The move means all new hires, with some exceptions, will be subject to individual approval starting Wednesday by the state’s budget office based on time-sensitivity and importance of positions, according to the Healey administration.

Tax collections in Massachusetts have consistently come in below expectations more than half way through fiscal year 2024, putting a strain on Beacon Hill budget writers who are also contending with a nearly $1 billion a year tab for emergency shelters that has prompted top Democrats to warn of further challenges.

Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz said officials are not putting in place a “hiring freeze” but rather implementing “hiring controls within the executive branch for the remainder of the fiscal year as one tool at our disposal to responsibly manage spending over the next three months.”

“These hiring controls, while temporary, will help ensure that the administration can balance the budget at the end of the year and preserve critical funding for core programs and services,” Gorzkowicz said in a statement Tuesday night.

The Boston Globe first reported the move, though it described it as a freeze.

It was not immediately clear how far-reaching the administration planned to go with their more stringent hiring protocols. But the state’s budget office said certain positions like direct care and public safety personnel will be exempt.

Seasonal positions, those that have to be filed due to a court order or settlement, returns from leave, and offers of employment made before April 3 “will also proceed,” according to the Executive Office of Administration and Finance.

Months of below benchmark revenues led Healey in January to lower tax expectations by $1 billion for this fiscal year and slash $375 million from the state budget. The decision to tighten up hiring in state government signals another escalation in the cost saving mindset that has taken hold on Beacon Hill this year.

Revenue figures for March are scheduled to be released Wednesday and could offer more insight into why Healey made the decision to pause hiring. Fourth quarter revenues carry “significant risk” to budgeted revenues, state budget officials said.

Healey is not considering further unilateral cuts to the fiscal year 2024 budget, according to the state’s budget office.

“Today we mark a long-overdue new chapter in Boston’s growth — grounded in affordability, resiliency, and equity,” said Wu. “This ordinance is the biggest step Boston has taken in 70 years to finally begin untangling a system of development rooted in an outdated ideology that left scars in our communities.”

The ordinance, which was filed by the mayor in January and passed by the City Council last Wednesday, would create a Planning Department, operational as of July 1.

Under the ordinance, the department will “will house planning, zoning, development review, urban design, and real estate staff” and is included in the city budget, the city said in a release. It also includes the transfer of support staff from the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA).

The purpose of the department, the city said, is codified as planning for development, use of public land, predictable zoning codes, development processes and urban design standards.

The measure was contentious during debate in the City Council, which will have budgetary oversight of the department. Critics have noted it falls short of the Wu’s initial plans to abolish the BPDA. Department staff will support the BPDA, which will remain the city’s Planning Board, on development and public land projects and planning and zoning initiatives, according to the city.

The city release cited other ongoing proposals to transform Boston’s planning and development, including a home rule petition to end urban renewal and citywide zoning reform.

The new department will be led by Chief of Planning Arthur Jemison, who said the move is a step to “truly transform planning and development in Boston and ensure we are speaking to residents with one voice as the City of Boston.”

The Biden-Harris campaign released their 30-second ad — titled “Hope” — early Tuesday morning, slamming the former president over his stance on abortion and his role in the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“In 2016, Donald Trump ran to overturn Roe v. Wade. Now, in 2024, he’s running to pass a national ban on a woman’s right to choose. I’m running to make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again. So women have a federal guarantee to the right to choose. Donald Trump doesn’t trust women. I do,” Biden says in his short ad, following a clip of Trump saying he is “proud” to have ended the nearly 50-year-old law.

Trump’s Make America Great Again campaign, meanwhile turned its attention to immigration, taking a full minute to showcase a series of violent crime victims allegedly harmed by a so-called illegal immigrant.

“Stop Biden’s border bloodbath,” the ad reads before a series of news clips, each describing a crime allegedly committed by a migrant. “Stop Biden’s border bloodbath,” it reads again.

Michiganders have felt the tragic consequences of Biden's Border Bloodbath.

President Trump will end it on Day One. pic.twitter.com/KHilsUnrz1

— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) April 2, 2024

Both campaigns hammered home their points with later statements.

Trump’s team shared a lengthy list of crime victims along with a short statement from the former president. Biden, the campaign said, “has launched an invasion of our country — resettling dangerous illegal aliens from all over the world into American communities to prey on our people and endanger our citizens.”

“Under Biden, we now have a new category of crime, it’s called Migrant Crime,” Trump said.

Biden’s campaign held a press call Tuesday afternoon to highlight a court ruling out of Florida which will allow a six-week abortion ban to go into effect next month. Trump, the Biden campaign said, is of the same mind.

“Make no mistake, Donald Trump will do everything in his power to try and enact a national abortion ban if he’s reelected. In the last few months alone, Trump has doubled down on his support for a national abortion ban – and his allies have plans for him to do it with or without the help of Congress,” Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said.

Biden leads former President Donald Trump by just two points — 44% to 42% — according to a Morning Consult poll of more than 6,000 registered voters released Tuesday, but only if they’re the only candidates on the ballot.

“The presumptive Republican nominee has rarely led Biden since the Super Tuesday primary contests, compared with consistent advantages he enjoyed throughout January and February. However, the race remains incredibly close, with 8% of voters threatening to vote third party and 5% undecided,” pollsters wrote.

Biden, according to the poll, is more popular than Trump for the first time since the start of the year, with the 46th President’s net favorability 6 points into the negative and the 45th President 8 points under water.

“This edge comes as Biden’s advantage over Trump on net buzz — the share of voters who heard something positive about each candidate minus the share who heard something negative — ticked up to 21 points, which is the largest margin since mid-November,” pollsters wrote.

The survey also shows that Republicans, as a whole, do better among those surveyed when it comes to the economy, national security, and immigration, while Democrats outperform regarding health care, entitlement programs, climate change, reproductive rights and abortion. The economy is top of mind among surveyed voters, according to pollsters.

“The economy remains voters’ top issue for the 2024 elections. And though the share who said it’s ‘very important’ in deciding their vote dropped during much of 2023, the economy’s salience has ticked back up in recent months,” they wrote.

The slight edge shown for the incumbent president in Tuesday’s poll matches a Quinnipiac University survey of 1,407 registered voters released last week, which shows Biden up by 3 points. That’s in line with polls put out by the university in February.

However, the same Quinnipiac poll once again showed that if voters are offered the chance to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein or independents Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, they pull enough of the vote to potentially give Trump the edge.

“Way too close to call on the head-to-head and even closer when third party candidates are counted. The backstretch is months away and this is about as close as it can get,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said with the release of that poll.

The massive bond bill, according to testimony heard by the Joint Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets on Tuesday, would allow for the creation of 40,000 new homes and the rehabilitation of 12,000 more.

Secretary of Housing Ed Augustus told the committee that solving the state’s 200,000-residence shortfall will require a “Herculean” level of effort, but that the governor’s bond bill takes huge stride in that direction.

“The Affordable Homes Act will have a significant impact on the future of housing across the Commonwealth,” Augustus said. “Every dollar in this bill supports families, seniors and renters struggling to access affordable housing. Every dollar prioritizes our state’s climate and decarbonization goals. Every dollar will help lift us out of our housing crisis.”

First offered by Gov. Maura Healey last October, the bill was previously heard by the Joint Committee on Housing and reported out favorably.

According to the governor’s office, the bonding bill is a “big, bold comprehensive package of spending and policy actions aimed at striking at the root causes of housing unaffordability while making progress on the state’s climate goals.”

The bill offers $1.6 billion to support repairs, rehabs, and modernization at the state’s 43,000 public housing units, including $150 million to decarbonize the public housing stock.

It would send $800 million into an Affordable Housing Trust Fund, $425 million into a Housing Stabilization and Investment Fund, $200 million into a Housing Innovations Fund, $100 million into a Mixed-Income Housing Fund, $70 million toward a Facilities Consolidation Fund, and a further $50 million to a Momentum Fund.

An additional $275 million would be invested in Sustainable and Green Housing Initiatives, and $200 million in the HousingWorks Infrastructure Program.

The bill also comes with “28 substantive policy changes or initiatives, three executive orders and two targeted tax credits,” according to Healey’s office.

“This legislation is an economic winner for our state. It’s an economic necessity for our residents, our communities, and our businesses. The bottom line is: we can’t wait, we have to act with urgency and at scale. Our residents, our communities and our employers are depending on it,” Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll told the committee.

Speaking at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce event in February, the governor said the state is short of housing stock by about 200,000 units. Healey has said that shortfall is “the biggest challenge we face” and that solving it is “our highest priority as an administration.”

UMass Donahue Institute economic analysis of the bill estimates it will generate nearly 30,000 jobs, $25 billion in economic impact, and $800 million in tax revenue over the next 5 years.

Despite the undisputed need for more houses in the Bay State, not everyone is completely on board with the plan as written.

Gerard Frechette, vice-chair for the City of Lowell’s Planning Board, told the committee that communities like his would suffer under some of the changes proposed.

“The overall goals are admirable and worthy of consideration,” he said, but a plan to lower the square footage requirement to turn a single-family home into a multi-family dwelling would “have a detrimental effect on various areas” of Lowell.

“I ask that you reconsider the language,” of the relevant section, Frechette told the committee.

“This wording will most likely encourage the conversion of some of the most affordable single-family homes for homeownership into investor owned two-family homes in many of the neighborhoods in the city,” he said. “Already, 58% of our housing stock is rental stock.”

Virginia Crocker Timmins, vice chair of the Chelmsford Select Board, expressed similar concerns for her town if that rule stands.

“It not only obliviates single-family housing zoning throughout the state, but it completely usurps the rights of each municipality to set criteria for this type of usage that’s tailored to that municipality,” she said.

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance called the bill “counterproductive” and questioned a provision allowing cities and towns to set local option real estate tax rates between 0.5% and 2% for homes sold at or more than $1 million.

“Governor Healey is 100% off the mark on this proposal. This bill will not bring down the cost of housing in our state and will only exacerbate the decline in economic competitiveness we’ve seen in the last several years which is causing a massive flood of people and wealth out of our state,” the group’s spokesman said in a statement.

The committee took no action on the bill on Tuesday.

A plan to free up about 43 acres of land along the river to build an arena and park has prompted pushback from officials in Boston, including Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration, who say they have been left out of conversations around a stadium that could draw thousands to games or large events.

The proposal has been cast as potential boon for Everett, with Mayor Carlo DeMaria arguing the city could see millions returned to its coffers if a private development group revamps an outdated powerplant that sits on the site now.

As state lawmakers take another shot at reviewing a bill from Sen. Sal DiDomenico that would open up a pathway to developing the soccer stadium, Boston Chief of Planning Arthur Jemison said the plan does not include “significant parking” at the stadium.

Jemison said there is not enough information for the City of Boston to take a stance on the proposal but suggested Charlestown and surrounding neighborhoods “will bear the brunt” of the transportation impacts as the MBTA’s Sullivan Square stop is the nearest public transit option.

“The project would also rely on the Alford Street Bridge as a pedestrian connection to Sullivan Square, which is currently not safe as a major pedestrian thoroughfare. Last December, a pedestrian was killed at the intersection of Dexter and Alford (Streets),” Jemison said at a hearing before the Legislature’s Economic Development and Emerging Technologies Committee.

DeDomenico’s bill would remove the land at 173 Alford Street from a designation that restricts its use to commercial fishing, shipping, or other vessel-related activities and allow a developer to convert it into a “professional soccer stadium and a waterfront park.”

The measure has the backing of the Kraft Group and the New England Revolution, a professional soccer team owned by Kraft that could move to the future stadium from its spot at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough.

The location the Kraft Group is eyeing currently features a rundown power plant that DeMaria said can only be cleaned up with the financial and political power of a private development firm.

“They can get it done. They (can) get it cleaned up and build something that’s going to be beautiful,” he said. “There’s no parking spaces. I told them, if we go forward, there’ll be no parking there. We’re going to rely on public transit. We’re going to build out the transportation system.”

Everett is expected to lose out on $55 million in tax revenue between fiscal year 2021 and 2026 “due to the loss of value from this parcel,” DeMaria said. The city has already lost $28 million since fiscal year 2020, he said.

“We need this legislation to help pull Everett back from the harm this loss of revenue is causing our community,” he said.

Traffic concerns and the ability for elected officials and the public from Boston to participate in public meetings on the matter were top of mind for some.

Boston City Councilor Sharon Durkan, who represents the West End Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway, and Mission Hill, said it would “be a nightmare for traffic” if TD Garden and the proposed stadium had events at the same time.

“Because I represent Fenway Park and because I represent TD Garden. I know that people are often willing to take the ticket and take resident parking if … the ticket is less than parking cost,” Durkan said.

New England Revolution President Brian Bilello said he expects the majority of fans would use public transportation “as they do with most urban stadiums, including new options for getting to a destination via water transit.”

“We’re trying to get the stadium and our club to public transportation, and what we hear from most of our fans is they want to have public access to the stadium. They want to have public transportation. So for us, public transportation is the entire reason why we want to be up in Everett and Greater Boston,” he said.

DiDomenico, a Democrat from Everett, successfully added language to a multi-billion spending bill in the fall that would have cleared the land for development. But it was ultimately cut from the final version after House Democrats said they had many unanswered questions.

Rep. Jerry Perisella, who co-chairs the Economic Development and Emerging Technologies Committee, said he believes the proposal has a chance to move forward this time around.

“I do think that there is some compelling arguments about what would happen to this site otherwise if we don’t allow a stadium to be built,” he said. “There are a lot of environmental issues related to that site.”

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Donald Trump accused President Joe Biden of unleashing a “bloodbath” at the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday, escalating his inflammatory rhetoric as he campaigned in two midwestern swing states likely to be critical to the outcome of the 2024 election.

Trump, who has accused migrants of “poisoning the blood of the country” and vowed to launch the largest domestic deportation operation in the nation’s history if he wins a second term, accused Biden of allowing a “bloodbath” that was “destroying the country.” In Michigan, he referred to immigrants in the U.S. illegally suspected of committing crimes as “animals,” using dehumanizing language that those who study extremism have warned increases the risk of violence.

“Under Crooked Joe Biden, every state is now a border state. Every town is now a border town because Joe Biden has brought the carnage and chaos and killing from all over world and dumped it straight into our backyards,” Trump said in Grand Rapids, where he stood flanked by law enforcement officers in uniform before a line of flags.

While violent crime is down, Trump and other Republicans have seized on several high-profile crimes alleged to have been committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally to attack Biden as border crossings have hit record highs. Polls suggest Trump has an advantage over Biden on issues as many prospective voters say they’re concerned about the impact of the crossings.

Trump continued to hammer the theme at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Tuesday evening as the state was holding its presidential primaries. Trump accused rogue nations of “pumping migrants across our wide open border,” and “sending prisoners, murders, drug dealers, mental patients, terrorists” — though there is no evidence any country is engaged in that kind of coordinated effort.

He also claimed that migrants would cost the country trillions of dollars in public benefits and cause Social Security and Medicare to “buckle and collapse.”

“If you want to help Joe Biden wheel granny off the cliff to fund government benefits for illegals, then vote for Crooked Joe Biden,” he said. “But when I am president, instead of throwing granny overboard, I will send Joe Biden’s illegal aliens back home.”

On Tuesday, the White House emphasized that immigration is a positive for the U.S. economy. They argued that recent gains in immigration have helped to boost employment and sustained growth as the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to bring down inflation.

“We know immigrants strengthen our country and also strengthen our economy,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Tuesday’s briefing, noting that immigrants were the ones doing the “critical work” on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore when it collapsed after being struck by a ship.

Trump on Tuesday focused on the killing of Ruby Garcia, a Michigan woman who was found dead on the side of a Grand Rapids highway on March 22. Police say she was in a romantic relationship with the suspect, Brandon Ortiz-Vite. He told police he shot her multiple times during an argument before dropping her body on the side of the road and driving off in her red Mazda.

Trump incorrectly referred to the 25-year-old Garcia as a 17-year-old.

Authorities say Ortiz-Vite is a citizen of Mexico and had previously been deported following a drunken driving arrest. He does not have an attorney listed in court records.

Trump in his remarks said that he had spoken to some of her family. Garcia’s sister, Mavi, however, disputed his account, telling FOX 17 that they had not. “No, he did not speak with us,” the outlet said she told them in a text message, declining to comment further.

She also pleaded on Facebook last week for reporters to stop politicizing her sister’s story, and on Tuesday asked for privacy, saying she only wanted “justice to be served” and to “be left alone.”

Trump also again mentioned the killing of Laken Riley, a nursing student in Georgia. A Venezuelan man whom officials say entered the U.S. illegally has been charged. Riley’s family attended Trump’s rally in Georgia last month and met with him backstage.

Trump referred to the suspect in Riley’s death as an “illegal alien animal.”

“The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals. They’re humans.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans, they’re not humans, they’re animals,’” he said.

FBI statistics show overall violent crime dropped again in the U.S. last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike. In Michigan, violent crime hit a three-year low in 2022, according to the most recent available data. Crime in Michigan’s largest city, Detroit, is also down, with the fewest homicides last year since 1966.

Top Republicans from across Michigan had packed into a conference room in downtown Grand Rapids to hear Trump speak in a county he won in 2016 but lost to Biden in 2020. Outside the event center, over 100 supporters stood in the cold rain to line the street where Trump’s motorcade was expected to pass.

At a nearby park, a small group advocating for immigration reform gathered to hold a moment of silence for Garcia while holding signs that read “No human being is illegal” and “Michigan welcomes immigrants.”

In Green Bay, some supporters braved snowfall for three hours outside to enter the venue.

“Tomorrow, Donald Trump is coming to Grand Rapids where he is expected to once again try to politicize a tragedy and sow hate and division to hide from his own record of failing Michiganders,” said Alyssa Bradley, the Biden campaign’s Michigan communications director.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said Monday that there is “a real problem on our southern border” and that it’s “really critical that Congress and the president solve the problem.”

“There was a solution on the table. It was actually the former president that encouraged Republicans to walk away from getting it done,” Whitmer said. “I don’t have a lot of tolerance for political points when it continues to endanger our economy and, to some extent, our people as we saw play out in Grand Rapids recently.”

Trump has been leaning into inflammatory rhetoric about the surge of migrants at the southern border. He has portrayed migrants as “poisoning the blood of the country,” questioned whether some should even be considered people, and claimed, without evidence, that countries have been emptying their prisons and mental asylums into the U.S.

He has also accused Biden and the Democrats of trying to “collapse the American system, nullify the will of the actual American voters and establish a new base of power that gives them control for generations.”

In Green Bay, Trump spoke beside an empty podium that read, “Anytime. Anywhere. Anyplace.” Trump said it was meant for Biden, whose campaign has not committed to participating in debates.

Gomez Licon reported from Green Bay, Wis. Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Voters in four states weighed in Tuesday on their parties’ presidential nominees, a largely symbolic vote now that both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have locked up the Democratic and Republican nominations.

Biden and Trump easily won primaries in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and Wisconsin, adding to their delegate hauls for their party conventions this summer.

Their victories, while hardly surprising, nevertheless offer clues about enthusiasm among base voters for the upcoming 2020 rematch that has left a majority of Americans underwhelmed. Biden has faced opposition from activists encouraging Democrats to vote against him to send a message of disapproval for his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas, and some Republican Trump critics are still voting for rivals who have dropped out.

“Uncommitted” in Rhode Island and Connecticut was getting a similar share of the Democratic vote as protest campaigns in Minnesota and Michigan, which got 19% and 13% respectively.

In particular, the tallies in Wisconsin, a pivotal November battleground, will give hints about the share of Republicans who still aren’t on board with Trump and how many Democrats are disillusioned with Biden. Trump campaigned Tuesday in Wisconsin and Michigan, two Midwest battlegrounds.

“Donald Trump is the first person I can remember who actually tried to keep all of the promises that he made during the campaign,” said Scott Lindemann, a 62-year-old contractor in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who voted for the former president in the GOP primary. “I was very impressed with that.”

In New York, 70-year-old Steve Wheatley, a registered Republican, said he wishes there were more candidates to choose from. He said he voted for Nikki Haley even though “she has no shot” because of the lack of options.

“We need younger candidates with fresh ideas to run for president,” said Wheatley, a resident of Athens, a small town in the Hudson Valley. “I prefer a Democrat but our choices are thin. Look at what Biden has done so far with the economy.”

Theresa Laabs, a 55-year-old cashier in Kenosha, said her family is feeling the squeeze from higher food and gasoline prices, but she voted for Biden in the Democratic primary because she feels like he’s working to alleviate inflation.

“I understand it’s the economy now, and I’m hoping that Joe will keep working even harder in the next four years to try and bring these things down and make it easier for the working family,” Laabs said.

Trump and Biden turned their attention to the general election weeks ago after Haley dropped out of the GOP contest. Biden visited all the top battlegrounds last month after his State of the Union speech.

Trump is looking to one-up his rival with a fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, this weekend that he hopes will bring in $33 million.

With the presidential candidates locking up their parties’ nominations, turnout was slow in Rhode Island, where only 4% of eligible voters had cast ballots by 5 p.m., a figure that included Tuesday’s in-person votes as well as mail-in and early votes.

It was slow across the border in Connecticut as well, where early voting was held for the first time in state history. Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas said turnout was only 1% to 2% in some communities by 11 a.m., while it was 4% in Stamford, one of the state’s larger cities. “What we have been hearing on the ground from people over the last few weeks is that this isn’t a competitive primary,” she said about the low numbers.

Cooper reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, and Maysoon Khan in Athens, New York contributed.

WASHINGTON — They’re weighed down by student debt. They’re shut out of the housing market. They’re hit by higher costs of living. And they want President Joe Biden to listen.

At a time when Donald Trump is cutting into Biden’s 2020 advantage with young adults, the growing list of grievances among those between the ages of 18 to 29 is a worrying sign for Biden as he seeks a second term.

People in that age cohort are more than twice as likely to cite the economy as their top concern compared with older adults in recent Gallup data. And while all voters are more worried about the economy now than they were heading into the 2020 presidential election, the pessimism has spiked the most among those under 30.

That concern is being reflected in polls. Trump is currently leading the president 47% to 40% with voters aged 18 to 34 in swing states, according to a March Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll. By contrast, Biden won 61% of voters under 30 last cycle.

Though the November election is months off and attitudes can shift, there’s no doubt Biden will need support from Generation Z and Millennial voters to win.

Incumbents get the blame when voters are dissatisfied with the economy. The challenge for Biden is that even though economic growth has been solid in the past year, the job market is robust and the inflation rate is cooling, polls after polls show many people don’t feel like it.

Younger Americans have a long list of headwinds: stunted action on student-loan forgiveness, the highest interest rates since they’ve been in diapers and expensive rents.

Older Americans, who are more likely to live in houses they own with low mortgage rates and who have benefited from years of housing and stock market appreciation, are less pessimistic about the economy. The contrasting way generations emerged financially from the coronavirus pandemic may provide a playbook for Biden on how to hone his political message to young adults.

Christian Martin, a 22-year-old college senior from Atlanta, said he hasn’t yet felt the impact of Biden’s economic policies. He’s worried about making student-loan payments after he graduates while keeping up with the elevated costs of living.

“If Biden can address the issues that the youth are feeling, then the turnout can be stronger than what it’s projected to be,” he said in an interview. “This is Biden’s chance to hear what we have to say, because that’s essentially all it is, you know, unfulfilled promises.”

Biden’s plan to forgive billions of dollars in student debt was struck down last year by the Supreme Court, which rejected one of his signature initiatives as exceeding his power.

“The President is fighting to lower costs for young Americans — forgiving student debt, lowering health and eliminating junk fees,” Seth Schuster, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said by email. “Meanwhile, Donald Trump appointed the Supreme Court Justices who denied student-debt relief and ensured that young people now have less rights than the generations before them.”

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that “President Trump will create a safe, prosperous, and free nation that helps all young people achieve their American Dream.”

The pandemic upended the economy when young voters were just entering adulthood, endangering their job prospects as businesses locked down and complicating their housing options as rents skyrocketed.

“They had a more severe impact of COVID itself in a direct economic way,” said Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, Newhouse director of Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. “Whether it’s gas, or housing, or rent or health care, they’re having a really hard time having affordability for that because of the lack of stored wealth.”

Inflation has eased significantly in the past year, including for necessities such as food, but prices remain considerably higher than they were before the 2020 election. And while wages have grown for all age groups in recent years, young adults have the lowest earnings in addition to having fewer assets.

Debt is also souring some younger Americans’ views about the economy, according to EY Chief Economist Gregory Daco. Adults in their twenties and thirties have higher rates of credit-card debt that have deepened into serious delinquency, meaning the debt is 90 days or more past due, according to data from the New York Fed.

Many young adults are making payments on federal student debt that they had hoped would be forgiven by Biden’s plan. The White House has used more narrow methods to approve nearly $144 billion in forgiveness, targeting specific groups, including those with disabilities, some former for-profit college students and public servants who have been paying their loans for years.

Student loans and rent prices weigh on Ariela Lara, an 18-year-old high school senior from San Leandro, California, as she debates which college to attend. Lara said her family cannot afford to take on debt, so she will attend the school that offers her the most in aid.

“As I’ve been getting into this world of adulthood, it’s hard to achieve financial stability in our country,” she said, adding that climate change and the economy are her top issues as she considers her first vote in a presidential election. “We’re telling Biden to wake up and to start saying that he needs the youth vote. He needs us immensely.”

(Christian Hall contributed to this story.)

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

As the presidential campaign slowly progresses, artificial intelligence continues to accelerate at a breathless pace — capable of creating an infinite number of fraudulent images that are hard to detect and easy to believe.

Experts warn that by November voters will have witnessed counterfeit photos and videos of candidates enacting one scenario after another, with reality wrecked and the truth nearly unknowable.

“This is the first presidential campaign of the AI era,” said Matthew Stamm, a Drexel University electrical and computer engineering professor who leads a team that detects false or manipulated political images. “I believe things are only going to get worse.”

Last year, Stamm’s group debunked a political ad for then-presidential candidate Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ad that appeared on Twitter. It showed former President Donald Trump embracing and kissing Anthony Fauci, long a target of the right for his response to COVID-19.

That spot was a “watershed moment” in U.S. politics, said Stamm, director of his school’s Multimedia and Information Security Lab. “Using AI-created media in a misleading manner had never been seen before in an ad for a major presidential candidate,” he said.

“This showed us how there’s so much potential for AI to create voting misinformation. It could get crazy.”

Election experts speak with dread of AI’s potential to wreak havoc on the election: false “evidence” of candidate misconduct; sham videos of election workers destroying ballots or preventing people from voting; phony emails that direct voters to go to the wrong polling locations; ginned-up texts sending bogus instructions to election officials that create mass confusion.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt is leading a newly formed Election Threats Task Force, intended in part to combat misinformation about voting. In a brief interview, Schmidt noted that in recent years we’ve seen “how easily misinformation has been spread using far more primitive methods than AI — tweets and Facebook posts with no video or audio.

“So AI presents a far greater challenge if it’s weaponized to deceive voters or harm candidates.”

Sham Biden call

Like the internet itself, AI can be a powerful tool to both advance and hinder society.

And while bad actors have long possessed the ability to generate fraudulent content in the digital age, the contouring of text and imagery to shame or denigrate a political opponent was once “slow and painful,” said computer science professor David Doermann from the University of Buffalo, State University of New York.

“It took work to use Photoshop and video tools,” Doermann said. “You needed experts. But now, your average high school student can generate deepfakes.”

Deepfakes are synthetic media in which a person in a photo or video is swapped with another person’s likeness, or a person appears to be doing or saying something they didn’t do or say.

A recent example occurred before the January New Hampshire primary. An AI-generated robocall simulated President Joe Biden’s voice, urging voters not to participate, and “save” their votes for the November election.

Average voters could have easily believed Biden recorded the message and become disenfranchised as a result, noted the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government watchdog group in Washington, D.C.

“This is the first year to feature AI’s widespread influence before, during and after voters cast ballots,” said CLC executive director Adav Noti. “AI provides easy access to new tools to harm our democracy more effectively.”

Malicious intent

AI allows people with malicious intent to work with great speed and sophistication at low cost, according to the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

That swiftness was on display in June 2018. Doermann’s University of Buffalo colleague, Siwei Lyu, presented a paper that demonstrated how AI-generated deepfake videos could be detected because no one was blinking their eyes; the faces had been transferred from still photos.

Within three weeks, AI-equipped fraudsters stopped creating deepfakes based on photos and began culling from videos in which people blinked naturally, Doermann said, adding, “Every time we publish a solution for detecting AI, somebody gets around it quickly.”

Six years later, with AI that much more developed, “it’s gained remarkable capacities that improve daily,” said political communications expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. “Anything we can say now about AI will change in two weeks. Increasingly, that means deepfakes won’t be easily detected.

“We should be suspicious of everything we see.”

‘Democracy can wither’

Misinformation has gushed like a “fire hose of falsehoods,” some of it from Russia, said Matt Jordan, director of the Pennsylvania State University News Literacy Initiative, which helps students and citizens distinguish “reliable journalism” from “the noise that often overwhelms and divides us,” according to its website.

Democracy, Jordan said, “depends on a capacity to share reality,” which misinformation shatters. In such an atmosphere, he warned, “democracy can wither.”

Politicians aren’t the only ones at risk in that atmosphere.

Security specialists recommend election workers keep personal social media accounts private so that pernicious individuals armed with AI have less access to their images and voices. To avoid online intimidation on Election Day, experts also suggest election workers use multistep log-ins, ever-changing pass phrases, and fingerprint scanning.

“In 2020, we encountered a lot of ugliness related to threats, and have had to scramble to make sure our people feel safe,” said Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s top election official.

AI-generated misinformation helps exacerbate already entrenched political polarization throughout America, said Cristina Bicchieri, Penn professor of philosophy and psychology.

“When we see something in social media that aligns with our point of view, even if it’s fake, we tend to want to believe it,” she said.

To battle fabrications, Stamm of Drexel said, the smart consumer could delay reposting emotionally charged material from social media until checking its veracity.

But that’s a lot to ask.

Human overreaction to a false report, he acknowledged, “is harder to resolve than any anti-AI stuff I develop in my lab.

“And that’s another reason why we’re in uncharted waters.”

_____

(c)2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit The Philadelphia Inquirer at www.inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

While hundreds of veterans in Massachusetts struggle with homelessness, Healey picked the soldiers’ home property – which is deeded for use by veterans – for the latest shelter for the thousands of migrant families pouring into the state.

State officials argue that the building converted into migrant housing was vacant and slated to be demolished anyway, so they decided to use it for the migrant influx which is blowing a billion dollar a year hole in the state budget.

“Massachusetts has proven that we can take care of veterans and families experiencing homelessness in our state,” Secretary of Veterans Services Dr. Jon Santiago said in a statement. “While EOVS formerly operated the building slated for demolition, this project operates independently and will not impact the daily routines or services at the Massachusetts Veterans Home at Chelsea.

Really? They haven’t been doing a good job if you look at the number of homeless veterans – which stood at more than 500 one night last year.

Santiago — a former Democratic state rep — is supposed to make veterans his number one priority but clearly he’s more loyal to Healey than he is to our military heroes.

Healey and Santiago have their usual coat holders in the media to back them up, but the fact is the state could have used that vacant property at the soldiers’ home use for a number of uses for veterans, who need medical and mental health care as well as housing.

More than 100 migrant families are expected to move into the soldiers’ home property in the next month. Veterans were charged a fee to live there, but migrants will live there for free with all amenities like food and health care provided for free.

Massachusetts is facing a massive budget deficit to pay for migrants to live here, and officials admit they are pondering severe cuts to programs to prevent the state from going bankrupt.

With veterans now pushed aside, who will be next? Firefighters? Police? First responders? Towns and cities? The poor and middle class?

Healey, a Democratic first term governor, has been taking heat for her handling of the migrant crisis for months, and the conversion of the soldiers’ home is just the latest political debacle, judging by some of the response by Massachusetts residents.

In an attempt to control the damage, Healey announced last month that families will have to prove they have been looking for housing and jobs every month in order to stay at the shelters. The state Senate voted last month to limit the stay of migrants at shelters to nine months, with exceptions for pregnant women and people who are in job training programs.

This isn’t the first time Healey has chosen the migrants over veterans – the state turned several hotels near Gillette Stadium in Foxboro to migrant shelters, forcing out dozens of veterans and service members from their booked rooms for the Army-Navy football game.

The veterans had to fend for themselves after their rooms were canceled – and Healey and Santiago showed little interest in helping them.

Tania Fernandes Anderson has logged seven absences at regular weekly City Council meetings since taking office in January 2022, putting her at the bottom of the pack according to publicly-posted meeting minutes that track attendance — one of the metrics she describes as being “imperative” to assessing the performance of councilors in a hearing order she’s pushing this week.

“The roles and responsibilities of Boston city councilors are fundamental to the effective governance of our city, impacting the lives of residents and shaping the future of our communities,” Fernandes Anderson states in a hearing order filed for consideration at the Wednesday Council meeting.

“It is imperative to establish clear metrics to assess the performance of Boston city councilors in fulfilling their duties to their constituents, necessitating the implementation of measurable criteria such as responsiveness to constituent inquiries, attendance at meetings and hearings, and effectiveness in advancing key policy objectives,” she goes on to state.

Analyzing metrics and accountability as they relate to accountability and transparency, Fernandes Anderson writes, “could provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of governance mechanisms, highlight areas for improvement, and foster a culture of openness and responsiveness within institutions.”

Three of four absences logged in 2023 by Fernandes Anderson — who oversaw a budget process last fiscal year that sought to cut millions from the Boston Police Department — occurred on days when the Council took big votes on public safety.

She was absent on Sept. 13, when councilors voted to reject three $850,000 grants for the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, and again on Oct. 4, when four grants totaling $3.4 million were approved for the police department’s intelligence arm, over concerns the other councilors of color raised about the BRIC’s gang database.

Fernandes Anderson was also absent on Dec. 13, when the council voted, 12-0, to approve a new five-year contract for the city’s largest police union, and 6-6 to block a $13 million counter-terrorism grant for the metro Boston region.

She was present, however, and voted in favor of the federal counter-terrorism grant when, after a firestorm of criticism, it came before, and was passed by the body, 11-0-2, this term, on Jan. 31, 2024.

The hearing order she filed also calls for reviewing metrics and accountability as they relate to voting records, which she states “could offer a comprehensive understanding of elected officials’ performance, enhance public trust in the democratic process and facilitate informed decision-making by constituents.”

In the latest big vote taken by the Council, Fernandes Anderson joined at-Large Councilor Julia Mejia in voting ‘present,’ or abstaining from taking an on-the-record stance on a mayoral planning ordinance approved last week — which gave Mayor Michelle Wu the authority to create a new city planning department.

Of the 13 current councilors, Mejia was tied with Council Vice President Brian Worrell with having the second-most absences, six, since last term. Mejia was one of two councilors who voted ‘present’ on the anti-terror grant in January.

Fernandes Anderson and Mejia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Former Councilor Frank Baker, who chose not to seek reelection last year, was tied with Fernandes Anderson with seven absences in the 2022-23 council term, and Kendra Lara, who lost her bid for reelection, was not far behind with five absences.

Of a City Council that now makes $115,000 apiece annually, after voting themselves a raise that kicked in this past January, only Erin Murphy had perfect attendance over that 27-month time period.

Members of the joint committee appointed to match the Senate’s $863 million plan to House’s $245 million proposal met at the State House on Monday, when the committee’s leaders both expressed their understanding of the need for haste.

“I look forward to working with all of you to get this rectified as quickly as possible. You and I are experienced at it,” Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues said told his House counterpart. “So I’m sure we will accomplish that goal quickly.”

“I’m looking forward to working with you, and all of you, on this supplemental budget bill trying to get it done as quickly as possible. We have some obviously important pieces in there that are of immediate need. And I know we share a desire to see this get to the governor’s desk as soon as we can,” House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz said.

As is usually the case on Beacon Hill, the joint committee’s first and only public activity was to move into private executive session.

The state’s Emergency Assistance shelter system has been full for months, pushed to maximum occupancy by an influx of foreign migrant families. Massachusetts is alone among the 50 states in guaranteeing a right to shelter for pregnant women and parents of small children.

With more than 7,500 families currently occupying shelter space and hundreds more at overflow sites waiting for a spot, state officials have estimated that the funds to continue housing that many people will run dry sometime this spring.

Gov. Maura Healey, who declared a state of emergency around the migrant influx last August and filed the original request for a $282 million supplemental budget in January, said she supports the work of the joint committee, but wouldn’t speak to the pair of bills they are working to reconcile until she sees a final product.

“It’s up to the Legislature now,” she said.

From their start in a cramped basement in at the Arlington Street Church, over the last five decades the Samaritans have answered “more than 3 million calls, texts and chats” at their suicide prevention centers.

“That’s more than 150 people per day for 50 years. And now that our helpline is part of the 988 National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, we’re reaching more people every day,” Samaritans CEO Kathy Marchi said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. Suicides were up 2.6% year-over-year in 2022, when nearly 50,000 Americans took their own lives — enough, Marchi said, to fill Fenway park.

Gov. Maura Healey spoke to the gathered suicide prevention professionals, expressing her support for the work they do. Healey’s fiscal 2025 budget calls for over $14 million in funding for suicide prevention, up from $8 million in 2024.

“I don’t want anyone in the state to feel like they can’t talk about what they’re feeling, that they can’t talk about anxiety, depression, even thoughts of suicide. And know that there are resources out there, whether it’s texting the Hey Sam line or dialing 988,” Healey said.

Anyone experiencing thoughts of suicide or self harm can call 988 to speak with a mental health professional.

Joined by state and city officials, local unions closed off Boylston Street for more than an hour in the middle of the lunch-time rush on Monday, to protest construction efforts at 581 Boylston Street, or the Wesleyan Building.

The new owners of that building, according to multiple union members interviewed by the Herald, are allowing their general contractor to employ non-union workers at sub-par wages to perform construction work very near to the public and adjacent to where the 128th Boston Marathon will take place later this month.

Greater Boston Building Trades Unions Business Agent Chaton Green said protesting workers hope the owners of Wesleyan Building stop exploiting the workers there, but if they don’t, they want the organizers of the marathon to be aware of potential impacts of further protests.

“The hope is that the general contractor will cease exploitative practices on Boylston Street so that there is no overlap between the increasing protests at that building and the preparations for the race which will occur literally next to where workers are being taken advantage of every day by a bad actor. However, at the moment, the conditions in that jobsite are very concerning to many people and so there will be a lot of visibility and rallying in that area to ensure workers are as safe on the job as possible,” Green said in a statement.

Protestors will not necessarily attempt to cross the marathon route or interrupt the race, a spokesperson for the group said, but their presence will be felt for as long as Chevron Partners, the owner of the building, employees non-union workers.

“For working conditions like these to be occurring anywhere in Boston is deeply troubling. For them to happening at the same time and same place as the Boston Marathon, an event that reflects so much pride and is an example of what it means to be in Boston — support, solidarity, community, caring for each other — it flies in the face of what this race means and what fairness and decency mean to Boston,” Green said.

Frank Murray, President of the Ironworkers Local 7, said that construction workers currently working at the Wesleyan Building are not to blame, but they are being paid as little as $10 per hour to do dangerous work and that’s bad for workers everywhere.

“Unions offer a pathway to the middle class, and unions built the middle class. These people don’t have that chance,” he said. “They’re not bad people, they’re just being mistreated on the job site.”

Marcel Safar, a managing partner with Chevron Partners, said that he’s not aware of any exploitative practices going on there and he doubts any welder would work for $10 an hour.

“Kindly understand that Chevron Partners was not contacted by any of the protest organizers and so we did not know the nature of any objections prior to today,” Safar said. “Regarding labor practices, please note that Chevron Partners does not employ any construction workers at the site. The contractor is J.L. Dunn.”

J.L Dunn did not return a request for comment by press time.

According to the Boston Athletic Association, spectators — protesting or otherwise — are not allowed on the race course.

“Maintaining a clear course is important to support our 30,000 participants in safely navigating the course and running their best race, allowing easy access for emergency personnel, and assuring that all spectators have as clear a view of the course as possible,” a BAA spokesperson told the Herald.

Several local politicians joined the protests on Monday, including Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn and State Sen. Lydia Edwards.

“F—k around and find out,” Edwards said of the contractors.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in the pivotal swing state of Wisconsin and three Northeastern states will have a chance to indicate their support or opposition to their parties’ presumptive nominees in presidential primaries Tuesday. Wisconsin voters will also decide the fate of two Republican-backed statewide ballot measures that will shape how elections in the state are run and funded.

Farther south, Arkansas and Mississippi voters will return to the polls to decide a handful of legislative seats that were forced to runoffs in primaries held in March.

Although multiple names remain on the presidential ballots in Wisconsin, Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump face no major challengers and already have secured more delegates than they need to win their parties’ nominations at the conventions this summer. Voters in Connecticut and Rhode Island will have the additional option of voting “uncommitted” if they want to register a protest vote against Biden, a Democrat, or Trump, a Republican. Wisconsin voters have a similar option, although it’s called “Uninstructed Delegation” on their ballot.

Delaware was also scheduled to hold a Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, but the contest was canceled on March 19 after former candidate Nikki Haley had her name removed from the ballot, leaving Trump the only remaining candidate. A Democratic primary there would also have been held Tuesday, but Biden was the only candidate to file for the ballot, so the event was never scheduled. In both cases, the parties awarded all the state’s delegates to Biden and Trump, as they were the only candidates remaining in their contests.

DECISION NOTES

In the presidential race, Biden and Trump are the favorites in their primaries as neither candidate faces a strong challenge. In all four contests, the first indications that they are winning statewide on a level consistent with the overwhelming margins seen in most other contests held this year may be sufficient to determine the statewide winners.

For the Wisconsin constitutional amendments, the fault lines hew closely to traditional partisan lines, with Republican state lawmakers backing the two measures and Democrats in opposition. Thus, the state’s vote history and political demographics will inform the race-calling process.

As for the races in Arkansas and Mississippi, runoffs tend to be lower-turnout events than the initial elections that prompted them. For local races, in which turnout for regularly scheduled elections is already relatively low, this could slow the race-calling process in particularly close contests since determining the outcome could rest on a handful of votes. For example, in Arkansas state House District 63, only 108 votes separated the first- and second-place candidates, out of 1,700 total votes cast.

The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Here are the April 2 contests at a glance:

DELEGATES AT STAKE ON TUESDAY

Democrats: 436

Republicans: 179

STATES WITH PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES (4)

Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, Wisconsin

STATES WITH NON-PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES AND ELECTIONS (3)

Arkansas (runoff), Mississippi (runoff), Wisconsin

TUESDAY TIMELINE

8 p.m. EDT: All polls close in Connecticut, Mississippi, Rhode Island

8:30 p.m. EDT: All polls close in Arkansas

9 p.m. EDT: All polls close in New York, Wisconsin

ARKANSAS

STATE HOUSE PRIMARY RUNOFF, DISTRICT 35 (D): Jessie McGruder, Raymond Whiteside

STATE HOUSE PRIMARY RUNOFF, DISTRICT 63 (D): Fred Leonard, Lincoln Barnett

STATE HOUSE PRIMARY RUNOFF, DISTRICT 88 (R): Arnetta Bradford, Dolly Henley

WHO CAN VOTE: Voters who participated in the March 5 primary for a specific seat may only vote in the same party’s runoff for that seat. In other words, voters who cast ballots in the Republican primary on March 5 may not vote in a Democratic runoff for the same seat. Voters who did not participate in any party’s primary for a specific seat on March 5 may also participate in the runoff. All voters must be registered in the district holding the runoff.

FIRST VOTES REPORTED (March 5 primary): 8:36 p.m. ET

LAST ELECTION NIGHT UPDATE: 3:28 a.m. ET with about 99.7% of the total votes counted

CONNECTICUT

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (D): Biden, Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson, Cenk Uygur, “Uncommitted.” 60 delegates at stake

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (R): Trump, Ryan Binkley, Ron DeSantis, Haley, “Uncommitted.” 28 delegates at stake

WHO CAN VOTE: Only voters registered with a party may participate in that party’s primary. Democrats can’t vote in the Republican primary or vice versa.

FIRST VOTES REPORTED (2022 primaries): 8:08 p.m. ET

LAST ELECTION NIGHT UPDATE: 12:52 a.m. ET with about 99.9% of the total votes counted

MISSISSIPPI

U.S. HOUSE PRIMARY RUNOFF, DISTRICT 2 (R): Ron Eller, Andrew Smith

WHO CAN VOTE: Voters who participated in the March 12 primary for District 2 may only vote in the same party’s runoff. In other words, voters who cast ballots in the Democratic primary on March 12 may not vote in Tuesday’s Republican runoff. Voters who did not participate in any party’s primary for this seat on March 12 also may participate in the runoff. All voters must be registered in the 2nd Congressional District.

FIRST VOTES REPORTED (March 12 primary): 8:07 p.m. ET

LAST ELECTION NIGHT UPDATE: 12:35 a.m. ET with about 97% of the total votes counted

NEW YORK

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (D): Biden, Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson. 268 delegates at stake

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (R): Trump, Chris Christie, Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy. 91 delegates at stake

WHO CAN VOTE: New York has a closed primary system, which means only Democrats may vote in the Democratic primary and only Republicans may vote in the Republican primary.

FIRST VOTES REPORTED (2022 primaries): 9:01 p.m. ET

LAST ELECTION NIGHT UPDATE: 2:49 a.m. ET with about 94% of the total votes counted

RHODE ISLAND

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (D): Biden, Dean Phillips, “Uncommitted,” Write-in. 26 delegates at stake

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (R): Trump, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, “Uncommitted,” Write-in. 19 delegates at stake

WHO CAN VOTE: Rhode Island voters registered with a specific political party may cast ballots only in their own party’s primaries. Voters who are not affiliated with any party may participate in any party primary, but doing so will automatically affiliate them with that party in state records.

FIRST VOTES REPORTED (2022 primaries): 8:10 p.m. ET

LAST ELECTION NIGHT UPDATE: 11:03 p.m. ET with about 97% of total votes counted

WISCONSIN

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (D): Biden, Dean Phillips, “Uninstructed Delegation,” Write-In. 82 delegates at stake

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY (R): Trump, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, “Uninstructed Delegation,” Write-In. 41 delegates at stake

STATEWIDE BALLOT MEASURE, QUESTION 1: “Use of private funds in election administration. Shall section 7 (1) of article III of the constitution be created to provide that private donations and grants may not be applied for, accepted, expended, or used in connection with the conduct of any primary, election, or referendum?”

STATEWIDE BALLOT MEASURE, QUESTION 2: “Election officials. Shall section 7 (2) of article III of the constitution be created to provide that only election officials designated by law may perform tasks in the conduct of primaries, elections, and referendums?”

WHO CAN VOTE: Any registered voter in Wisconsin may participate in either primary.

FIRST VOTES REPORTED (2022 primaries): 9:14 p.m. ET

LAST ELECTION NIGHT UPDATE: 3:01 a.m. ET with about 99.8% of the total votes counted

UNCOMMITTED ON THE BALLOT

Connecticut, Rhode Island, Wisconsin (as “Uninstructed Delegation”)

ARE WE THERE YET?

As of Tuesday, there will be 104 days until the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, 139 days until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and 217 days until the November general election.

ROBERT YOON is an elections and democracy reporter for The Associated Press, with a focus on analyzing vote and demographic data and explaining the intricacies of the electoral process. He is now covering his seventh presidential campaign cycle.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — An appeals court ruling that weakened a key part of the Voting Rights Act is spurring lawmakers in several states to enact state-level protections to plug gaps that the ruling opened in the landmark federal law aimed at prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.

Democratic-led states have been taking matters into their own hands because national legislation to expand voting rights remains stalled in a divided Congress. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in many states have tried to erode safeguards in the name of protecting election integrity amid former President Donald Trump’s false claims that vote fraud cost him the 2020 election.

Legislators in Minnesota, Michigan, Maryland, New Jersey and Florida are pursuing state voting rights acts, building on ones enacted by New York in 2022 and Connecticut in 2023, as well as ones enacted earlier in Virginia, Oregon, Washington and California.

“And we know of interest from other states that are considering taking up state VRAs in the next year or so,” said Michael Pernick, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York.

In Minnesota, Democratic Rep. Emma Greenman, of Minneapolis, said she felt an urgent need to act after the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year in an Arkansas case that voters and groups could no longer sue under Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act — only the U.S. attorney general.

Section 2 prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, including maps that disadvantage voters of color. Lawsuits have long been brought under the section to try to ensure Black voters have adequate political representation in places with a long history of racism, including many Southern states.

The appeals court decision currently applies only to the seven states in the 8th Circuit, which stretches from Minnesota to Arkansas. Legal observers expect the case to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“As with other areas of policy, what you’re seeing is, states really have to say, ‘We need to make sure that … we have a system that is free from discrimination, we need to protect the rights of voters,’” Greenman said.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act is seen as a crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. But federal courts have “chipped away” at it over the decades, said Lata Nott, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., who testified for the Minnesota bill.

The biggest blow to the federal law in the view of voting rights advocates was a 2013 Supreme Court ruling in an Alabama case that stripped the government of a potent tool to stop voting bias by eliminating the requirement that jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting get “preclearance” from the federal government for major changes in the way they hold elections.

Conservatives have argued the requirement did not account for racial progress and other changes in society and that existing voting rights protections are adequate.

“It looks like this an effort by the Left in the state to do at the state level what they can’t do at the federal level under the VRA,” said Zack Smith, a legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

The 8th Circuit decision sounded new alarms because most lawsuits to enforce the act have come from private individuals and groups, not the Justice Department, Nott said. Administrations change, so allowing people to protect their own voting rights is a “valuable enforcement mechanism,” she said.

There are broad similarities among the various state voting rights acts under consideration and the New York and Connecticut laws. They all give voters and groups a “private right of action” to challenge laws that dilute or suppress the votes of people of color, Pernick said. That’s the right the 8th Circuit struck down on the federal level.

Some of the state proposals also include preclearance requirements for changes in voting to make sure they don’t harm voters of color.

Several state proposals include “safe harbor” provisions to try to head off the kind of lengthy, expensive litigation that often has been needed to enforce the federal law. The Minnesota bill, for example, would require potential plaintiffs to notify political subdivisions before they sue to create opportunities to negotiate remedies first.

Minnesota has an image as progressive on voting rights, and the current Legislature is the most diverse in state history. But witnesses who testified before the Legislature recently said there are still problems.

They point to data showing county boards across the state, which make important decisions affecting communities of color, are disproportionately white. Electing local bodies by districts that minority candidates could win, instead of at-large seats, is one potential remedy for preventing vote dilution.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who is president-elect of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said he is trying to enlist as many of his fellow election officers across the country to file a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 8th Circuit decision if the plaintiffs in the Arkansas case appeal. But for now, he said, that ruling is the law in seven states.

“If we can no longer count on the federal Voting Rights Act to allow private citizens to protect their own voting rights, then we need a Minnesota Voting Rights Act to fill the gap,” Simon testified. “And that’s what this bill does. It fills the gap by guaranteeing a day in court for Minnesota voters to defend their voting rights against laws or policies that they believe discriminate against them.”

Officials with groups representing Minnesota’s local governments testified they support the concept but were concerned about the potential extra costs it could impose on them, an issue that raised concerns among Republicans on the committees that have heard the bill. Republicans also argued it’s a heavier-handed tool than Minnesota needs.

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he had not studied the proposal in detail, but he shares the ideals of making voting easy and accessible.

“If this is moving down those paths, that’s a good thing,” Walz said.

Minnesota Senate President Bobby Joe Champion, a Minneapolis Democrat, is the lead author of the Minnesota Voting Rights Act in the Senate.

“Our democracy is important. We want more people voting, not less. We want more people’s voice to be heard, not silenced. We want people’s rights to be protected, not squandered,” Champion said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is raising gobs of cash. And it has an election-year strategy that, in a nutshell, aims to spend more — and spend faster.

Not only has Biden aimed to show himself off as a fundraising juggernaut this month, but his campaign is also making significant early investments both on the ground and on the airwaves — hoping to create a massive organizational advantage that leaves Republican Donald Trump scrambling to catch up.

But while the money pouring in has given Biden and the Democrats a major cash advantage, it’s also becoming clear Biden will need it. Throughout his life in business and politics, Trump’s provocations have earned him near limitless free media attention. Biden, meanwhile, has often struggled to cut through the noise with his own message despite holding the presidency.

That means Biden is going to need oodles of cash to blanket battleground states where a few thousand votes could mean the difference between victory or defeat. Add to that the challenge of reaching millennials, as well as even younger voters, who formed an important part of his 2020 coalition, in a far more fractured media ecosystem that skews toward streaming services over conventional broadcast and cable.

Biden’s organizational and outreach effort began in earnest this month, with the campaign using his State of the Union address as a launching pad to open 100 new field offices nationwide and boosting the number of paid staff in battleground states to 350 people. It’s also currently in the middle of a $30 million television and digital advertising campaign targeting specific communities such as Black, Hispanic and Asian voters.

In one example of the incumbent president’s organizational advantage, his reelection campaign in February had 480 staffers on the ground, compared with 311 to that of Trump and the Republican National Committee, according to Biden campaign officials.

“We’re ramping up campaign headquarters and field offices, hiring staff all across the country before Trump and his MAGA Republicans have even opened one single office,” Biden boasted Friday in New York during a meeting of his national finance committee, which included 200 of his largest donors and fundraisers from in and around the city.

A massive ground game disadvantage didn’t prevent Trump from winning the presidency in 2016, a fact Democrats keenly remember.

“It’s one of the stubborn challenges of Trump,” said Robby Mook, campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid. “Trump is Trump’s best organizer, and Trump can motivate people from the podium.”

But, Mook added, the Biden campaign is doing what it needs to do, pointing to the State of the Union as a powerful example of how to effectively mobilize the base and harness the anti-Trump energy that will inevitably motivate many Democrats this year.

“The most magical and the scariest part of politics is, you never know until Election Day,” Mook said. “And so I wouldn’t want to leave anything on the table if I were them, and the great part about having a resource advantage is, you get to have all these different things.”

Even Biden’s bricks-and-mortar campaign is likely to be far more costly this year.

Unlike 2020, when many Americans were hunkered down due to the pandemic, Biden will need to travel more while also building a political infrastructure that will be far more expensive than the socially distanced, virtual campaign he waged from his basement the last time around.

His reelection campaign will also have expenses that Trump won’t have to confront, such as reimbursing the federal government for use of Air Force One. So far, it has reimbursed $4.5 million for use of the official presidential aircraft for political activity, according to the campaign.

Mook said decisions about how to strategically invest the campaign’s cash are never as nimble as the staff wants them to be, and there is not only a risk in spending too much, too fast — but also spending far too late in an election year.

Last fall and summer, Democrats fretted about Biden’s early lack of fundraising and campaign activity. Writers’ and actors’ guild strikes in Hollywood didn’t help, either — effectively sidelining the pro-labor union president from raising money in a region that has long bankrolled the party’s political ambitions.

Now, even donors lukewarm to the president are contributing, Democratic Party donors and fundraisers say.

“I think people really want to hear what they have to say,” said Michael Smith, a major Hollywood donor and fundraiser, who hosted a Los Angeles event earlier this year featuring rocker Lenny Kravitz and held another event last week in Palm Springs with the president’s wife, Jill Biden. “They realize this is an investment.”

Trump campaign officials concede that Biden and the Democrats will likely have more cash to spend, though they argue that Trump will still be able to run an effective campaign given his ability to attract media coverage.

“Our digital online fundraising continues to skyrocket, our major donor investments are climbing, and Democrats are running scared of the fundraising prowess of President Trump,” said Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign. “We are not only raising the necessary funds but we are deploying strategic assets that will help send President Trump back to the White House and carry Republicans over the finish line.”

But given Trump’s propensity for making explosive remarks, that can also cut both ways, which Democrats are sure to exploit by using their cash advantage to run ads. Trump’s legal fees from the myriad of court cases he is tied up with are also sure to be a drag on his cash situation. Records show his political operation has shelled out at least $80 million to cover court costs over the past two years.

“Trump promises to be a Dictator on Day 1, suspend our Constitution and bring back political violence even worse than January 6. His MAGA agenda is so toxic and extreme that hundreds of thousands of Republicans in swing states voted for Nikki Haley over him, even after she dropped out — how unique!” Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said. “Donald Trump has no resources or even the will to bring those critical voters back.”

There’s also the open question of whether Trump will be able to break through in the same ways he did in 2016, when he was a political novelty. Or as he did during the 2020 election, when he held the presidency and was a ubiquitous presence at a time when locked-down Americans were glued to their TVs.

“The media landscape and where voters get their news has changed and so assumptions based on Trump’s ability to dominate mainstream media conversations should be questioned,” said Josh Schwerin, a Democratic strategist who formerly worked at Priorities USA, the Democrats’ primary super PAC during the 2020 presidential campaign.

“Fewer voters are getting their news from traditional outlets and finding ways to get information in front of them is getting harder and harder — and that takes money,” he said. “Both candidates are going to have to do this. And this is one place where having a financial advantage is going to be a big benefit to the Biden campaign.”

From a Massachusetts state senator calling for “An Act banning Starbucks” to the Canton-based coffee giant announcing another name change, Dunkin’ reigned supreme on the internet yet again.

But let’s not forget about Market Basket, which announced “#MoreForYourDollar Weddings” in your favorite supermarket aisle — which many shoppers would probably actually consider for their wedding day.

Quincy Sen. John Keenan got people laughing on social media on Monday when he posted a video about the importance of Dunkin’ for the region, calling for the banishment of Starbucks

“We all know that America runs on Dunkin’, and Massachusetts is no exception,” Keenan said in the video.

He noted that Quincy, the City of Presidents, is where the very first Dunkin’ location opened.

In the video, a caption next to a picture of Quincy native President John Adams says he was a “two cream, one sugar kind of guy.”

“I see it as my sworn duty to promote this important part of our collective history,” the state senator said. “That’s why I’m filing legislation to ban all Starbucks.”

” ‘An Act banning Starbucks… or else’ will require all Starbucks locations within the Commonwealth to cease operations, as well as prohibit the sale of all Starbucks products,” he added. “Store locations will have a period of 6 months to surrender their beans, and there will be a ban on Cakepops that will go into effect immediately.”

With a nod to the Boston Tea Party, Keenan said the state will dispose of all Starbucks’ “contraband” in the Boston Harbor this December.

Under the legislation, Keenan said the state’s motto would also change to “Fac Tempus Doughnutius” to “recognize our Commonwealth’s dedication to hard work.”

Calling on all #DunKings and #DunQueens to help us pass An Act banning Starbucks… or else. Massachusetts runs on @dunkindonuts #MAPoli pic.twitter.com/NpnwH6sLsC

— John F. Keenan (@SenJohnFKeenan) April 1, 2024

Meanwhile on April Fools’ Day, Dunkin’ said it was changing its name, again.

“now we’re just DONUTS’. we will have coffee still,” Dunkin’ posted on social media. “pls don’t ask any other questions. just going thru it rn.”

“America Runs on the DONUTS,” its social media account reads.

Also on April Fools’ Day, Market Basket told shoppers to save the date.

“Coming soon to a Market Basket near you: #MoreForYourDollar Weddings,” Market Basket posted.

“Walk down the aisle in your favorite aisle,” MB added. “You’ll exchange vows with your loved one in an intimate ceremony, then guests will enjoy a Market’s Kitchen dinner and Bakery cake at the reception.”

Also in Amesbury, the police department joked that it was buying a $604,000 Lamborghini for its fleet of patrol cars.

“Recently citizens voiced concerns on social media about APD’s purchase of a Ford pickup truck,” Amesbury Police posted. “Chief Bailey echoed their concerns and said ‘pickups in New England just don’t make sense, have you seen the crazy drivas out there, how the heck are we supposed to catch criminals in a truck, I mean….where do we put them? Not to mention in the Lambo, we’ll be able to catch way more speedahs!’ ”

Taste of Massachusetts also on April Fools’ Day posted that Boston is banning influencers and cameras in restaurants.

“A new ordinance starting today, passed by the Boston City Council designs to ban Influencers, cameras and all photography during hours restaurant are open to the public,” Taste of Massachusetts wrote. “The move is designed to make the dining experience in Boston more pleasant and attract more diners.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The video shared by former President Donald Trump features horror movie music and footage of migrants purportedly entering the U.S. from countries including Cameroon, Afghanistan and China. Shots of men with tattoos and videos of violent crime are set against close-ups of people waving and wrapping themselves in American flags.

“They’re coming by the thousands,” Trump says in the video, posted on his social media site. “We will secure our borders. And we will restore sovereignty.”

In his speeches and online posts, Trump has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric as he seeks the White House a third time, casting migrants as dangerous criminals “poisoning the blood” of America. Hitting the nation’s deepest fault lines of race and national identity, his messaging often relies on falsehoods about migration. But it resonates with many of his core supporters going back a decade, to when “build the wall” chants began to ring out at his rallies.

President Joe Biden and his allies discuss the border very differently. The Democrat portrays the situation as a policy dispute that Congress can fix and hits Republicans in Washington for backing away from a border security deal after facing criticism from Trump.

But in a potentially worrying sign for Biden, Trump’s message appears to be resonating with key elements of the Democratic coalition that Biden will need to win over this November.

Roughly two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of how Biden is handling border security, including about 4 in 10 Democrats, 55% of Black adults and 73% of Hispanic adults, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 45% of Americans described the situation as a crisis, while another 32% said it was a major problem.

Vetress Boyce, a Chicago-based racial justice activist, was among those who expressed frustration with Biden’s immigration policies and the city’s approach as it tries to shelter newly arriving migrants. She argued Democrats should be focusing on economic investment in Black communities, not newcomers.

“They’re sending us people who are starving, the same way Blacks are starving in this country. They’re sending us people who want to escape the conditions and come here for a better lifestyle when the ones here are suffering and have been suffering for over 100 years,” Boyce said. “That recipe is a mixture for disaster. It’s a disaster just waiting to happen.”

Gracie Martinez is a 52-year-old Hispanic small business owner from Eagle Pass, Texas, the border town that Trump visited in February when he and Biden made same-day trips to the state. Martinez said she once voted for former President Barack Obama and is still a Democrat, but now backs Trump — mainly because of the border.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “It’s tons and tons of people and they’re giving them medical and money, phones,” she said, complaining those who went through the legal immigration system are treated worse.

Priscilla Hesles, 55, a teacher who lives in Eagle Pass, Texas, described the current situation as “almost an overtaking” that had changed the town.

“We don’t know where they’re hiding. We don’t know where they’ve infiltrated into and where are they going to come out of,” said Hesles, who said she used to take an evening walk to a local church, but stopped after she was shaken by an encounter with a group of men she alleged were migrants.

Immigration will almost certainly be one of the central issues in November’s election, with both sides spending the next six months trying to paint the other as wrong on border security.

The White House has also mulled a series of executive actions that could drastically tighten immigration restrictions, effectively going around Congress after it failed to pass the bipartisan deal Biden endorsed.

“Trump is a fraud who is only out for himself,” said Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz. “We will make sure voters know that this November.”

Trump will campaign Tuesday in Wisconsin and Michigan this week, where he is expected to again tear into Biden on immigration. His campaign said his event in the western Michigan city of Grand Rapids will focus on what it alleged was “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.”

The former president calls recent record-high arrests for southwest border crossings an “invasion” orchestrated by Democrats to transform America’s very makeup. Trump accuses Biden of purposely allowing criminals and potential terrorists to enter the country unchecked, going so far as to claim the president is engaged in a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States of America.”

He also casts migrants — many of them women and children escaping poverty and violence — as “ poisoning the blood ” of America with drugs and disease and claimed some are “not people.” Experts who study extremism warn against using dehumanizing language in describing migrants.

There is no evidence that foreign governments are emptying their jails or mental asylums as Trump says. And while conservative news coverage has been dominated by several high-profile and heinous crimes allegedly committed by people in the country illegally, the latest FBI statistics show overall violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.

Studies have also found that people living in the country illegally are far less likely than native-born Americans to have been arrested for violent, drug and property crimes.

“Certainly the last several months have demonstrated a clear shift in political support,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of the immigrant resettlement group Global Refuge and a former Obama administration and State Department official.

“I think that relates to the rhetoric of the past several years,” she said, “and just this dynamic of being outmatched by a loud, extreme of xenophobic rhetoric that hasn’t been countered with reality and the facts on the ground.”

Part of what has made the border such a salient issue is that its impact is being felt far from the border.

Trump allies, most notably Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, have used state-funded buses to send more than 100,000 migrants to Democratic-led cities like New York, Denver and Chicago, where Democrats will hold this summer’s convention. While the program was initially dismissed as a publicity stunt, the influx has strained city budgets and left local leaders scrambling to provide emergency housing and medical care for new groups of migrants.

Local news coverage, meanwhile, has often been negative. Viewers have seen migrants blamed for everything from a string of gang-related New Jersey robberies to burglary rings targeting retail stores in suburban Philadelphia to measles cases in parts of Arizona and Illinois.

Abbott has deployed the Texas National Guard to the border, placed concertina wire along parts of the Rio Grande in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court orders, and has argued his state should be able to enforce its own immigration laws.

Some far-right internet sites have begun pointing to Abbott’s actions as the first salvo in a coming civil war. And Russia has also helped spread and amplify misleading and incendiary content about U.S. immigration and border security as part of its broader efforts to polarize Americans. A recent analysis by the firm Logically, which tracks Russian disinformation, found online influencers and social media accounts linked to the Kremlin have seized on the idea of a new civil war and efforts by states like Texas to secede from the union.

Amy Cooter, who directs research at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, worries the current wave of civil war talk will only increase as the election nears. So far, it has generally been limited to far-right message boards. But immigration is enough of a concern generally that its political potency is intensified, Cooter said.

“Non-extremist Americans are worried about this, too,” she said. “It’s about culture and perceptions about who is an American.”

In the meantime, there are people like Rudy Menchaca, an Eagle Pass bar owner who also works for a company that imports Corona beer from Mexico and blamed the problems at the border for hurting business.

Menchaca is the kind of Hispanic voter Biden is counting on to back his reelection bid. The 27-year-old said he was never a fan of Trump’s rhetoric and how he portrayed Hispanics and Mexicans. “We’re not all like that,” he said.

But he also said he was warming to the idea of backing the former president because of the reality on the ground.

“I need those soldiers to be around if I have my business,” Menchaca said of Texas forces dispatched to the border. “The bad ones that come in could break in.”

Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers David Klepper in Washington and Matt Brown in Chicago contributed to this report.

The presumptive GOP nominee’s morning email with the heading “I’m suspending my campaign…” was Monday morning’s top, April Fools’ Day political clickbait.

The Trump team quickly added, “Just Kidding — Happy April Fools Day.” Trump then rattled off all that ails President Joe Biden, from “Open borders, sky rocketing crime, record inflation, targeted prosecutions, humiliation overseas.”

Trump then asks for 100,000 to “chip in $25” to help offset Biden’s mega-donor fund-raiser last week in New York City.

Biden’s campaign says the shindig they booked at Radio City Music Hall featuring former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton was the “the most successful political fundraiser in American history.”

Before Biden was even joined on stage Thursday evening in New York by his Democratic forerunners in front of 5,000 paid attendees, with a sold out show and second row seats going for $500,000 a piece the campaign was apparently able to pull in an eye-popping $25 million for just the one event.

Not to be outdone, Trump is inviting wealthy donors to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., for an April 6 fundraiser hosted by New York hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, the Associated Press is reporting.

As for MSNBC, the cable crew is still being beat up over hiring and then immediately firing Ronna McDaniel, the former RNC chair. And that one is no joke.

More than 20 migrant families have called Harborside Suites in South Yarmouth their home since last September, but the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals has declared the motel has violated a local bylaw that limits temporary stays to less than 30 days.

“We would move today if we could,” motel Attorney Mark Boudreau said during a meeting last week. “The migrants that are there, they are ready to move. A lot of them have work visas… They would like to get going so they can obtain work where they’re going to be.”

Building Commissioner Mark Grylls issued a violation notice to the motel – currently housing 27 families – last October, but he told the ZBA he had to have their blessing before he could start imposing fines.

Harborside Suites, on Route 28 in the popular summer vacation beach town, sought a reversal of the violation, pointing to state officials that had said that “emergency needs of migrant families supersede the occupancy requirements of local zoning.”

But ZBA Vice Chairman Sean Igoe countered that he’s not confident Gov. Maura Healey’s migrant state-of-emergency carries more weight than local ordinances.

In her declaration last August, Healey wrote: “To the cities and towns across the state, many of which have a rich history tied to waves of immigrants settling within their borders, I am encouraging their communities to keep welcoming those families who wish to resettle in all corners of Massachusetts.”

Igoe took exception to the governor’s wording before the ZBA voted to uphold Grylls’ violation notice. “She’s just urging the cities and towns, she’s not ordering us to do it,” he said.

The state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities did not immediately respond to a Herald request for comment on Saturday.

In January, the ZBA approved Harborside Suites maintaining the migrants as Boudreau had told members that the motel heard from the state that the families would be moved to a “larger facility in the Foxboro area” that would “provide better opportunities for food and room.”

Motels that housed migrants in Bourne and Wareham, which Boudreau represents, have been “completely evacuated,” the attorney said. The future shelter for the Yarmouth migrant families, he added, is “within a 20-mile radius of Foxboro.”

“Unfortunately, the property did not pass inspection and had some code violations so they have not moved,” Boudreau said last Thursday. “Everyone is aware in the motel that they will be moving as soon as the property is ready.”

The exact date when the families will be moving out is unclear, but in previous violations of the Yarmouth motel-stay ordinance, the ZBA has given 45 to 90 days depending on the situation, Grylls said.

“I don’t believe we’ve had circumstances like this,” he said.

Harborside Suites is the latest motel or hotel to be thrust into the spotlight of the Massachusetts migrant crisis.

A 26-year-old Haitian national, living at a Rockland motel housing migrants, was charged with aggravated rape of a 15-year-old girl who police described in a report as “disabled,” on March 14. A Hingham judge found Cory Alvarez dangerous a week later and ordered him held without bail.

Taunton officials in February sued the owners of the Clarion Hotel housing migrant families in that city for providing living quarters to nearly 450 people, more than 350-person capacity. The suit seeks over $100,000 in overdue civil fines.

House Speaker Ron Mariano has suggested that broad budget cuts could be on the table when lawmakers sit down next year to draft the fiscal year 2026 budget, fueled by the historically high cost of running the state-run shelters.

With an expected $932 million tab this fiscal year and $915 million in the next to maintain shelters, associated services, and keep municipal reimbursements on track, Mariano projected that a range of other programs could be on the chopping block and put the blame on the feds and their lack of action in solving the migrant crisis.

In his fight with the Yarmouth ZBA, Boudreau highlighted the state’s “great expense” while arguing that the emergency declaration and right-to-shelter law –  homeless families and pregnant women must be provided housing in the Bay State – took precedence over local ordinance.

“To the extent that there is a question of safety and a question of the adequacy of the rooms,” Boudreau said, “the Commonwealth has at great expense provided food, shelter, education, medicine and medical care. They’ve arrived legally, and my client is simply trying to cooperate with the town and the state in getting them moved.”

Since migrant families arrived at Harborside Suites last fall, Yarmouth firefighters responded to a flooding at the motel in January, and a 6-month-old baby was rushed to Cape Cod Hospital the day after they took up residence, according to the hyperlocal Hyannis News. The baby had  “phlegm coming from her mouth, with blood-tinged sputum, according to radio transmissions,” the hyperlocal Hyannis News reported.

Town leaders assured residents last December that there were no active cases of tuberculosis at the motel after a brief scare, the Cape Cod Times reported.

Yarmouth resident Cheryl Ball told the Herald Saturday she is “very pleased” with the ZBA’s decision and hopes it creates a precedent across the state.

“It’s draining our resources,” Ball said of the impact the migrant families have had on the town. “They’re a burden on our education system because we have to pay extra tax dollars to support them in our schools. We have emergency services that we are providing to the hotel that comes out of our tax money.”

President Joe Biden’s Easter message was issued by the White House just after 9 a.m. Sunday.

“Jill and I send our warmest wishes to Christians around the world celebrating Easter Sunday. Easter reminds us of the power of hope and the promise of Christ’s Resurrection.

“As we gather with loved ones, we remember Jesus’ sacrifice. We pray for one another and cherish the blessing of the dawn of new possibilities. And with wars and conflict taking a toll on innocent lives around the world, we renew our commitment to work for peace, security, and dignity for all people. From our family to yours, happy Easter and may God bless you,” the president wrote.

Former President Donald Trump’s first message of the day was a reminder to his supporters to “never forget our cowards and weaklings.”

“Such a disgrace,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform to go along with a Washington Examiner article on the departure of Wisconsin’s U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher.

“HAPPY EASTER,” he said in a post that came right after.

Several hours later the 45th President issued what might be called a standard-Trump holiday message, delivering an all-caps Easter missive heavy with attacks on his perceived enemies.

After wishing a “happy Easter to all” the former president went on to make clear he included “crooked and corrupt prosecutors and judges” and people that he “completely” and “totally” despises “because they want to destroy America, a now failing nation.” Trump then called out “deranged” Special Counsel Jack Smith, “sick” Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, and “lazy” Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg directly. All three have brought criminal charges against the former president.

“Happy Easter everyone,” he wrote after.

High elevation regions like the Berkshires and northern Worcester County have upwards of a 50% chance of seeing a foot of snowfall midweek, NWS Meteorologist Torry Dooley told the Herald.

There is a 60% to 70% chance those regions see six inches or more by Thursday, according to the forecaster.

“There is some possibility for some significant snow,” Dooley said.

The rest of the state will probably just get wet for most of the week, he said, though there is a chance the Boston region sees some wintery mix that does not stick around after falling.

“These systems during the off seasons are always difficult, because there isn’t really much cold air locked in place,” he said. “It’s really marginal temperatures for snow to accumulate.”

Monday will see highs in the mid-50s and could be rainy but won’t be a total washout, according to the meteorologist. Most of the rain that does fall will be felt south of Boston and around the Cape, he said. Overnight temperatures fall just below 40 degrees.

The mercury only climbs into the mid-40s on Tuesday and rain showers are possible in the afternoon, Dooley said. NWS predicts up to an inch of rain is possible with a 30% chance of precipitation. The chance of rain increases steadily overnight and rain becomes likely after 3 a.m. Wednesday.

It will be chilly, windy, and wet on Wednesday, with a 90% chance of rain, highs barely reaching into the low-40s and gusts up to 40 mph possible. Overnight lows stay above freezing for most of the state but could fall below 30 degrees in high elevations and bring the snow along, Dooley said.

Rain is likely Thursday, according to the weather service, when there is a 70% chance of precipitation and more gusty wind forecast. High temperatures will hover in the low-40s through the day before falling close to freezing overnight.

The clouds part somewhat and the chance of rain falls to 30% by Friday, when the temperature is expected to climb back into the mid-40s. Similar conditions are called for Saturday. Sunday could bring mid-50s temps under sunny skies.

“There’s really no good way to sugar coat: we have another active weather week ahead with rain Tuesday through Thursday night,” Dooley said.

There is some concern another week of rainfall could lead to flooding, Dooley said, and the weather service will be monitoring the river and stream levels to determine if weather advisories are required. NWS will likely have a snowfall map available later this week, he said.

Despite pushback from the state’s largest teachers unions and the association representing superintendents, Gov. Maura Healey says she still supports a plan to require districts to take up an evidence-based reading curriculum and has come out against their proposal to remove the standardized MCAS testing requirement for high school graduation.

Many districts in the Bay State are not using scientifically backed methods to teach reading, according to Healey, and she wants every school to “get behind” her plan to make sure every kid in the state can “read, and read well.”

“It’s pretty clear and simple what needs to happen. There’s actually science-based curricula out there — the science of reading. There is a way to teach kids how to read,” the governor told WBZ’s Jon Keller. “Many of our districts aren’t using that curricula. They are not teaching kids how to read in a way that’s proven for their success.”

The Massachusetts Teachers Association and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents have both pushed back on a bill currently before the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, which would give the state the authority to force local districts onto an evidence-based reading program.

Healey also included $30 million in her fiscal 2025 budget for a “Literacy Launch” program aimed at helping schools that aren’t using evidence-based learning systems teach their educators how to transition away from outdated models.

According to the educators, forcing the change represents the removal of local control from school districts. Healey said she doesn’t buy that.

“For god’s sake, this is about reading,” Healey said. “I would hope that there are certain things we can all get behind for the greater good of this Commonwealth, particularly our young people.”

The governor has also come out against a move by the teachers unions to ask the voters whether or not passing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test should determine if a high school student graduates. The teachers say the test is unfair and that it only measures the wealth of a student’s district.

The governor, despite endorsement by the teachers union during her election, said that sometimes she and the group will have to disagree.

“We may not see eye to eye on everything, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes,” she said.

The focus, according to the governor, should not be on teachers and if they are held to account for their student’s MCAS scores, but on whether the students are actually learning.

“It’s having a way to assess how our young people are doing, that’s what we need to focus on.” she said.

“Today, we send a message to all transgender Americans: You are loved. You are heard. You are understood. You belong. You are America, and my entire Administration and I have your back,” Biden declared.

While the Transgender Day of Visibility is not new — the event has been held annually by international human rights advocates since 2009 — this year March 31 happened to coincide with Easter, and the timing of Biden’s proclamation was not entirely well received.

Karoline Leavitt, former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign press secretary, went so far as to call the president’s proclamation “blasphemous.”

“We call on Joe Biden’s failing campaign and White House to issue an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe tomorrow is for one celebration only — the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” she said in a statement.

Leavitt and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also called out Biden over this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll event, claiming the president prohibited the use of religious symbols in egg design submissions, after a flier for the event put out by the American Egg Board requested only submissions that did not “include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements.”

“The Biden White House has betrayed the central tenet of Easter — which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Banning sacred truth and tradition—while at the same time proclaiming Easter Sunday as ‘Transgender Day’—is outrageous and abhorrent. The American people are taking note,” Johnson said via the social media app formerly known as Twitter.

The Biden White House has betrayed the central tenet of Easter — which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Banning sacred truth and tradition—while at the same time proclaiming Easter Sunday as “Transgender Day”—is outrageous and abhorrent. The American people are taking note. pic.twitter.com/ZCExyVkAVS

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) March 30, 2024

“It is appalling and insulting that Joe Biden’s White House prohibited children from submitting religious egg designs for their Easter Art Event, and formally proclaimed Easter Sunday as ‘Trans Day of Visibility.’ Sadly, these are just two more examples of the Biden Administration’s years-long assault on the Christian faith,” Leavitt said.

Despite any blowback over the proclamation, the White House’s official social media accounts and those of both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were used to express support for the March 31 Transgender Day of Visibility, with both 2024 Democratic candidates declaring that “trans rights are human rights.”

On Transgender Day of Visibility, we celebrate transgender and nonbinary Americans. Their courage has given countless others strength, but no one should have to be brave just to be themselves.

We see you. We stand with you. We won’t stop fighting for you. pic.twitter.com/pVPLDolpjk

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) March 31, 2024

“Transgender Americans are part of the fabric of our nation. On Transgender Day of Visibility, our Administration honors the extraordinary courage of transgender Americans and reaffirms our commitment to forming a more perfect union – where all people are treated equally,” a post by the White House account read.

Transgender Americans are part of the fabric of our nation.

On Transgender Day of Visibility, our Administration honors the extraordinary courage of transgender Americans and reaffirms our commitment to forming a more perfect union – where all people are treated equally. pic.twitter.com/ElRf9l62Nk

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 31, 2024

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey also joined the conversation, posting her own message of support for the Bay State’s transgender community.

Our trans friends, family, and neighbors should feel seen, safe, and celebrated for being exactly who they are.

On Transgender Day of Visibility, and always, we’re committed to protecting your freedom to live fully and authentically.

— Maura Healey (@MassGovernor) March 31, 2024

“Our trans friends, family, and neighbors should feel seen, safe, and celebrated for being exactly who they are. On Transgender Day of Visibility, and always, we’re committed to protecting your freedom to live fully and authentically,” she wrote.

According to White House staff, uproar over the family-friendly Easter Egg Roll tradition is misplaced. The event has held the same non-denominational standard for submitted egg designs through all presidential administrations over the last several decades, including the four years of the Trump White House.

“Fyi on all the misleading swirl re White House and Easter: the American Egg Board flyer’s standard non-discrimination language requesting artwork has been used for the last 45 years, across all Dem & Republican Admins—for all WH Easter Egg Rolls —incl previous Administration’s,” deputy assistant to the president Elizabeth Alexander wrote on X.

Easter and Transgender Day of Visibility were not the only occasions marked this March 31, which was also National Farm Workers Day, Cesar Chavez Day, National Baked Ham with Pineapple Day, National Crayon Day, National Tater Day, Transfer Day (for residents of the U.S. Virgin Islands), and Eifel Tower Day.

Next year, Easter will fall on April 20th, a day associated with both marijuana slang and the birth Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, though it’s unlikely either event will receive a White House proclamation. It will again fall on March 31 in the year 2086.

Herald wire service contributed.

But some members of the Governor’s Council want to know exactly how a blanket pardon of at least tens of thousands people — the first of its kind in Massachusetts — will actually work. Healey said records would be updated automatically but councilors said they wanted more details that were missing when the governor announced the move earlier this month.

The group voted to schedule an informational hearing for Wednesday at noon, according to a council staff member.

Not all were immediately on board with the idea, including Councilor Marilyn Devaney, who said that it would only slow down the timeline for people who have had to deal with the ramifications of past convictions.

“There are people that are waiting and there isn’t any law against what they have been accused of and it’s preventing them from jobs and so much. This was all discussed,” she said Wednesday. “If anyone has any objections when we’re voting on it, that’s when any person who objects to approving the pardon will talk. But having a hearing … I think it’s really unconscionable. People are waiting.”

Her colleagues didn’t agree.

“I understand the concern. But frankly, this is the first time in history this has happened in the commonwealth. I know other states have done things like this. I think for transparency and for the public and for procedure, that it’s not a bad idea to do. It is our job,” Councilor Eileen Duff said.

Healey’s office has said pardons for misdemeanor cannabis possession convictions could impact “hundreds of thousands of people.” The plan would take effect immediately after the Governor’s Council votes to approve it, Healey said, though there could be a delay for individual criminal records to be updated.

Healey argued the pardons were the “most comprehensive action” by a single governor since President Joe Biden pardoned federal cannabis possession convictions and called on state leaders to do the same.

“The reason we do this is simple, justice requires it. Massachusetts decriminalized possession for personal use back in 2008, legalized it in 2016. Yet, thousands of people are still living with a conviction on their records, a conviction that may be a barrier to jobs, getting housing, even getting an education,” she said earlier this month.

While a majority of Governor’s Councilors told the Herald they were on board with the idea shortly after the governor announced it, the group approved an “informational hearing” on the initiative.

Councilor Terrence Kennedy said he initially thought an informational hearing wasn’t necessary but had a change of heart.

“I think that it’s important that the public fully understand what the pardon means and what impact it has on people as well as the councilors. And I think the only way you can really get all of that is by way of a hearing,” he said.

Devaney ultimately relented in her opposition.

“I did not vote against it because if that’s the will, then so be it and you’ll be chairing it and so be it,” Devaney said to Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, who chairs the Governor’s Council.

Drinks to-go eighty-sixed?

Most people would be lying if they said alcohol didn’t help them get through the darkest days of the pandemic, and the ability to grab a drink or cocktail to-go during that time was also a boon for struggling restaurants.

But the pandemic-era policy is set to lapse Monday without any action from the Legislature, which has so far not found a compromise on legislation that could include a permanent extension of the measure.

A spending bill passed by the House earlier this month codified the practice into state law. But the Senate did not include the language in their version when they pushed the bill forward a few weeks later.

The proposal is stuck in inter-branch discussions because it includes hundreds of millions for the emergency shelter system housing migrants and local families and a policy that would cap families’ stay in shelters at nine months. Negotiators meet for the first time Monday morning.

A deal could very well pop this week considering the drinks policy has expired and money for the shelter system is running out. But until then, drinks to-go and another pandemic-era initiative allowing for outdoor dining are about to be eighty-sixed.

Everett and soccer fans get their Beacon Hill moment

Supporters of turning a run-down industrial park in Everett into a soccer stadium will have a chance to lobby lawmakers on a bill filed by state Sen. Sal DiDomenico that opens a path forward for the development.

The Legislature’s Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies scheduled a 2 p.m. hearing Tuesday. DiDomenico’s proposal is the only matter up for discussion.

A push for a stadium near Encore Boston Harbor was put on ice late last year after lawmakers ultimately scrapped it from a controversial spending bill that also included money for emergency shelters.

DiDomenico, an Everett Democrat, filed a standalone bill in December that would remove a portion of land at 173 Alford Street from a “designated port area” on the Mystic River only “for the purpose of converting the parcel into a professional soccer stadium and a waterfront park,” according to the bill text.

The roughly 43-acre plot is partially in Boston and Everett, according to the bill.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — President Joe Biden has won North Dakota’s Democratic presidential primary.

The state party on Saturday announced the results of the mostly mail-in primary. The party began circulating ballots in February to voters who asked for them.

Biden’s victory was virtually assured, though seven other candidates were on the primary ballot.

Former President Donald Trump won the North Dakota Republican Party’s March 4 presidential caucuses, taking all 29 delegates.

Biden and Trump have already secured enough delegates for their parties’ nominations, lining up the first presidential rematch election since 1956.

Sen. Bernie Sanders won the North Dakota Democratic caucuses in 2016 and 2020.

Delahunt died from a long-term illness surrounded by family while at the Marina Bay neighborhood, his family said in a statement in a statement to the Herald.

“While we mourn the loss of such a tremendous person, we also celebrate his remarkable life and his legacy of dedication, service, and inspiration. We thank everyone who has given him, and our family, care, and support. We would also like to acknowledge all those who stood with him for so many years in his work towards making a difference in the community, throughout our country and the world. We could always turn to him for wisdom, solace and a laugh, and his absence leaves a gaping hole in our family and our hearts,” the family said.

As the district attorney for Norfolk County for over 22 years, Delahunt pioneered the nation’s first prosecutorial unit focused on domestic violence and sexual assault cases and programs to combat violence against women that later became models for the rest of the country.

He served as the representative for Massachusetts’ 10th Congressional District from 1997 to 2011, which included the South Shore, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket. Delahunt said his decision in November 2010 to not run for re-election “had nothing to do with politics.”

“I’ve been wrestling with this decision for a while,” he said, according to Herald reporting from the time, which credited former U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy as urging Delahunt to stay in office to help pass former President Barack Obama’s first-term agenda.

His departure from Washington was mourned by fellow Democrats, including former U.S. Sen. John Kerry, who said Delahunt had an “incredibly strong voice” for Massachusetts and would leave a “void” in Congress.

As he ran for a first-term in Congress in September 1996, Delahunt pointed to unrest among the middle class about living standards at the time.

“There’s a growing sense on the part of the middle class that sustained middle-class living standards for many now are being eviscerated, or at least an effort has been made to reduce them dramatically during this past session of Congress,” Delahunt said, according to Associated Press reporting from the time.

One of Delahunt’s more debated accomplishments as a U.S. representative saw him broker a deal in 2005 with then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to provide winter heating oil to low-income residents in Massachusetts. Delahunt cast the deal as a “humanitarian gesture,” according to news accounts from the time.

The move earned him some backlash from critics and was seen by some as an attempt to put a thorn in the side of the Bush administration.

But Delahunt, who was later present at Chavez’s state funeral in 2013, brushed off the pushback.

“I don’t report to George Bush,” Delahunt said in December 2005, according to reporting by the Associated Press. “I’m elected by the people here in Massachusetts. So I don’t feel any particular need to consult with George Bush or Dick Cheney about oil.”

He was a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and served as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe, among other designations. Delahunt was also a congressional delegate to the United Nations.

When Delahunt announced he was leaving office in 2010, Republicans eyed his seat as a potential momentum builder in the wake of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown’s victory earlier that year. But ultimately, Democrats would retain the seat when U.S. Rep. Bill Keating declared victory in November 2010 over Republican Jeffrey Perry.

After leaving office, Delahunt worked at the law firm Eckert Seamans, which said in a statement they were “deeply saddened to learn of the loss of our partner and friend.”

“Bill was a tremendous colleague and dear friend to many at the firm. Throughout Bill’s numerous years of dedicated service to the legal and U.S. political community, Delahunt developed significant relationships with world leaders, ambassadors, and countless clients of Eckert Seamans, as well as advancing his community in Massachusetts. Our firm extends heartful thoughts and prayers to Bill’s family during this difficult time,” the company said in a statement.

Delahunt had a stint in the state’s cannabis industry after leaving politics.

He ran Medical Marijauna of Massachusetts, a firm that at one point was granted provisional approval to sell medical cannabis but was later turned down in June 2014 because of profit-sharing concerns with a management company also led by Delahunt, among others.

He stepped down as the company’s chief executive officer in March 2014, the Herald reported.

Delahunt’s was recognized in October 2022 when the Norfolk County Superior Courthouse was named in his honor.

“The challenge to improve the quality of life for our communities was exciting and inspiring, and our initiatives fundamentally transformed the justice system,” Delahunt said at the time.

Herald editor Joe Dwinell contributed reporting.

This is the Wutopia that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu wants, her vision to transform the city.

Mayors like Kevin White, Ray Flynn and Tom Menino helped build Boston, and she could be presiding over its dismantling.

Wu is overseeing a commercial decline unlike any the city has seen in recent memory, with over a billion dollar hole in the budget due to declining tax revenues. And bike lanes don’t generate revenue.

Her response? Shut out the business community and titans of industry and raise taxes.

The ultra-progressive circle of advisers she’s surrounded herself with figures Wu won the mayor’s office without business leaders’ help, so why reach out to them now?

Her proposal to raise the commercial tax rate beyond the current limit was met with stiff opposition by business leaders and could get a chilly reception on Beacon Hill, but so what?

Between the commercial tax hike and new restrictions on fossil fuels, it’s making it difficult for major new development.

Wu is spinning the proposed tax hike as a tax cut for residents, arguing the late Mayor Tom Menino did the same thing when he was in charge.

She talks about “re-imagining” the city, jacks up greens fees at the city’s two historic golf courses so they’re less affordable for average residents, and shells out grants only to her various progressive causes.

The attempt to compare Wu’s tax hikes with Menino’s is not valid, critics argue, because the city’s empty downtown has never seen the decline it faces now.

And though Menino was criticized for his heavy-handed tactics, he was always accessible to most business leaders.

Business leaders say Wu is taking the city down a dangerous path toward self-destruction the way some other cities have imploded.

“This is a time unlike any other in the last 30 years, and piling more financial burdens on a struggling industry is no solution at all,” Greg Vasi, CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board said. “We are deeply concerned that increasing commercial tax rates to recoup lost revenue will only take us closer to the urban doom loop being seen in many other American cities.”

And if the economy starts to go south, it’s only a matter of time before it affects Boston’s great institutions like hospitals and universities.

Wu’s plan to re-imagine Boston comes as she’s scored a string of policy and political victories.

A year and a half before the next Boston mayoral election, there are no challengers and serious questions about who would be foolhardy enough to take on the job.

Despite the heavy scrutiny Wu has been under in her first term, no one from the right has stepped forward to become a voice of the opposition.

Is she unbeatable? Will she just glide into another term – if she even runs again?

With all the criticism the progressive darling Wu gets, she still has a huge swath of support in liberal neighborhoods throughout the city.

She’s made some major missteps, like trying to move the O’Bryant School from Roxbury to white West Roxbury, and holding a segregated Christmas party, but there’s no indication those mistakes are big enough to stop her re-election chances.

The question is what will Boston look like when she leaves?