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Mass. officials pledge to maintain access to gender-affirming care for trans youth — despite new Trump proposals
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The man who police believe carried out the mass shooting last weekend at Brown University, as well as fatally shot an MIT professor Monday night at his home in Brookline, was found dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire. Officials announced the discovery late last night, hours after the shocking news leaked that they had begun investigating the same suspect for both shootings.
The suspect was identified last night as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old former Brown student and a Portuguese national. Officials said he died by suicide in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire. Neves Valente's motives remain unclear. Officials said he last lived in Miami, but went to Brown from 2000 to 2001 and attended the same school in Portugal as Nuno F.G. Loureiro, the MIT professor. (Here's more on the Reddit post authorities say cracked the case.)
In the wake of the discovery, the Trump administration announced last night that it is pausing the green card lottery program that allowed Neves Valente to come to the country — a move almost certain to be challenged in court. The diversity visa program, which was enacted by Congress, awards an estimated 50,000 green cards a year through a lottery to countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said she hopes the search's end brings some ease to the Providence community. "Nothing can really fully bring closure to the lives that have been shattered over the past week, but this may allow our community to move forward and begin a path of repair and recovery and healing," she said.
Now, to other local news:
Affirming gender-affirming care: Massachusetts officials are pledging to keep gender-affirming care legal and accessible in the state, even after the Trump administration proposed two news rules yesterday in an attempt to ban such services for trans youth. WBUR's Stephanie Brown spoke to Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein about what could happen next:
- What the rules do: If finalized, the first rule would ban Medicaid reimbursements specifically for care provided to transgender youth 18 and under. The second rule would also deny any Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care. Goldstein says virtually no hospital in the state could operate without those funds. " It would be devastating to the hospitals if they were to forgo federal funds," he said. "We have to remember that the vast majority of hospital revenue comes from the federal government, either through Medicare or through Medicaid."
- What's next: The Trump administration's proposals still need to go through the federal rule-making process. And some opponents of the move, like the ACLU and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell's office, have already hinted they may sue. But for now, " I want to be really clear right now it is legal for folks to get care in any hospital, any health center, any clinic here in Massachusetts for gender affirming care," Goldstein said.
- What happens if the rules take effect? Goldstein says Gov. Maura Healey's administration has been preparing for this possibility and has been working with hospitals to find different pathways to provide gender-affirming care for patients under 18. " It just may be that that care is not gonna be provided in the same hospital setting or in the same clinical setting that it was provided before," Goldstein said. He floated using state money or finding "new institutions that can withstand some of the financial pressures."
- Meanwhile: The local chapter of Planned Parenthood, which provides hormone therapy to people as young as 16, also pledged yesterday to continue serving trans youth. " We've already seen the impact of a defund from this administration," Mason Dunn, the executive director of the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, told WBUR's John Bender. " So our care does not change and our, our mechanisms to providing care do not change."
- By the numbers: Researchers found that less than 0.1% of all American teenagers with private insurance (a total of a few thousand) accessed puberty blockers or hormones for gender transition from 2018-2022.
Save the date: Voters in four North Shore communities will choose a new state representative in March, following the death last month of longtime state Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante. The House set a March 3 special primary election yesterday for 5th Essex District seat covering Gloucester, Essex, Rockport, and Manchester-By-The-Sea. The special general election will happen four weeks later on March 31. Two local Democrats have already announced their candidacies.
Keep some extra change in your car: Cambridge is raising the price of a parking ticket for expired meters starting in February. The city's Department of Transportation announced a rate hike from $30 to $40 this week. As Cambridge Day reports, the change puts the city's ticket rates in line with Boston's, but still below Somerville's.
Up in the air: Missing that super-long direct flight from Boston to Hawaii? Travelers will soon be able to fly direct from Logan Airport to the U.S.'s other noncontiguous state. Alaska Airlines announced yesterday that it will launch a weekly nonstop flight between Boston and Anchorage this coming spring. At 3,372 miles, it will become the airline's second-longest direct route, behind only Honolulu-to-New York City.
P.S.— Which historic Boston venue is closing after more than a century in operation? Take our Boston News Quiz and test your knowledge of this week's stories.
