Many are tired of getting clocked by Daylight Saving Time: Is there a permanent solution?

Early next month Daylight Saving Time will end, giving us back the hour taken away in March but also casting us on the path to late afternoon darkness, including the dreaded 4:30 sunsets (the exact nadir is 4:11 p.m. in early December). The switching of time back and forth is widely viewed as not only a pain in the butt, but also a self-inflicted public health problem when clocks spring forward in March.

Surely Congress can rescue us. But it hasn’t. The movement to enshrine Daylight Saving Time as permanent has stalled in Congress, despite the best efforts of Sen. Edward Markey, among other senators. The Sunshine Protection Act passed the U.S. Senate in 2022, but not the House before the legislative session ended. It was reintroduced this year, but don’t count on it passing.

It turns out the Daylight people have opposition, those who believe maintaining Standard Time is a better option for public health — including that Standard Time aligns with the natural circadian cycle, whereas Daylight Saving Time is an hour ahead. The issue has reached the State House, including with Rep. Angelo Puppulo’s bill, H.3103, for permanent Standard Time, which will be discussed at the Joint Committee of State Administration and Regulatory Oversight this Tuesday.

We’ll be grateful for the extra hour on Nov. 5, but most of us want a system that doesn’t have us changing our clocks twice a year.

Mitt Romney unloads on Republican party

Former Presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, having announced he will not seek re-election to a one of the U.S. senators from Utah, had some harsh words for the Republican party in an interview broadcast Sunday. “I come from a tradition of, you know, Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush and John McCain,” he told Norah O’Donnell for CBS’s “Sunday Morning” program. Those are the people that have shaped our party: anti-Putin, anti-Russia, anti-authoritarians, anti-Kim Jong Un, character counts, that the character of our leaders makes a difference and it shapes the character of our country. That’s the party I’ve come from. And I don’t recognize that in the great majority of our party today. And that, for me, is very troubling.” — CBS

Healey: No sign Baker knew of GLX woes

Gov. Maura Healey told WBZ’s Jon Keller that there are no signs that former Gov. Charlie Baker was aware of problems with substandard tracks on Green Line Extension when he officially launched service on the $2.3 billion project in 2022. “I have no information suggesting he knew,” Healey said. — Boston Herald

Meanwhile, scores of passengers–including at least one Globe reporter–riding the Green Line Extension on Friday were forced to exit T cars and walk along the troubled tracks after a power outage stopped service for four hours. — Boston Globe

A new legislator’s anti-gun appeal comes from a painful place

Freshman Democratic state Rep. Adrianne Ramos took to the floor last week to argue for expanding the categories of people who may formally ask judges to seize individual’s guns before those people are convicted of offenses. She told Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham the story behind her passion for the topic. Ramos spoke about a client she represented while a lawyer in Virginia who was shot and killed by a man from which she was seeking to distance herself and their child. — Boston Globe

Think buying a home is expensive in Massachusetts? Try renting

Renters in Massachusetts are paying a substantially larger share of their income on housing than homebuyers are paying, according to an Axios Boston analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources. The most-extreme age group of several Axios examined consists of homes headed by 35- to 64-year-olds. For those Massachusetts residents, rent cost an average of 51 percent of income and ownership cost an average of 22 percent of income.

The data is the latest in a wave of information highlighting the challenges posed by the state’s high housing costs. — Axios Boston

Bay State Republicans say public on their side in Voter ID push 

Christian Wade of the Eagle-Tribune reports MassGOP Amy Carnevale is emphasizing the divide between the state’s voters–more than half of whom support enacting Voter ID requirements–and  Democratic lawmakers who have repeatedly blocked legislation on the issue as the party launches its push to get the question directly before voters in 2024. — Eagle-Tribune

Boston doesn’t make the grade in educated city list

A new Forbes ranking of cities by citizens’ educational attainment  doesn’t look too good for Boston. The Hub of the Universe came in 13th in a ranking of 100 U.S. cities. The Boston Business Journal reported that the Forbes ranking is more kind when examining the state as a whole and not just Boston. The top five on the list are: Arlington, Va.; Atlanta; Washington, D.C.; Austin, Texas; and Madison, Wis. The city that took 100th place is Hialeah, Florida. — Boston Business Journal

Globe editorializes on behalf of limiting communities’ ability to regulate accessible dwelling units

The Boston Globe’s editorial board argued this week in favor of a proposal by Gov. Maura Healey to strip cities and towns of the ability to regulate accessory dwelling units — in-law apartments, historically — in a number of ways. The Globe argues that many cities and towns in Greater Boston that have dropped outright prohibitions against the apartments or small dwellings have used the special permitting process to erect barriers. The Healey administration estimates changing the rules could lead to the creation of 8,000 such units in Greater Boston over the next five years. — Boston Globe

Use of app gets evidence tossed out of court

An undercover Boston police officer used one of the many smartphone apps to record conversations with an alleged drug dealer. The state appeals court, accepting an argument from the alleged drug dealer’s lawyer, ruled that the officer had violated the state’s statute governing the interception of electronic communications without court orders. The alleged bad guy still could have problems, though, as the court ruled the officer could testify about what he recalls of the conversations at issue — Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly

Challenger accuses Sarno of running out of the clock in Springfield mayoral race 

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno isn’t taking part in two candidate forums ahead of the Nov. 8 final election and his challenger, City Councilor Justin Hurst, says the movers are depriving voters of a robust debate about the city’s future. MassLive’s Jim Kinney reports Sarno, who is seeking a seventh term, took part in one public forum before the September preliminary. — MassLive

Oak Bluffs homeless shelter plan dropped in face of pushback, extended review 

A Martha’s Vineyard nonprofit is dropping its bid to create a permanent winter-only overnight shelter for the island’s homeless after neighbors in Oak Bluffs strongly opposed it and the local zoning board voted to require an extended review of the project by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. — Vineyard Gazette

Rough start: Egremont voters deal blow to rural school district merger 

After ten years of discussion, a plan to merge two rural school districts in the Berkshires will get an airing before voters at seven town meetings on Monday, but is already facing long odds after voters in Egremont resoundingly voted against the move on Saturday. — Berkshire Eagle

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