Massachusetts
Massachusetts warns patients over ‘unconscionable’ crisis pregnancy centers
The Bay State has launched a new public awareness ad campaign aimed at warning pregnant patients to avoid so-called crisis pregnancy centers, which officials say use deception and fear to steer people away from an abortion.
Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Robbie Goldstein said the state hopes to inform residents about the dangers of “Anti-Abortion Centers,” which he said often disguise themselves as medical facilities even if they aren’t licensed to provide medical care and may use a veneer of professionalism to peddle false information about the supposed risks of available care options.
“Inside they may look like medical clinics, with staff wearing scrubs or lab coats, but most centers are not even licensed clinics nor are the staff that are usually there licensed medical providers,” he said. “These centers offer pregnancy testing, and many perform and read ultrasounds, but ultimately they deceive patients, plying them with pro-life pamphlets, religious information, and fliers about adoption resources and withholding information about comprehensive reproductive options.”
Goldstein, speaking Monday alongside U.S. Reps. Katherine Clark and Jake Auchincloss and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kate Walsh at Women’s Health Services in Brookline, said that — as a doctor — he finds the practices employed at these centers “unconscionable.”
The untrained staff at these facilities, he said, use fear and “outright lies” to influence an abortion seeker’s decision, inventing possible injuries and warning of the supposed psychological effects of abortion without any basis in medical science. Patients are “bribed” with promises of baby clothes and diapers, he said, and shown misleading ultrasound images used to “shame or guilt” them into going forward with a pregnancy.
People of color, young patients, “and those who may not have the means to afford a child” are specifically targeted by these centers, Goldstein said.
“The tactics they employ to dissuade people from getting abortions are insidious and they are dangerous,” he said.
Clark, the House Minority Whip, said that anti-abortion activists are waging a “nationwide campaign of disinformation, one patient at a time.”
“These extremists are opening fake clinics, to lure in women at their most vulnerable, obstruct their right to choose the treatment that they want, and withhold healthcare that any real doctor would provide immediately. These are con artists posing as healthcare professionals. They are knowingly, and happily, misleading patients for the sake of their ideology,” she said.
Auchincloss, who represents the district where the awareness campaign was launched, said that since the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade and the federal protection of abortion it provided, the prevalence of anti-abortion clinics has grown.
“Before the Supreme Court gutted Roe, the average American was 25 miles from an abortion provider. In 2023, post Roe, that distance became 86 miles. Nationally, abortion clinics are outpaced by ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ at a rate of three-to-one and there are currently 30 anti-abortion clinics in Massachusetts, and three in my district alone,” he said.
The pro-life Catholic Action League denounced the Healey Administration’s outreach efforts as defamation against pro-life centers, refuting the assertions made by Goldstein.
“Pregnancy care centers offer women compassionate alternatives to abortion. This latest campaign demonstrates the cynical hypocrisy of decades of rhetoric about ‘choice.’ It is now clear that for abortion proponents, only one choice is acceptable,” Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle said in a statement.
The $1 million campaign is funded by the 2023 budget to run for the next several months, Goldstein said, and it will include ads in English and Spanish which went live Monday on social media, with ads on radio billboards, and transit to come. More information can be found at mass.gov/avoid-anti-abortion-centers.
A teenager was pulled from a pond in Milton, Massachusetts, after he went missing while swimming Saturday night.
The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office said the teenaged male was taken to a Boston area hospital following the incident at Houghton’s Pond. It’s unclear how long the teen was under water, and there was no immediate word on his condition.
State police had said earlier that they responded to the pond shortly after 7 p.m. for a person who entered the water and didn’t resurface. State police divers, detectives, troopers, and the Milton Fire Department were all on scene involved in the search.
The DA’s office is conducting an investigation with state police that remains ongoing. Further information is not being released at this time.
This story will be updated when we learn more
A Massachusetts man is facing multiple charges for allegedly engaging in inappropriate communications and exposing himself to children.
Orate Kyle Graham, 20, of Bridgewater, was arrested this week on two counts of disseminating obscene material to a minor and one count of accosting or annoying another person.
Bridgewater police said they were made aware Tuesday of allegations involving interactions between several girls age 12 and 13 and an individual known to them only as “Jay.” The individual said he was 17 years old during conversations with the girls through FaceTime and in person.
Through an investigation, police identified “Jay” as Graham, and also found that he had regularly engaged in interactions with the minor victims. During those interactions, he allegedly exposed himself and asked the girls to expose themselves to him.
He was arrested Thursday and taken to the Plymouth County House of Correction, where he was held on $25,000 bail. The case remains under investigation by Bridgewater police and the Plymouth District Attorney’s Office.
Massachusetts
Fisherman reels in white shark off Massachusetts, then snags the hook from its toothy mouth
BILLERICA, Mass. (AP) — Elliot Sudal didn’t need a bigger boat, but he did need to find a way to get a hook out of a shark’s mouth.
Sudal, a veteran angler and boat captain, reeled in the nearly nine-foot shark — also commonly known as a great white shark or a great white — on June 7 on Nantucket. White sharks are a protected species in the U.S. and must be released immediately when accidentally caught.
That presents a nasty problem for a fisherman because the white shark is a formidable apex predator best known for the 1975 movie Jaws, in which Roy Scheider utters the famous line “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” upon seeing the big fish. Sudal, who caught the shark while fishing from shore, decided to use his encounter to demonstrate how to respond to such a situation.
Sudal posted a video of himself removing the hook to his social media accounts. In the video, Sudal climbs onto the back of the shark, secures the fish in the surf, and removes the hook from its mouth. By the end of the short video, the shark is back in the water.
White sharks typically have about 300 teeth arranged into five rows, so speed was key.
“Hooks out and back on her way in 15 seconds, not sure how to do it better,” Sudal wrote in an Instagram post that included a video of the shark release.
Sudal is no stranger to sharks, and has caught and tagged hundreds of them over the years. He said in a social media post that this month’s encounter with a white shark was the first time he has ever caught one of them in more than a decade of the work.
Sudal’s practices have sometimes attracted the attention of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, such as in 2017, when the agency investigated his handling of a smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species, in Florida. The agency said in 2018 that it sent Sudal a letter “informing him of the Endangered Species Act issues and the safe handling protocol for sawfish.”
White sharks are not listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, but are subject to special federal protections. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers them vulnerable globally.
Sightings of white sharks off New England have ticked up in recent years, and some scientists have pinned that to the greater availability of the seals that they prey on. Dangerous encounters between white sharks and humans are extremely rare, and only a few dozen fatal white shark bites on people have ever been recorded.
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Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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