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There is a promising Labor Day weekend forecast on the opposite facet of immediately’s rain. Danielle Noyes has the day-by-day outlook right here to your barbecue planning functions. However first, let’s get to the information:
Bettor beware: Massachusetts is shifting to crack down on sports activities bettors who harass athletes. This week, the state’s Gaming Fee introduced it would work to ban folks discovered harassing skilled or faculty athletes from betting on sports activities in Massachusetts. The initiative is aimed toward what’s turn out to be a urgent problem because of social media and the explosive progress of sports activities betting. “We now have instruments at our disposal to truly ensure that if you’re doing this habits, we will really pull you off of the apps,” Jordan Maynard, the chair of the Massachusetts Gaming Fee, instructed WBUR’s John Bender.
- The way it works: The Gaming Fee created a web based portal and electronic mail deal with via which anybody can report harassment of athletes. State officers will then examine the declare. And if the harassment meets a sure degree of seriousness, officers will put the particular person on the state’s exclusion listing, which bans them from sports activities betting apps and casinos. (The method additionally features a 30-day window for folks to enchantment.)
- By the numbers: Final fall, the NCAA launched a report that discovered 7% of Division I males’s athletes reported being on the receiving finish of betting-related harassment. However that quantity was larger amongst sure teams. For instance, 36% of D1 males’s basketball gamers reported betting-related social media abuse. (NCAA President Charlie Baker — who appointed Maynard to the Gaming Fee when he was governor — has cited the harassment as purpose to ban prop bets on faculty sports activities.)
- The Gaming Fee additionally launched an anti-harassment public consciousness marketing campaign that includes various professional Boston athletes. “ Nobody’s going to hearken to me, proper? … I am the chair of the Gaming Fee,” Maynard stated. “However we thought that folks could hearken to Griffin [Yow] or Garrett [Crochet] or Jeremy [Swayman] or Brad [Stevens].”
Main results: It seems like not less than one Boston-area state senator will probably be ousted in any case — although maybe not one many anticipated. The Related Press has declared lawyer Persis Yu the winner over incumbent state Sen. Mike Rush, a reasonable Democrat from West Roxbury, within the major for Norfolk and Suffolk Senate seat. With 98% of ballots counted, Yu was up by greater than 600 votes as of Thursday morning.
- The result is a considerably ironic twist, as Boston Mayor Michelle Wu boosted progressive challengers to 2 native state senators who thwarted her proposal to briefly shift extra of the town’s property tax burden from householders to companies. In the meantime, Rush was the Senate sponsor of Wu’s proposal and had the mayor’s endorsement.
Not responsible: Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins was shortly acquitted by a jury yesterday on federal extortion costs. Tompkins was accused of pressuring the co-founder of a Boston hashish enterprise to promote him $50,000 price of inventory within the firm earlier than it went public — after which demanding a refund when the worth plummeted. Nonetheless, Tompkins maintained his innocence. His legal professionals argued the federal government’s case was “sheer fiction” from an “untrustworthy” supply who testified to get immunity. The jury returned its verdict lower than 4 hours after closing arguments wrapped up. WBUR’s Eve Zuckoff has extra particulars from contained in the Moakley Courthouse right here.
- What’s subsequent: Tompkins — who stepped away from his position as sheriff simply over a yr in the past after the fees have been first introduced — hopes to return to work quickly, in response to his lawyer. “I am personally glad that Suffolk County can get their elected sheriff again to work within the very close to future,” lawyer Martin Weinberg instructed Eve, although he could not say when precisely.
In the meantime: Jurors within the Lindsay Clancy homicide trial are set to renew deliberations for a sixth day immediately. Plymouth Superior Courtroom Decide William Sullivan once more ordered the group to maintain attempting to achieve a unanimous resolution yesterday. (It was the second time this week they instructed the choose they remained deadlocked.) Sullivan issued what’s known as “Tuey Rodriguez” directions, primarily telling the jurors they’re in the very best place to resolve the case. WBUR’s Deb Becker studies these directions — also referred to as the “dynamite possibility” — are often the final likelihood for the jury to resolve earlier than the choose declares a mistrial.
P.S.— At this time and Friday are anticipated to be the busiest days on the street forward of Labor Day weekend, so go away early if you happen to’re touring for the vacation. In contrast to different vacation durations, AAA says Labor Day journey is usually concentrated right into a shorter window, that means harder peak visitors occasions. Click on right here to search out out when AAA estimates the visitors will probably be at its worst every day.