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Boston's Morning Newsletter
Boston plans to file first FOIAs for ICE raid information by Friday
Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.
The Coolidge Corner Theatre's summer outdoor movie series begins tonight with, appropriately, a "Friday the 13th" double feature in Medfield's Rocky Woods. (Check out the series' full schedule, which also includes screenings at the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the Charles River Speedway and Mt. Auburn Cemetery.)
But first, there's a lot of news to cover:
FOIA Friday? Boston's first formal requests for more information about federal immigration enforcement activities should be filed before the weekend hits. Earlier this week, Mayor Michelle Wu signed an executive order directing the city to regularly submit Freedom of Information Act requests to peel back some of the secrecy around local Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. And as WBUR's Eve Zuckoff reports, Wu said yesterday the first requests would be submitted by the end of today.
- What info does the city want? The three main points are "who has been arrested, why, and where they're being detained," according to Wu. It comes after ICE announced nearly 1,500 arrests in Massachusetts last month, but declined to release the majority of their names or alleged crimes. "We have not received any of that information from asking through other channels previously," Wu said yesterday.
- ICE's response: Todd Lyons, the agency acting director, told the Boston Herald that ICE plans to comply with the FOIAs and thinks it will make a point about Boston's law limiting the extent to which local police can assist ICE. “ICE welcomes the requests for transparency because this will only help ICE and DHS show how the mayor’s lack of cooperation hurts her neighborhoods," Lyons told the Herald.
- Meanwhile at City Hall: Wu is bringing in an outside law firm to investigate allegations that top aide Segun Idowu made sexual advances toward a fellow City Hall staffer, who was later fired after getting into a domestic dispute with her boyfriend (also a fellow City Hall employee) when she later told him about it. Critics say Wu moved too quickly to fire the two staffers. Eve has more on the situation here.
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In other news: With the city budget taken care of, Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson announced yesterday she will officially resign on July 4. It comes after the Roxbury-based councilor pleaded guilty to federal charges of wire fraud and theft involving federal funds for her role in orchestrating a bonus kickback scheme. Fernandes Anderson is due to be sentenced at the end of July.
- What's next: Over a dozen people are running for Fernandes Anderson's seat this fall. MassLive has more on where they stand on local issues.
Kseniia Petrova, the Russian-born scientist and Harvard University researcher who was detained by ICE for months, is free on bail. A federal judge ordered Petrova to be released yesterday after prosecutors dropped their request to hold her without bail. She had been in federal custody since February after she was stopped at Logan Airport for bringing undeclared frog embryo samples into the U.S. for research purposes.
- What's next: A hearing on Petrova's federal smuggling charge is scheduled for next Wednesday. In the meantime, her travel is restricted to New England.
Up in the air: Business is getting back to normal at Logan Airport, after a JetBlue plane overran its runway into the grass while landing yesterday, briefly halting all traffic at the airport. (No injuries were reported.) As of 7:30 a.m., there were 21 delays and nine cancellations at Logan, according to the website FlightAware.
Not so fast: MBTA General Manager Phil Eng says the reported Green Line service reduction starting this weekend is really just " an adjustment of paper schedule." Earlier this week, several news outlets noted that the summer subway and bus schedule taking effect Sunday includes a 2% cut in Green Line trips so that crews can install new safety equipment. But during a meeting yesterday, Eng said the change is actually trying to more accurately reflect the sometimes bogged-down Green Line service that's already being delivered. " The schedule that is going to take place next week is exactly the train service that people are feeling today," he said.
Save the date: Massachusetts state lawmakers have set this year's sales tax-free weekend for Aug. 9-10. Here are some tips to strategize to make the most of it.
P.S.— What sport returned to Fenway Park for the first time in almost 70 years? Take our Boston News Quiz to see if you know the answer.
