GBH Daily: Can I ask you a question?

This is a web edition of GBH Daily, a weekday newsletter bringing you local stories you can trust so you can stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. ☂️Rainy day with highs in the 80s. Sunset is at 8:13 p.m. Today we have your first look at what questions will be on your ballot in November. But first: Massachusetts has almost 85,000 international students, usually in the country on temporary student visas. Until now, students have generally been allowed to stay in the U.S. as long as they remained enrolled in their programs. But the Trump administration is ending that policy and making new rules that would make student visas, as well as visas for international journalists, valid for only four years starting in September — even for students pursuing degrees that take significantly longer than four years to complete, such as PhDs. Students can request extensions, but doing so would add a layer of bureaucracy and uncertainty that has people like Matthew Maiona, an immigration attorney and adjunct professor at Suffolk University Law School, worried about a potential brain drain. “It’s going to stop innovation in the United States, and the best and brightest aren’t going to want to come here, because they feel the pressure they’re not welcome or wanted,” Maiona said. GBH’s Sarah Betancourt and Hannah Reale have more on the policy here. Four Things to Know 1. Activists and community groups in Worcester are saying City Manager Eric Batista is wrong in his reluctance to create an independent police review board. That includes longtime Worcester Human Rights Commission member Jacqueline Yang, who said Batista’s stance on the review board was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” “They have such extraordinary power, the police. Extraordinary accountability is required,” Human Rights Commission Chair Randy Feldman said. Mayor Joseph Petty and City Councilor Kathleen Toomey have said they do not believe the review board is necessary; Worcester Police Chief Paul Saucier said he doesn’t think it would be effective and police union head Thomas Duffy II said a review board is a way to “defund” the police. 2. The city of Boston and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are working on plans to protect the city from sea level rise and coastal flooding. These flood walls, soil berms and redesigns of waterfront areas would cost about $10 billion, with the federal government picking up 65% of the tab and state, local and private money covering the rest. “More than 40% of our residents now live in areas at risk of coastal flooding, including some communities who are more than a mile away from the ocean,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said. “Without action, we risk more than $54 billion in damages to our homes, hospitals, businesses, roads and other critical infrastructure by the end of the century.” 3. Massachusetts currently limits abortions after 24 weeks of gestation, allowing them only under certain circumstances: to preserve the life of the pregnant person, to preserve the person’s physical or mental health, or because of a lethal fetal anomaly or a “grave fetal diagnosis.” Members of the House Ways and Means Committee voted yesterday to advance a bill that would do away with those criteria and replace them with simpler language: abortion after 24 weeks “may be performed by a physician based upon the professional judgment of the physician.” 4. Yesterday’s Red Sox game against the Baltimore Orioles was cancelled because of rain, so the teams are scheduled for a doubleheader today: one game at 1:35 p.m. and another at 7:10 p.m. The Red Sox are on a 14-game winning streak. The team’s longest-ever winning streak was 15 games long, back in 1946 when Ted Williams played. A primer to the 2026 Massachusetts ballot questions You’ll see nine statewide questions on your ballot when you vote this Nov. 3 — or earlier, if you vote early or by mail. We will have significantly more reporting on these questions as Election Day gets closer, but for now, here’s a list of what you can expect. Question 1, expanding the public records law, would make the Legislature and governor’s offices subject to the state’s public records act. Right now they are legally exempt from it, though they can choose to release records voluntarily. Question 2, collective bargaining for Committee for Public Counsel Services employees, would make it legal for the state’s full-time public defenders and other CPCS employees to form a union. Question 3, state primary elections, would change the way we do primaries for statewide offices. Instead of having Democrats run against Democrats and Republicans run against Republicans in separate primaries, all candidates, regardless of party, would appear on the same primary ballot and the top two vote-getters would proceed to the general. Boston already runs its municipal elections this way. Question 4, Election Day registration, would allow eligible voters to register and cast their ballots on Election Day. Massachusetts already allows same-day registration during early voting periods. Question 5, state revenue limit and rebate, would cap how much money the state can collect in taxes and fees each year and require the state to return any money over that limit, to taxpayers. Question 6, Natural Resource Conservation Fund, would require that state taxes collected on sporting goods, recreational vehicles and golf courses be put into a fund for environmental conservation. Question 7, single-family homes, would change zoning rules statewide to allow a single-family home to be built on a residential lot larger than 5,000 square feet. Right now, minimum lot sizes vary by municipality but are usually larger. Question 8, prohibit the retail sale of adult-use recreational marijuana, would repeal the ballot question from 2016 that made cannabis sales legal. Question 9: firearms regulation, would uphold a 2024 gun law passed by the Legislature. Unlike the other questions, where a yes vote changes the law and a no vote preserves the status quo, this is a veto referendum in which a yes vote upholds the law and a no vote repeals it. How did officials arrive at this order? Since ballots this year will be long — two to three pages, depending on what other races are happening in your district — the Secretary of State’s Office tried to minimize how much space the question summaries would take up on the page. Note that questions about rent control and about the state’s income tax won’t be on the ballot — the state’s highest court disqualified them for their wording. Dig deeper: -‘We made a mistake’: After court tosses 2 ballot questions, attorney general defends her record -Massachusetts voters could decide a record number of ballot questions in 2026