Some slightly off-the-beaten-path stories from the past week:

— It’s slacker discrimination! “Entitled and Nepotistic. This Is Not What Democrats Need” (NYT)

— You can thank recent housing construction for this welcome trend: “Greater Boston Apartment Leasing Slumps as Vacancies Hit 6.9 Percent” (Banker &Tradesman)

— And this is most welcome too, if it becomes a trend: “Greystar begins construction on Massachusetts’ largest modular housing development”  (BBJ) 

— Where the people go, so flows capital: “Mass. Migration Aiding Bank Movement to New Hampshire” (Banker & Tradesman)

— The board membership pendulum has now fully swung in the opposite direction: “Massachusetts Gov’s Council is slammed for ‘outrageous’ vote to reject ex-prosecutor from Parole Board” (Boston Herald)

— To boldly go where no ashes have gone before; “’Why not?’: Casket company to send ashes, DNA to space” (BBJ)

— A controversy coming to a Cape beach near you: “The $255 Beach Shade Dividing America’s Coastal Towns” (WSJ)

— The latest North End eatery to expand beyond the ‘hood: “Mike’s Pastry to Open at Logan Airport in East Boston” (Boston Restaurant Talk)

— Larry’s not impressed – and neither am I: “‘You Can’t Beat Boston’ is a start. But slogans won’t fix what ails the city” (Globe)

— There’s a lot of gem cities with cheap housing in the heartland: “The Midwesterm Exodus is Finally Ending” (WSJ)

— You just don’t tell certain people how they should dress: “How Business Casual Blew Up the Libertarian National Convention” (WSJ)

I don’t know the legal definition of a sanctuary state — or if such a definition even exists. But if Wikipedia’s definition of a sanctuary city (i.e., a government body that “limits or denies its cooperation with the national government in enforcement of immigration law”) is any indication, then Gov. Healey crossed the sanctuary-state line yesterday with her new guidance on how “schools, child care centers, health-care facilities and places of worship” should legally and peacefully respond to ICE raids, as the Globe reports. Which is fine, I guess. But she added: “I’m taking action to do whatever I can to keep our little kids safe, to keep their parents safe, and to send a message loud and clear to ICE that they need to stay out of Massachusetts and stay out of vulnerable, sensitive spaces.” … A message loud and clear to ICE that they need to stay out of Massachusetts and stay out of vulnerable, sensitive spaces. …OK, we’re in sanctuary-state territory with that line – on top of other recent anti-ICE calls and actions by the governor involving Hanscom Field, undercover license plates, and ICE misconduct portals, etc. — despite Healey’s past denials that Massachusetts is a sanctuary state.

Fyi: I’m against the Trump administration’s ICE goon squads and the cruel mass arrests and deportations of non-criminal immigrants (as well as against the administration’s proposed crackdown on law-abiding green-card holders). But I’m also against the open-border sentiments that have animated the sanctuary-city movement for years now, an attitude that played no small part in the state squandering billions of dollars on hotel rooms for illegal migrants. Healey used to straddle the political middle-ground between the two extremes. In this election year, she’s straddling no more.

Is CBS News chief Bari Weiss really going ahead with a significant shake-up at ’60 Minutes,’ the nation’s highest-rated television newsweekly whose viewership is up 9 percent this season despite the continued plunge in network news viewers across the broadcast and cable spectrum? Apparently so, according to this NYT update on the latest behind-the-scenes controversy at “60 Minutes.” … *

Fyi: One of Weiss’s reported “re-engineering” ideas is developing “60 Minutes-themed live events,” similar to  The New Yorker Festival and similar I guess to what Weiss, in extra-thick syrupy language, announced on Tuesday at her Free Press publication: ‘The Free Press Community,’ complete with a The Free Press Forum, The Free Press Supper Club and The Free Press Retreats and Excursions. … Actually, the live-events idea sounds like something every other media outlet has been trying for years now, from TCM Classic Cruises to BBJ business events to the Globe’s “events and experiences” lineup. … In other words: it’s not exactly an original idea. If anything, it sounds a little banal. But it’s harmless enough, I suppose.

* Update — Talk about timing. From the NYT, after my post above: “In a bid to remake the country’s top-rated news program, Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News, on Thursday unveiled an overhaul of ’60 Minutes,’ replacing the show’s executive producer with a tech journalist and firing two of its on-air correspondents.” … To my knowledge, she hasn’t given a clear explanation about why she’s doing this. It’s all so strange. I’m somewhat baffled, though I’m pretty sure it involves dashes of ideology, know-it-all-ism and petty vindictiveness .

Update II – From the LA Times: “(F)rom a business standpoint, ’60 Minutes’ is a curious target for a revamp. The program is one of the most profitable hours on the CBS prime-time schedule while retaining its status as television’s most prestigious journalism operation. While the ratings for “60 Minutes” get a boost from a lead-in from high-rated NFL late-afternoon games, it remains one of the few network shows that viewers make an appointment to watch.”

Now we’ll never get rid of him. … The award is for coaching during the regular season. You know, when half the NBA teams are deliberately tanking.

Oh, look. The Knicks fire their coach after losing a big playoff series. The next year? They’re in the NBA Finals. Stubborn Joe loses two early playoff series in a row and … he wins coach of the year for beating up bad teams during the regular season.

This is a strange one: Gov. Maura Healey is arguing that her recent emphasis on abortion issues is actually tied to economics, really and truly, and thus consistent with her new affordability agenda, really and truly, as the Globe reports … And here I was assuming it was tied to her likely Republican opponent Mike Minogue, whose anti-abortion stand is so pronounced that GOP rival Brian Shortsleeve says “he will never win a statewide election” because of it. …

The economy/affordability, Trump and abortion. Those are the three pillars of Healey’s campaign so far, in that order (on most days). … Btw: I’m aware of Healey’s favorability slippage in recent polls, but she’s still likely going to bury Minogue or anyone else the GOP throws against her.

Note: Re Healey’s determination to stay on affordability message … never mind.

Prediction markets. Cryptocurrency. Private credit. Now ETF weirdness, as the WSJ reports. … We’re in uncharted financial territory here, well beyond collateralized debt obligations.

Update — 5.24.26 – From the NYT: “How Prediction Markets and Crypto Firms Steamrolled a Watchdog Agency.”

Some slightly off-the-beaten-path stories you may have missed over the past week:

— Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy bemoans the PE takeover of youth sports: “My Son’s Hockey Team and the Crisis of American Resentment” (The Atlantic)

— Harvard professor and former gubernatorial candidate Danielle Allen deserves a medal for helping revive a long neglected classroom subject: “Reports of the Death of Civics Are Greatly Exaggerated” (NYT)

— Let’s see how our new affordability-conscious pols react to this plan: “Energy company proposes big natural gas pipeline expansion in New England” (WBUR)

— She’s basically defending price gouging: “Healey defends $80 World Cup train fare while New York drops shuttle price to $20” (BBJ)

— It’s the wrong reason to ban a jingle that deserves banning for pure annoyance reasons: “Judge Bars Kars4Kids From Broadcasting ‘Misleading’ Ads in California” (NYT)

— Yes, Watertown:  “How Watertown built a biotech hub out of long-vacant industrial land”  (BBJ)

— She paid gargantuan fees for Google search gimmicks?: “How a Secretive Firm Tried (and Failed) to Fix an Epstein Friend’s Tattered Image” (WSJ)

— The incumbent senator abandons the ignore-him strategy now that a poll shows the race tightening: “Markey and Moulton will debate in August” (WBUR)

 And check out last week’s Headlines of Interest, including one on Jack ‘Dude’ Schlossberg.

Fun stuff from Dion. …. Just a thought: A follow-up strike to the south could bag Quincy and Milton as well.

Update – I should point out that my Hub Blog tech advisor (i.e. my nephew) originally sent me the Dion link with a suggestion of further expansion: “Annex the Hub of the Universe, why not?” … I initially assumed he was referring to annexing UH — a truly provocative thought. Or was he referring to Hub Blog annexing all of Boston?

Want to see real insider trading? Check out Larry Edelman’s latest Globe piece: “Breaking bad: Ex-Goodwin Procter lawyer allegedly ran a decadelong insider-trading scheme.” … The feds say he and a pal allegedly traded on M&A info – and it involved dozens of deals. From Larry: 

Local deals cited in the indictments include Amazon’s $1.7 billion bid in 2022 for iRobot, the Bedford maker of Roomba vacuums, which it later called off; Johnson & Johnson’s buyout of Cambridge-based Momenta Pharmaceuticals for $6.5 billion in 2020; and IAC’s purchase of Waltham’s Care.com, the online platform for babysitters and other caregivers, for $500 million in 2019.