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Boston will launch a new health equity initiative to address improve and address disparities in life expectancy across the city, Mayor Michelle Wu and the Boston Public Health Commission announced.
“Boston is a city that is rich with high quality health care resources,” said Commissioner of Public Health Bisola Ojikutu. “Yet, we have long-standing gaps in life expectancy and other health outcomes by race, ethnicity and neighborhood. In order to close these gaps, we need to focus on drivers of poor health that exist outside the walls of health care institutions, like poverty and economic inequality.”
City officials announced the start of the Live Long and Well agenda at a press conference at Vine Street Community Center in Roxbury. The agenda, kicking off with $10 million in funding from the Atrius Health Equity Foundation, will facilitate community partnerships and focus on Boston’s three leading causes of premature mortality: cardiometabolic diseases like diabetes and heart disease, cancers of the breast, cervix, colon, prostate, and lung, and drug overdoses.
While overall average life expectancy in Boston rebounded to 82 years since the pandemic and remains high for the country, stark disparities remain, speakers noted.
A BPHC’s Health of Boston 2023 report found that the average life expectancy in the Nubian Square area of Roxbury is 69 years old. Two miles over in Back Bay, the average life expectancy rises to 92 years old, 23 more years.
“The difference between Back Bay and Roxbury isn’t just distance — it’s income, it’s parks and green spaces, it’s access to healthy affordable food, education and opportunity,” Wu said. “And so our health equity agenda is designed to take these gaps on directly and to build on all the work that’s already happening in the community, across every department in the city, every neighborhood across Boston.”
The same 2023 report found that the racial gap in life expectancy in Boston has widened since the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic in 2019 Black residents of Boston lived until 77 on average, four years less than white residents. In 2023, Black residents lived until 76 years on average, six years less than white residents.
In terms of cardiometabolic diseases, Black residents died of diabetes at a 220% higher rate than white residents, the Health of Boston 2023 report found, and of heart disease at a 37% higher rate. Latino residents died of diabetes at an 80% higher rate than white residents.
The $10 million from Atrius Health Equity Foundation will support “community-led coalitions to improve financial wellbeing in communities with poor cardiometabolic health outcomes” as part of a strategy developed by the Boston Community Health Collaborative, the city said.
The city will be seeking proposals to work with organizations on this initiative helping at-risk residents “meet basic needs, have more access to financial supports and wealth-building opportunities, and navigate complex healthcare and social support systems.”
The agenda includes several existing programs and initiatives to prevent cardiometabolic diseases. Further details are listed on the Live Long and Well agenda on boston.gov/live-long.
Boston Red Sox
No games have been played, but the Red Sox’s series against the New York Mets is already off to a rocky start.
That’s thanks to a series of travel issues that caused a 17-hour delay from the time Boston was supposed to depart Chicago to the time it actually took off. The Red Sox should have left Illinois at 9:45 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday night, landing in New York around midnight.
Instead, the team took off at approximately 3 p.m. ET on Friday. They’ll land around 5 p.m., making it to New York just barely in time for their 7:15 p.m. game against the Mets.
The Boston Globe‘s Tim Healey and Alex Speier reported the delay, and their sources didn’t give any specific reason for the issues, just that Boston “encountered multiple plane issues in trying to continue to New York.”
As of 4 p.m. ET, the Red Sox-Mets game will continue as scheduled at 7:15 p.m. Friday. Sonny Gray is set to take the bump for Boston, which enters Friday an undefeated 6-0 on its recent road trip.
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BOSTON (WHDH) – Police are investigating a shooting in Downtown Crossing that occurred Thursday night.
Officials said the shooting occurred around 10:30 p.m. near Tremont and Temple Streets.
When officers arrived on scene, they found a man with a gunshot wound; he is expected to survive.
Police have not said if any arrests have been made.
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Local News
An East Boston father is suing ICE, alleging immigration agents unlawfully stopped, arrested, and detained him because of his race and national origin despite having his legal status, his lawyers said.
Lawyers for Civil Rights filed the lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Jose Pineda, a 62-year-old Salvadoran immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for more than three decades and is authorized to remain and work through humanitarian relief, the nonprofit legal organization said in a press release.
The suit is seeking damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act, alleging false arrest, false imprisonment, assault, and severe emotional distress.
“I came to the United States to escape the civil war that devastated El Salvador. I worked hard, started a family, and built a life here,” said Pineda, who works as a landscaper and lives with his wife and 13-year-old daughter. “I never expected to feel that kind of fear again, much less in the United States.”
According to the 30-page complaint, written by LCR senior attorneys Victoria Miranda and Mirian Albert, Pineda has been a recipient of Temporary Protected Status, which allows certain foreign nationals from designated countries to live and work legally in the U.S.
Pineda also had a pending asylum petition and had been granted a T visa, which provides immigration protections to trafficking victims, the complaint states.
“We will not stand idly by as ICE wreaks havoc on immigrant families. Through racial profiling, ICE agents are carrying out an unquestionably discriminatory agenda,” Miranda said in the release. “The law exists to protect people like Mr. Pineda, and it must be enforced against ICE.”
The lawsuit stems from a May 2025 encounter in Weymouth, where Pineda was driving a landscaping truck to a job site when agents in unmarked ICE vehicles surrounded him, according to the complaint.
“The aggressive nature of the questioning made it clear to Mr. Pineda that he was not being judged based on any evidence of unlawful conduct, but rather on his identity, race, ethnicity, and/or national origin,” Pineda’s attorneys wrote.
The lawsuit alleges ICE officers then “forcibly” handcuffed and shackled Pineda before taking him to the agency’s field office in Burlington.
Officers searched Pineda’s belongings during the stop and again at the field office, allegedly confiscating $600 in cash that he intended to use to pay his family’s rent. The money has not been returned, according to the complaint.
Pineda spent two days in ICE custody under what the lawsuit describes as “cruel and inhumane conditions.”
“After what ICE did to me, and after everything my family has endured, I don’t know if I will ever truly feel safe again,” Pineda said.
According to the complaint, he was held in severely overcrowded cells containing more than 40 people — at times as many as 60 — leaving little room to sit and forcing him to remain standing for much of his detention. Detainees also allegedly shared a single toilet and sink without soap or toilet paper and were not provided toothbrushes, clean clothes, or showers.
Fluorescent lights remained on around the clock, making it difficult to sleep, while temperatures became “extremely cold” overnight and some detainees received only aluminum blanekts for warmth, the complaint states.
Pineda was given only a two-minute phone call during his detention and received two bottles of water each day, along with “inadequate and limited” food and water, according to the complaint.
“Mr. Pineda has suffered devastating and ongoing physical and emotional harm that has impacted all aspects of his life,” his attorneys wrote. “Mr. Pineda brings this action to seek accountability for these violent and traumatizing tortious acts of the ICE officers and to address the harms inflicted upon him.”
According to LCR, Pineda was released following advocacy by Centro Presente, a Massachusetts immigrant rights organization.
After his release, ICE initiated removal proceedings against him depsite his humanitarian protections, the organization said. Those proceedings were ultimately dismissed.
“ICE targeted Mr. Pineda based on nothing more than his perceived national origin and the nature of his work,” Albert said in the press release. “Our laws prohibit this kind of arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Through this lawsuit, we seek to hold the federal government accountable for the violence and harm inflicted on Mr. Pineda.”
ICE referred questions about the lawsuit to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.
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