We’re talking jewelry, chocolates, textiles, vases, candles and florals. … The prices are all going up. It’s horrible! … And tariffs could drive some people to hold their weddings overseas, eliminating jobs right here in the U.S.A. … The BBJ has more.

Update – And I hadn’t even thought of the Azazie dresses and French Champagne, as noted by the Times. …

Here’s a quick roundup of some local political news, mostly Republican news (oddly enough) and covered mostly by the Herald (not so oddly enough since the Herald has traditionally covered the GOP more closely than the Globe). … Brian Shortsleeve, the former MBTA chief and venture capitalist, has launched his bid for governor, becoming the second  Republican candidate seeking to unseat Gov. Maura Healey, the Herald reports. Even before the launch, Shortsleeve was making the MBTA Communities Act a political issue, saying the housing law should be repealed and confirming Hub Blog’s prior hunch that the act would become a significant issue in the 2026 race. … As Shortsleeve starts his campaign, state Sen. Peter Durant, also a Republican, has ruled out a run, the Herald reports. …  The Herald has one more piece on the ‘burning debate’ within the Mass. GOP over whether to embrace or reject Donald Trump. You would think the answer is obvious, i.e. both, depending on the make-up of an individual legislative or congressional district. But political purists, such as MAGA types, rarely think in such terms. They want complete control and adherence to their cause, thus the ‘burning debate.’ …. Speaking of political purists, Patrick Roath, who apparently comes from the David Hogg wing of the Democratic Party, is challenging U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, a moderate Dem, GBH reports. Yet another progressive, I guess, who believes the best way to defeat Republicans is to defeat Democrats. … Frank Baker, the former Boston City Councilor, wants to return to the council, the Globe reports. … Universal Hub has the stunning news that Robert Cappucci is making his fourth run for mayor, officially becoming a perennial candidate. 

And, finally, as a centrist, I really enjoyed Bill Maher’s ‘Retake the Flag’ monologue the other night:

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Update – A reader notes, without comment, that Patrick Roath’s wedding got a New York Times write-up, as if that’s all that needs to be said. … For some reason, the Hub Blog mind drifts to the book ‘Abundance.‘

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The New York Times has a nice write-up on Billerica’s Factorial Energy, founded by a husband-wife team from China who are in a race to develop the first workable solid-state battery that could transform the electric-car industry. … The firm has received nearly $250 million in funding over the years, including investments by Mercedes-Benz, as the BBJ has reported. The Globe has previously named the firm’s cofounder and chief executive, Siyu Huang, as a  local Tech Power Player. … Image above via Factorial Energy.

And who is confirming that Pope Leo is a moral counterweight/threat to Donald Trump? None other than MAGA types like loopy Laura Loomer and perpetually angry Steve Bannon. They see Leo as a threat to the president and their cause. And he is. … The Independent, Esquire, and NYT have more on the MAGA meltdown over Leo. … Confirmation from another source, i.e. the Times: “An American Pope Emerges as a Potential Contrast to Trump on the World Stage.” … And I’ll repeat what I wrote yesterday: I find it extremely hard to believe that the College of Cardinals’s  selection of Leo was devoid of global political considerations. The cardinals knew what they were doing – just as they knew what they were doing when they selected Karol Wojtyla as pope to morally and politically counterbalance the Soviets in the ’70s. …

At PBS, David Brooks also makes the direct link between Leo XIV and John Paul II, calling it a “brilliant” move by cardinals to pick Leo. And it is brilliant. And Loomer and Bannon know it. That’s why they’re angry. …

Update — 5.12.25 – From the NYT’s David French: “President Trump is no longer the most important American in the world.”

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Contrarian Boston’s Scott Van Voorhis, a long-time friend and former colleague of mine, has a good post on the rather disingenuous assertions by GBH chief Susan Goldberg that NPR and PBS are bastions of objectivity devoid of biases, blah, blah, blah. As Scott notes (and I agree), the two public broadcasting institutions have long been “wonkily and even maddeningly liberal,” when it comes to some of their news programs, not Sesame Street and other entertainment programming. …

But does that mean President Trump is right to order federal funding cuts for the public TV and radio networks? Nope. It’s a classic example of the Trump 10/90 Rule at play: he may hold a view that has a 10 percent kernel of truth to it, but then he goes 90 percent overboard. … In this case, he’s partly right to be annoyed with PBS/NPR’s persistent institutional news biases, but he’s overwhelmingly wrong when it comes to a solution that, as Goldberg correctly notes, will impact so much non-news content. … And he’s a 100 percent wrong when he goes after the press exclusively because he dislikes their views.

Update — This is sad. From the Globe: “GBH is laying off 10 employees from global news and documentary channel WORLD due to federal funding cuts.”

OK, we’ve found a Massachusetts angle to the surprise selection of Cardinal Robert Provost as the new pope. NBC Boston, take a bow. Turns out Pope Leo XIV, as he’s now known, got an honorary degree from Merrimack College in North Andover in 2005. … Take that, Chicago and Villanova. … In other papal news, don’t you find it interesting that few are openly saying what many are privately thinking? That, coincidently or intentionally, the College of Cardinals may have partly selected Leo, an American, as a moral counterweight to another American, Donald Trump? The NYT comes close to stating the obvious with this story about Leo’s views on immigration and his past X criticism of JD Vance’s zeal-of-a-convert theory on hierarchical love. And there is a modern precedent of cardinals selecting a pope they knew full well would act as a political and spiritual counterweight to leaders of another historic superpower. …

… The Hub Blog mind wanders back to secular events in the 2000s, when the Nobel Prize committee took an obvious jab at George W. Bush by awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Jimmy Carter and repeated the jab by awarding the same prize to Barack Obama in 2009. The Nobel award is not the same as selecting a pope, of course. But it does show how elite world institutions often base decisions, partly or largely, on global political considerations. And I find it extremely hard to believe yesterday’s selection of Leo was devoid of global political considerations as they apply to contemporary America.

Update — WHDH also had the momentous Merrimack College angle.

Bay State lawmakers can breathe a sigh of relief: moderate Republicans in Washington have forced House Speaker Mike Johnson to rule out major cuts in federal Medicaid spending, report the NYT, Politico and the Hill. … State House News Service (paywall) has more on the local implications. … Maybe moderate Republicans didn’t rescue the Massachusetts state budget per se. But a massive federal funding reduction for Medicaid was probably the top concern of Beacon Hill lawmakers trying to cobble together a new state budget. … So a known unknown is now a known known, as Hub Blog speculated last week: moderate Republicans can, at least now and then, wield some fiscal influence in DC.

Update — A reader emails: “Local hospitals are also breathing a sigh of relief. Many of them depend on those Medicaid monies.” … Good point. Should have noted that earlier.

Update II – From the NYT: “Proposed Medicaid Cuts Put Vulnerable Republicans in a Political Bind.”

I normally don’t pay much attention to the Associated Industries of Massachusetts’s monthly survey of employers. But AIM’s April survey is indeed rather shocking, with local business confidence plunging last month to its lowest level since the onset of the pandemic. The reason: tariffs and federal fiscal policies. The BBJ and Banker & Tradesman have more on the business blues. … Meanwhile, the Globe’s Jon Chesto reports that major local business can’t stop talking and fretting about tariffs. It’s as if they’re still shell-shocked by the events of April 2. …

Another 20-point blown lead, another shocking loss for the Celts. … They’re jubilant in New York (and outside TD Garden, for that matter). And they should be. The Knicks are now poised to pull off a huge series upset. … I feel a strange sense of relief this morning, knowing that there’s no longer anything to worry about. The Celts are probably going to lose this series and that’s that. …The Globe’s Gary Washburn is having 2023 flashbacks. …

… My mind drifts back to a Westwood reader’s quote from the morning after Game 1: “Watching all those missed threes was like watching slot machine players who can’t stop pulling the lever.”  From a text he sent last night: “Do they lack energy or awareness in settling for all these shitty threes?” … Live by the threes, die by the threes. They simply don’t have a Plan B if they’re having a shitty threes night. They don’t have a strong, sustained inside game, unlike the Knicks, whose tough under-the-basket play I really like.

The Westwood reader adds: “In post game, Porzingis sounds like someone who knows his time here is over. Sad.” … Porzingis is a great player. But the Celts need a reliable great player at his position. They’re not getting that from him. He’s too injury prone — and that’s not changing.

Update –SI.com is already engaging in Porzingis trade speculation. It’s classic clickbait. I’m just shamelessly passing it along.

Dems giving advice to Dems on policy are a dime a dozen these days. But what’s refreshing about former Boston mayor Marty Walsh’s message is that Dems don’t have an effective message because they’re not talking and listening enough to regular people, as the Globe reports.  

“They’re holding hearings and beating up people in hearings,” said Walsh, referring to pols in DC. “They should be out in the community talking to people, not town halls, they should be out like in coffee shops and other places talking to people.” …  I like the town hall part. Political ‘advocates’ and ‘activists,’ i.e. ideologues, love packing town halls. … That’s what Walsh is really saying: Stop talking so much to the politicized progressive base, as his comments on student loans, ‘woke stuff,’ and pronouns suggest.

Update — A reader emails that Walsh is on the right track about the need for Dems to talk more to average people. But the problem is that some Dems have trouble communicating to people outside their political orbit, the reader notes, pointing to this USA Today column on Tim Walz’s recent talk at Harvard. … I touched on similar Dem communication problems last month.