PODCAST · news
WBUR News
by WBUR
A lot happens in Boston every day. To help you keep up, WBUR, Boston's NPR News station, pulled these stories together just for you.
Episodes
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In New England, towns are using a very old approach to take on data centers
Towns and cities across the region are using tools of local control to slow or stop data center development within their borders.
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WBUR’s Margaret Low to step down as CEO in June, after 40 years in public media
Low, 67, plans to stay on the job until the end of June 2027 and announced the decision in an email to staff Tuesday. She will join WBUR’s Board of Directors the following fall.
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For Sikhs in Mass., there's hard work in balancing assimilation with cultural traditions
With just a few thousand members, the Sikh community in Massachusetts is small compared to other parts of the country. To preserve culture amid the forces of assimilation — and the pressures to conform within Sikh culture — can be a real challenge.
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How some AI researchers skip big data centers by thinking small
Popular chatbots like Claude and ChatGPT are powered by models trained on enormous amounts of information, which means spending billions on vast data centers that take more power and water than entire cities. Instead, roboticists like Matthias Scheutz are thinking small. They’re designing AI...
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Harvard physician, former White House advisor publishes playbook on responding to crises
Physician Raj Panjabi joined WBUR's All Things Considered to discuss how meeting people where they are can help improve medical outcomes.
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Republican lieutenant governor nominee's OUI charge leaves party ticket in limbo
WBUR senior reporter Gin Dumcius joins Morning Edition to explain why Oliver will still appear on ballots in November.
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Behind the data center backlash, anxiety about AI
Experts keeping an eye on this tumultuous moment for data centers argue that for many people, the facilities represent something greater than their material impacts. They are a proxy for fears about the industry that’s driving this boom in development: artificial intelligence.
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A proposal for a more holistic sexual ethic on campus
The high-profile sexual assault case at Cornell University exposes, Harvard undergraduate Yona Sperling-Milner argues in her college's student newspaper, the inadequacy of consent as a threshold for ethical sex.
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Proposed AI regulations could be some of the most strict in the country
The proposal could mandate independent evaluations of the companies' AI models and safety protocols.
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Healey and Minogue meet in unbridled final debate before election
Gov. Maura Healey and challenger Mike Minogue shared a stage but little else Thursday, as the Democrat and Republican savaged each other's positions during their last debate before Election Day.
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Olympian gymnast Frederick Richard talks growing up in Stoughton and upcoming World Championships
Frederick Richard, the 22-year-old Olympic gymnast from Stoughton, spoke with WBUR about what the upcoming World Championships mean for him, learning gymnastics in Massachusetts and what changes he hopes to see in the gymnastics world.
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New exhibit highlights work of local playground designer and woodworker Mitch Ryerson
Mitch Ryerson, a woodworker, uses his talents to make playgrounds for kids and wooden benches for his community. A new exhibit open now in Cambridge called "Joyful Anarchy" shows his process and what he's designed. Ryerson shares more about his career in play and what it has meant to the...
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Amid pushback, Boston moves ahead with Blue Hill Ave. center bus lanes project
The MBTA and Boston city officials are advancing a controversial project that would install a center-running bus lane on a portion of Blue Hill Ave, but many community members are apprehensive about the plan.
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Teach for America executive can't meet Mass. demand for STEM teachers
Every year, several Massachusetts communities ask Teach For America for more science and math teachers than the nonprofit can provide.
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State ballot question takes aim at cities and towns that resist new housing
The measure would set a uniform minimum lot size for housing construction statewide.
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The pros and cons of no-party primary elections
WBUR's Tiziana Dearing spoke to Evan Horowitz, the executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, about the pros and cons of no-party primary elections.
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John Deaton's biggest challenge isn't Ed Markey. It's President Trump
John Deaton knows he faces an uphill fight in a state that hasn't sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate since Scott Brown won in 2010. But the Republican thinks embracing good ideas, rather than sticking with party lines, is the ticket to unseating incumbent Ed Markey come November.
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Mass. high court must decide what to do about ICE arrests during criminal trials
Jennifer Smith, senior reporter for the CommonWealth Beacon, sat down with WBUR's Tiziana Dearing to discuss her reporting on the SJC case.
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What we can learn from 30 years of embedding social workers with Boston police
YouthConnect started more than 30 years ago to help address rising youth violence in Boston.
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Trial begins for former Stoughton cop charged with killing Sandra Birchmore
Senior investigative reporter Patrick Madden joins WBUR's All Things Considered to break down the case.
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Question 8: Mass. voters weigh measure that would topple recreational marijuana industry
Question 8 will ask voters whether to repeal the laws that made Massachusetts the sixth state in the country to legalize recreational marijuana sales.
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Q Division Studios went old-school for a week with reel-to-reel tape
The 40-year-old recording studio in Cambridge pushed its computers to the side to make old-school reel-to-reel recording accessible to musicians in a digital age.
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For a new-look Celtics team, the journey begins
The Boston Celtics begin their preseason Thursday night with some new faces — and without a familiar one.
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What Star Market gives us
Alysia Abbott's son Finn, 19, loves Star Market. He loves it so much, a visit to Star has been a weekly ritual for eight years. "After I pick him up from his residential school each week, if I don’t say 'Let’s go to Star,' he’ll hold my gaze and point out the window until we do," she writes.
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Gazan man living in Mass. feels pull of homeland as children move forward
Jaser AbuMousa settled in Walpole with his two surviving children just over a year after an Israeli air strike hit his home and killed his wife, two of his children and other family members. He said his kids prefer to not talk about Gaza and the loved ones they lost.
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Measles is surging in the U.S., and doctors warn Massachusetts could be at risk
While 96.5% of Massachusetts kindergarteners had received measles vaccines last school year, state data shows some counties dipped below the 95% threshold considered essential for herd immunity, making their students more vulnerable to infections.
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Late Congressman Barney Frank's new book argues progressives are partly responsible for Trump's rise
In a posthumously published book, the former Massachusetts congressman spells out where he believes the party went wrong and how it helped fuel the rise of Donald Trump and his brand of "xenophobic populism."
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Austin Bryant sees the present through the lens of the past
Combining archival imagery and his pictures of present-day landscapes, the photographer and writer brings new meaning to places like Franklin Park and Martha’s Vineyard, where his family traces its roots.
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Christian Hernán De Restrepo creates new worlds with his designs
The Boston-based artist envisions life in Latin America if Spanish colonization had never happened with his project “A Él Mismo." It’s a love letter — to himself, his heritage and his family.
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For Ifé Franklin, art is a portal to the ancestors
The Roxbury artist’s work offers a way to cross between worlds, from life-size slave cabins to sacred “ring shouts” that connect the living to the dead. "The borders are real," Franklin said, "and they are to be unlearned if we are to march into the future."
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Naturalist Maria Pinto sees fungi as a form of resistance
The educator and writer spends a lot of her time thinking about mycelia. She leads mushroom walks around Greater Boston and last year published a collection of essays. “When a kingdom of life defies these sorts of easy categorization, it's clear that we have a lot to learn from them,” Pinto said.
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Steph Davis wants to reconnect the marimba to its African roots
The Boston-based marimbist knew he wanted to have a life in music from the moment he first touched a marimba. Now, he is on a mission to expand the repertoire of the classical marimba.
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Jazz composer Zahili Zamora channels her journey through music
The pianist's compositions unfold like chapters in a story of artistic evolution. She shares her inner journey through sophisticated Afro-Cuban rhythms blended with the spirit of contemporary jazz and a touch of classical.
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Zainab Sumu turns ordinary objects into the extraordinary
The multimedia artist’s appreciation of traditional techniques and materials is a way for ancestral wisdom to be passed to newer generations and audiences. “Through these objects, through bodies, through rituals, through the cultural practices,” Sumu said, “it is how those memories, those...
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Republican Senate candidate John Deaton tours Burlington ICE facility
Deaton spent about an hour and a half inside ICE's New England headquarters with a campaign staffer, who ICE also allowed in for the tour. Such inspections are typically offered to members of Congress.
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Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's strategy for AI
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is launching an 'AI fluency' initiative aimed at helping high school seniors understand how to use artificial intelligence and the tool's pitfalls.
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A Mass. tech darling went bankrupt. What does that say about the state of the green tech industry?
Ascend Elements promised to change the way we recycle batteries.
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Massachusetts releases first-ever clergy sex abuse investigation for Worcester, Fall River and Springfield
Attorney General Andrea Campbell called the report “the first, full public accounting of the abuse, misconduct and institutional failures at the dioceses that allowed the abuse to happen.”
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MIT professor says 'cognitive surrender' to AI is rampant on college campuses
MIT computer scientist Sam Madden joins WBUR's Morning Edition to discuss a report he co-authored that investigates the extent of AI use among MIT students.
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Poll of ballot questions shows a tight contest for all-party primaries, little appetite for cannabis ban
Steve Koczela, president of MassINC Polling Group, joins WBUR's Morning Edition to discuss the survey's findings.
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UMass biologists discover what may be the world's loudest birds
Biologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered what may be the world’s loudest birds. There are now three contenders for the Noisiest Bird Award, all living in Brazil. But exactly why these birds are so loud remains a mystery.
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Rats are constantly talking to each other. In Boston, scientists are using AI to eavesdrop
By mapping their vocal repertoire and building a rat "dictionary," nonprofit AI group Basis Research Institute hopes to help the city map where rats are, where they’ll go next and determine whether deterrent efforts are working.
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Question 3 asks voters to decide if all-party primaries will boost or stifle competition in state elections
Supporters of Question 3 say it would make statewide elections more competitive and give voters more choice. Opponents of the initiative say it would do just the opposite.
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World Cup fans gather in Chelsea for the state's only public Spanish-language watch party
While dozens of events are popping up around the Massachusetts, Chelsea is hosting the only public Spanish-language watch parties in the state. Organizers think the 39-day-long "Fiesta Fútbol" is an opportunity to turn the page on a difficult period for the largely working class, immigrant city.
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The Tartan Army is coming
Scotland play two of their three opening round World Cup matches in Boston. That means, for the next week or so, there'll be kilts as far as the eye can see. Cloe Axelson got a taste of the Tartan Army at The Haven in Jamaica Plain.
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The A.R.T.’s ‘Black Swan’ turns horror into something you can sing
In Darren Aronofsky's 2010 psychological thriller “Black Swan,” a production of the classical ballet “Swan Lake” becomes an unexpected locus of horror. Now, the story is being reimagined by the American Repertory Theater in another surprising package: a musical.
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Scientists are injecting elm trees with a killer fungus to save them
About 50 years ago, Dutch elm disease wiped out most of the American elm trees, but some survived. Now, scientists in Vermont are injecting these trees and saplings with the disease to identify and breed more resistant elms. They hope to bring more big American elms back to the East Coast.
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Despite latest scandal, Graham Platner is poised to win Maine Senate primary
A number of senior Democrats across the country are standing by Platner, an oyster farmer who gained significant momentum early in the race, and the party's only chance of taking on Republican Susan Collins.
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Balsa wood airplanes have taken flight — and delivered joy — from Wakefield for 100 years
Guillow's delivers aviation joy via balsa wood airplanes — those featherweight gliders that people have been tossing through the air and trying to untangle from tree branches since, basically, forever.
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Welcome to Boston? Transit-savvy World Cup visitors may be surprised by the T's dingy stations
Locals are accustomed to the T’s dank conditions. But as global soccer fans make their way to Boston for the World Cup, many will come from cities with clean, state-of-the-art public transit — and may be surprised at the MBTA’s less-than-sparkling, dungeon-like spaces.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
A lot happens in Boston every day. To help you keep up, WBUR, Boston's NPR News station, pulled these stories together just for you.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does WBUR News have?
WBUR News currently has 50 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is WBUR News about?
A lot happens in Boston every day. To help you keep up, WBUR, Boston's NPR News station, pulled these stories together just for you.
How often does WBUR News release new episodes?
WBUR News has 50 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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Who hosts WBUR News?
WBUR News is created and hosted by WBUR.
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