Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu are both set to join state and city leaders at separate press conferences today to provide a winter storm update.
This will likely be Boston’s first blizzard since January 2022.
Wu has declared a snow emergency and parking ban in Boston effective at 2 p.m. Sunday. The mayor will be at Boston City Hall at 10:30 a.m. to share information about the city’s preparations ahead of the storm’s arrival. It will be livestreamed in the video player above.
Tevin Wooten and Pamela Gardner have the details on our approaching weather system, which could likely be our first blizzard since January 2022..
At 1 p.m., Healey will be at the state emergency operations center in Framingham. She’s expected to be joined by a host of other leaders including Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, Public Safety and Security Secretary Gina Kwon, Transportation Secretary and MBTA General Manager Phil Eng, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper, Transportation Undersecretary and Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver, MBTA Chief Operating Officer Ryan Colohan, MEMA Director Dawn Brantley, and Massachusetts State Police Col. Geoffrey Noble.
That press conference will also be livestreamed in the video player above.
Boston pays $150K to 2 men wrongfully accused in infamous murder case
The City of Boston has paid a total of $150,000 to two men who were wrongfully accused in the high-profile 1989 murder of Carol Stuart — a case that shocked the nation and fanned racial tensions across the city.
Mayor Michelle Wu’s office authorized payments of $100,000 to Willie Bennett and $50,000 to Alan Swanson, documents obtained by Boston 25 News show.
Carol Stuart, a pregnant white woman, was shot and killed in what her husband, Charles “Chuck” Stuart, claimed was a carjacking by an armed Black man. The accusation led to a citywide manhunt and the wrongful targeting of Bennett and Swanson.
Months after Stuart was killed, it was revealed that Charles Stuart had orchestrated her murder.
Charles Stuart’s younger brother told investigators that Charles had murdered his wife in an attempt to collect life insurance money.
Charles Stuart later died by suicide.
Neither Swanson nor Bennett were formally charged with anything related to the case, but both men were publicly labeled as suspects in the notorious killing. Charles Stuart’s accusation also resulted in the harassment of Black men, in particular those living in the Mission Hill neighborhood, by city officials and the Boston Police Department.
“This dark time in the City’s history exacerbated distrust between Boston’s Black community and the Boston Police Department,” Wu said at the time. “Acknowledging this painful moment and apologizing for the City’s wrongdoing is an effort to aid in the healing of those still living with this trauma and our City as a whole.”
Investigation underway after police officer shot in Boston
A Boston police officer was hospitalized early Friday morning after being shot while chasing a suspect, authorities said.
It happened right across from the police precinct in Nubian Square.
Boston’s Police Commissioner Michael Cox told Boston 25 News at the scene that officers went to Justice Edward O. Gourdin Veterans Memorial Park at Dudley and Washington streets in city’s Roxbury section around 12:45 a.m. and observed a group of suspicious individuals.
As the officers went to investigate, one person ran from the area and eventually got on to Kenilworth Street. When officers chased after and turned the corner, Cox said officers were shot at by that man.
Officers returned fire and struck the suspect multiple times below the waist. One police officer was shot in the arm, but it appeared to be a non-life-threatening wound.
Both the suspect and officer were taken to separate hospitals.
“This is another example of the amount of guns that are out here, but we’re extremely be proud of officers for what they do daily and we’re very, very lucky and fortunate that no one there was no loss of life today,” Cox said.
One high-capacity firearm was recovered from the suspect with an extended magazine.
Mayor Michelle Wu was also at the scene early Friday morning.
“Tonight is another reminder of the kinds of risks that our officers face 24 hours a day and I am very proud and grateful every day for their service and all that they put into taking care of our community members and making sure everyone is safe,” Wu said.
She continued, “It’s just not okay for violence to be happening anywhere in the city of Boston, and particularly as we continue to try to fight the flow of guns and firearms, I am thankful that we live in this city and we always have more work to do.”
The suspect is under arrest in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
His identity and the charges he’ll face are expected to be released at a later time.
Police said the names of the officers involved in the incident will not be released at this time.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
Boston Mayor Wu will face Josh Kraft in November election
BOSTON (AP/Boston 25) — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a frequent target of the Trump administration, advanced in Tuesday’s preliminary election and will face Josh Kraft, the son of the Patriots owner, in November.
Wu, the city’s first Asian and female leader, has been bolstered in part by her defense of the city against attacks from the Trump administration. Members of the administration, often led by President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, have accused the city of not doing enough to crack down on illegal immigration and threatened a surge in arrests. Boston is commonly known as a sanctuary city, and Wu has repeatedly said she wants it to be a welcoming place for immigrants.
Just last week, Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Wu, the city of Boston, and its police department over its sanctuary city policies, claiming they’re interfering with immigration enforcement. In response, Wu accused Trump of “attacking cities to hide his administration’s failures.”
On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security put out a statement announcing the arrests of seven people as part of a crackdown in Massachusetts.
“Sanctuary policies like those pushed by Mayor Wu not only attract and harbor criminals but protect them at the peril of law-abiding American citizens,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Speaking to her cheering supporters Tuesday night, Wu repeatedly took aim at Trump as well as Kraft and said the results showed that Boston “was not for sale” and that the mayor should answer to the “people of Boston, not a handful of billionaire donors.”
“The next eight weeks are about the remaining two names on the ballot. It’s a test of who we are. It’s a test of whether we believe in our city as a place of possibility and promise, whether Boston will keep going as a home for everyone,” she said. “It’s a test of whether Boston can still be that beacon of freedom, whether 250 years later, with tyranny again at our door, whether Boston still got it.”
Kraft, a fellow Democrat and a nonprofit leader, injected millions of his own personal money into his campaign and set records for spending in a Boston mayoral preliminary election. He has also been critical of Trump’s attacks and has pushed Wu particularly hard on housing, saying she hasn’t done enough to increase options and affordability in Boston.
Speaking to Ironworkers Local 7 in South Boston, Kraft said he was running because residents deserved to have a mayor “who listened to them” and would “deliver better streets, better schools, and a better future for them today.” He argued Wu was talking about Trump to distract from her record.
“I got into this fight because every day, I heard that too many people across Boston felt like that they don’t have a seat at the table,” he told supporters. “This campaign has never been about chasing headlines or currying favor with the political chattering class. It’s been about listening.”
Wu and Kraft bested two other candidates in the preliminary election: former school district committee member and veteran Robert Cappucci and community activist Domingos Darosa.
Wu highlights housing, crime and climate change
While visiting polls Tuesday, Wu said the Trump administration is targeting Boston because it “represents all that is good about our democracy.”
“We are proof of what’s possible when people come together, and we’re proof of everything that shows why they are wrong,” she said.
Wu, who often works with her infant daughter at her side, has also benefited from widespread support on the City Council and a string of endorsements from Democratic leaders. She also has used the pulpit of her position to highlight her successes around housing, combating climate change and reducing crime, rolling out a series of initiatives all summer.
David Woodruff, a retired research support specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he was supporting Wu because he wants “people who are progressive and are strengthening democracy” in office.
“I like the way she stands up to Trump, I like what she’s been doing on the national scene,” he said.
Kraft struggles to find message that resonates with voters
Kraft, who heads the Kraft Family Philanthropies and the New England Patriots Foundation, has targeted everything from bike paths to the cost of living in the city to his concerns about homelessness and drug addiction in one section of the city known as Mass and Cass.
Last week, Kraft and two top campaign advisers “mutually parted ways,” according to a statement from his campaign.
As of the end of August, Kraft had outspent Wu, $5.5 million to about $1.1 million, thanks in large part to more than $5 million in loans from the candidate to his campaign. Wu entered the final days of the campaign with much more cash in the bank, $2.4 million to about $1.3 million for Kraft.
Jeffrey Berry, a Boston political analyst and professor emeritus at Tufts University, said money is good for creating name recognition, but it’s not enough on its own to win an election. He said Wu has become a “symbol of democratic resistance to the president,” and that will be hard for Kraft to overcome in a city like Boston.
Kraft has switched between attacking Wu and portraying himself as someone who wants to bring positive change to the city.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Kraft said his conversations with voters indicate to him that Wu doesn’t have as strong a grip on the mayor’s seat as some might think.
“Everywhere we go, myself, our team, throughout the neighborhoods of this city — regardless of race, socioeconomics, ethnicity, language — we hear the same thing: People don’t feel listened to, people don’t feel connected to the mayor and the mayoral administration,” he said. “Some of the polls have a big margin, but let me tell you something: Polls don’t decide elections. People decide elections.”
Kraft supporter Remy Lawrence said she’s been impressed by his commitment to Boston’s young people. Kraft was CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston and worked with the organization for decades. Lawrence said Kraft personally reached out to her after her 13-year-old son, Tyler, who participated in Kraft family youth programming, was murdered by a gunman in 2023 while walking near his grandparents’ home in the Mattapan neighborhood.
“I believe we need change in this city – I know we need change in this city,” she said. “We need a leader who is accessible, who’s accountable, who’s connected.”
It comes after the federal government released nationwide ads encouraging self-deportation through the CBP Home app. In the advertisement targeted toward undocumented immigrants, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem says, “You will receive financial assistance, a free flight, and the chance to come back to America legally.”
While there are big things promised in that process, it seems users are having difficulty. Boston 25 spoke with someone looking to self-deport. They said they went through the CBP Home app, filed an application, and were invited to go downtown for an interview where they provided all their personal information, including their fingerprints. However, after months passed by, they haven’t received an update.
Melissa Celli, an immigration lawyer with Strehorn Ryan & Hoose said she hasn’t seen much proof of the CBP Home app delivering on its promise.
“It is a very worrying time, and it’s getting kind of increasingly worrying,” Celli said. “We don’t have regulations. There is nothing in the Code of Federal Regulations. There’s nothing in statute because this is not a legally mandated program.”
Celli said this process has been taking an awfully long time. Long enough that people are starting to get worried.
“They have then given up a whole lot of personal information and now their names are out there, their addresses are out there, now their fingerprints are out there and there’s nothing to stop ICE from coming and grabbing them as low hanging fruit other than their word saying they’re not going to do this,” Celli explained.
It comes at a time when the federal government is ramping up immigration enforcement in Massachusetts. Governor Maura Healey said Monday that the enforcement campaign is negatively impacting hardworking people in Massachusetts.
“While they said they were after violent criminals, what we’ve seen far too often and in such great numbers here and across the country are construction workers and nannies and healthcare aids and agricultural workers who are being taken out of our communities,” Gov. Healey said.
Boston25 reached out to the Department of Homeland Security to learn more about the self-deportation process and exactly what metrics they’re seeing since the app’s launch.
DHS responded with the following statement:
“After successfully ending the invasion of our country and securing our southern border, President Trump established the visionary Project Homecoming in May to create a smooth, efficient process for illegal aliens to return home. By using the CBP Home App, illegal aliens will receive a complimentary one-way plane ticket home, a $1,000 exit bonus, and forgiveness of any fines previously assessed for failure to depart. Tens of thousands of illegal aliens have utilized the CBP Home app, and 1.6 million illegal immigrants have left the United States population since January 20.
Once illegal aliens submit their intent to depart through the CBP Home Mobile App and pass vetting, they will be deprioritized by ICE for enforcement action, detention and removal before their scheduled departure.”
With her existing proposal hung up on Beacon Hill, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Wednesday that she’s sending a new proposal to the State House that she believes will “stabilize property taxes and protect homeowners and renters from a dramatic spike.”
In making her announcement, Wu’s office said her new plan comes after four Boston-based business groups “have reached consensus on a path forward for the City’s residential tax relief proposal.”
The mayor’s office said the new home rule petition includes the following features:
A three-year step-down period, compared to five years as originally filed.
Maximum shift levels not to exceed 181.5$ in FY 25, 180% in FY 26, and 178% in FY 27.
Authorizing language for the city to appropriate up to $15 million for each of the three years (up to $45 million total) that the shift is in effect to offset potential impacts on small businesses due to the shift.
Raising the personal property tax exemption threshold for small businesses from $10,000 to $30,000.
The major new development could signal a breakthrough on a topic that has divided Beacon Hill and left Wu, who is up for reelection next year, reaching for solutions to address projected projected property tax increases at a time when businesses and their employees are not filling up city office spaces the way they used to before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mayor Michelle Wu wants to keep from having to tax Boston’s residents more to pay for a shortfall in the city’s budget caused by more people working from home, all by temporarily bumping commercial tax rates — but she’ll need the Massachusetts Legislature’s OK,
“The proposal allows for a modest modification to the current tax system with clear guardrails to prevent too great of a burden from being placed on commercial taxpayers,” the mayor’s office said in an announcement just before noon Wednesday. “This proposal is revenue-neutral and time-limited, stepping down over three years back to the current classification system.”
The new plan needs Boston City Council approval and then passage of a new state law to take effect. Due to tax rate-setting pressures, the process of advancing the plan will need to happen relatively quickly to achieve its intended effects.
The Legislature passed a similar measure to help former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino deal with upheaval in city property taxes.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu visited NBC 10 Boston’s @Issue and explained the migrant situation that the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts is going through as they’re trying to find shelter for the influx of people coming into the state.
“We’re experiencing the symptoms of a federal immigration system that’s been broken” said Wu. “At the federal level, there have been over a decade of conversations about how to fix, but as those conversations are ongoing about how to insure there are legal pathways to citizenship and then to have enforcement and security at the border around legal pathways, and then to have resources directed down to municipalities, it’s a lot before anything might be ever felt at the local level.”
“We are seeing families arrive with little kids, sometimes with no shoes just trying to get by and we are working with the governor and trying to support the state addressing this crisis.”
Wu added that 25% of the beds in the city’s shelter system is also being used for recently arrived migrants.
Wu also added that 90 children has been integrated to the school system so far.
“The stories of these families are the same as the immigrant stories that my family has, that many of our communities have, of just wanting to give their kids a better life”.
