospital, is back and ‘back at it,’ reports Kori Tuitt at the Lowell Sun. "He called me (Monday) and asked about storm damage. He said he was driving around and saw a bunch of storm damage," said Tewksbury Board of Selectmen Chair Mark Kratman.

Lowell Sun

No recount in Attleboro primary

Republican Jeff Bailey has conceded defeat in Tuesday’s state representative primary election, saying the 21-vote margin of victory garnered by City Councilor Julie Hall would more than likely hold up in a hand recount, Jim Hand reports in the Sun Chronicle. So it’s officially official: Hall and Democratic nominee Jim Hawkins will indeed face off on April 3.

Sun Chronicle

Lobbying update: Clean energy is coming of age …

Congratulations, clean energy companies. You’ve really come of age as a new sector – and now you’re a true lobbying player on Beacon Hill. Bruce Mohl at CommonWealth has the details, including how the old boys, Mintz Levin and O’Neill and Associates, nevertheless still rule the lobbying hill.

CommonWealth

‘Concealed-Carry Fashion Show’ postponed

Considering last month’s mass shooting in Florida, it’s hard to imagine Bass Pro Shops and Patriots Place (aka the Kraft Group) proceeding with a planned “Concealed-Carry Fashion Show” today in Foxborough, even if there were no real guns strapped to thighs of gorgeous models. So it’s not a shock that the sold-out event, sponsored by the Massachusetts Women Gun Owners and the Gun Owners Action League, has been postponed. The Sun Chronicle and the Boston Globe have the details.

Meanwhile, anti-gun violence rally organizers chafe under police costs

Organizers of the Worcester version of the March for Life planned in the wake of the Florida school shooting are pushing back against what they say are exorbitant fees being sought by the city’s police department to cover security at the event, Bill Shaner reports in Worcester Magazine. Organizers are seeking to crowd-source the $3,600-plus in costs to have 17 officers on hand for the event—a number the city says reflects the controversial nature of the event. The ACLU says it has some questions about the charges.

Worcester Magazine

No white male insiders, please

The public battle over who should be the next UMass-Boston chancellor has commenced. The Globe’s Shirley Leung says she’d “love to see the next chancellor be a woman, or a man or woman of color,” or just about anyone other than a “white male insider” like, oh, Gaming Commission Chair Stephen Crosby, who as expressed interest in the post.

Boston Globe

After 20 months, Suffolk University finds a new president: Its acting president

Speaking of female college presidents, from David Harris at the BBJ: “Suffolk University on Thursday picked a familiar face to work as its new president, tapping interim head Marisa Kelly to lead the Boston-based school. Kelly started at Suffolk in 2014 as provost, then served as acting president over the past 20 months. Suffolk's latest move comes less than two years after the university took the unusual step of firing its previous president, Margaret McKenna, after a long-brewing leadership standoff at the school.”

BBJ

Marijuana industry tells regulators to lighten up

The budding marijuana industry is shining a light on what it thinks is an unfair regulation: Limiting the amount of electricity that can be used for lighting in pot cultivation spaces. Dan Adams at the Globe has the details.

Boston Globe

Tim Murray in testy Twitter exchange over, you guessed it, pipelines

Tim Murray, the former lieutenant governor and current president of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, fired off what he might have thought was a routine retweet of a story warning of a shortage of natural gas – with the added comment that “we need natural gas as bridge fuel.” His comment was met with a “lot of pushback” from natural-gas pipeline opponents, reports Bruce Mohl at CommonWealth magazine.

CommonWealth

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson MUST BE TOO BUSY BASKING IN THE NATIONAL RIGHT WING SPOTLIGHT TO DO HIS JOB PROPERLY, MAYBE THERE'S A CANDIDATE RUNNING AGAINST HIM....

Lawsuits keep coming Tom Hodgson’s way

There’s now at least four lawsuits filed by family members or current inmates against the Bristol County jail, run by Sheriff Tom Hodgson, alleging the system “fails to care for its mentally ill, drug addicted, and suicidal inmates,” reports Jenifer McKim and Chris Burrell of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, in a piece published in the Boston Globe. “Each lawsuit claims that jail officials put troubled inmates alone in cells — sometimes for long periods — instead of providing special treatment to deal with mental illness or drug withdrawal.”

MIT study: Fake news travels fast

Bad news. Fake news. Is there a difference? From Karen Weintraub at WBUR: “They say bad news travels fast, but new study suggests that false news does as well. And, at least on Twitter, it goes even farther than facts. "False news travels farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than the truth in every category of information and sometimes by an order of magnitude," said Sinan Aral, the paper’s senior author and head of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy.”

WBUR

For Bay State Latinos, an unwelcome number one ranking

The income gap between white residents and Latino residents is larger in Massachusetts than any other state, despite the fact that the minority group is almost solely responsible for population growth in recent years, Katie Johnston reports in the Globe. While white households bring in $82,000 annually on average, Latino families earn less than half that, or $39,700, Johnston reports, citing US Census data. The gap is partly, if not mostly, the result of these economic factors: The high cost of living here and thus the generally high salaries here, but the minimum wage here, which many Latino immigrants depend upon, is not aligned to the former. Thus a huge gap.

Boston Globe

In Hyannis, fire officials getting heated over serving non-profits

Officials at the Hyannis Fire District say their budget is being strained by frequently providing emergency services to not-for-profit agencies that don’t pay the local taxes that support the agency. With most of the Cape’s social services concentrated in Hyannis, some $619 million worth of property in the village goes untaxed, representing an annual loss of $1.6 million for the fire district. Levying charges to those agencies through a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes scheme is among the ideas being kicked around.

Cape Cod Times

DAY LATE CHARLIE! THESE ARE THE OVERPAID INCOMPETENTS YOU PUT IN PLACE

About that $100,000 bathroom …

Appearing on a WAAF radio show, Gov. Charlie Baker said yesterday that he will look into reports of a new $100,00 bathroom and kitchenette at the Department of Transportation’s headquarters building – the bathroom just off the boardroom used by the DOT board of directors and MBTA Fiscal Control Board, reports Gintautas Dumcius at MassLive. WCVB-TV has been pounding away at the story over the past month.

MassLive

Video: Tom Brady gets buzzed along with some tall guy

It’s for a good cause – and it rarely fails to evoke a smile, before, during and after the event. Wicked Local has a video and story on Patriots quarterback Tom Brady getting a buzz haircut for charity, sitting alongside some tall guy taking selfies of the two of them.

WickedLocal

Sunday public affairs TV

Keller at Large, WBZ-TV Channel 4, 8:30 a.m. This week’s guest: Steve Tolman, president of the state AFL-CIO, who talks with host Jon Keller about the Janus case before the Supreme Court, the political activities of unions, and where the union stands on the gubernatorial race.

This Week in Business, NECN, 10 a.m. Shirley Leung of the Boston Globe and Doug Banks of the Boston Business Journal discuss the president’s new tariffs, new marijuana regulations and how the region can prepare for more intense storms of the future.

CEO Corner, NECN, 10:30 a.m. Bill Aulet, managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, discusses the significance of start-ups with Aman Advani, CEO of Ministry of Supply, a high-tech clothing company.

On The Record, WCVB-TV Channel 5, 11 a.m. This week’s guest: Beth Lindstrom, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, talks with anchor Ed Harding and co-anchor Janet Wu.

CityLine, WCVB-TV Channel 5, 12 p.m. With host Karen Holmes Ward, this week’s topic: A look at the ‘Latin Quarter,’ a small pocket in Jamaica Plain.

This is New England, NBC Boston Channel 10, 11:30 a.m. With host Latoyia Edwards, this week’s topic: Stories throughout the community that showcase how New Englanders come together and support each other in times of need.

Today's Headlines

Metro

Meeting on Globe site rehab focuses on Patten’s Cove, neighborhood connections - Dorchester Reporter

Team at MIT developing fusion power - Boston Herald

Massachusetts

Worcester public schools seek community input for new brand, logo and website - MassLive

Gardner settles suit alleging police brutality for $140,000 - Telegram & Gazette

Cantwell says staff, South Shore legislators will cover his district when he steps down - Patriot Ledger

Chelsea Clinton wows crowd at Plainville bookstore - Sun Chronicle

Pipeline debate gets testy on Twitter - CommonWealth Magazine

Nation

Kim offers nuclear talks; Trump accepts - Washington Post