🙋‍♀️🏉 Get in the scrum!

It’s Thursday, Boston.

🚃 Does the Green Line wheel squeal feel like Hozier’s yell? Maybe not exactly, but per this IG video, we can tell you that the two harmonize surprisingly well.

👀 What’s on tap today:

• Tania Fernandes Anderson is OUT

• Northeastern’s AI addition

• The pileated pillager

Up first…

SPORTS

Rugby is for the girlies

Ilona Maher stans, this one’s for you. The Boston Banshees, the city’s new professional women’s rugby team, just kicked off their inaugural season as part of the newly founded Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) league. 

Here’s what to know:

🙋‍♀️ Women’s sports in Boston are popping OFF. And it’s not just rugby: Boston has gained at least four new women’s pro teams over the past few years. Why? For one thing, when leagues are picking team sites, cities with a strong existing fan culture (like Boston) tend to win out, said Emerson sports communications professor Dr. Lauren Anderson. Funny though, Boston also already had a “built-in rugby community,” said Kittery Ruiz, the head coach of the Banshees, with lots of established semi-pro, club, college, and youth teams.

🏉 Rugby has been ready for its time in the sun. Folks like Maher and the U.S.’ first-ever women’s medal at the 2024 Olympics have caused a surge of rugby interest, Ruiz said. But before the WER, the options for most players after college were to head overseas or “pay to play” in a semi-pro or club league, which were hard to do. “We as a country with our national team want to be able to compete on the world stage,” Ruiz said. “In order for us to do that, we have to develop our homegrown talent.” 

💙 Being part of a pro team can be game-changing. Banshee Akweley “Q” Okine has been playing high-level rugby since college. But being in a pro league allows her to “just get to focus on the rugby” for the first time. In her semi-pro league, she had to pay for everything from flights to hotels to rental cars, plus do some administrative work. Ruiz shares a similar sense of relief. She doesn’t have to worry about little things like putting together travel documents or organizing equipment. “I get to just show up and coach rugby,” she said.

💸 But there’s still a ways to go. Though she’s playing pro, Okine and most of her teammates still hold down a 9-to-5, squeezing in conditioning before work, practicing after work, and sometimes getting home at one or two in the morning. Okine hopes the new league can help players feel like “if they're coming to play WER rugby, they are having all of the resources that they need to be the best rugby player that they can be.”

👀 Ready to hit the pitch? The Banshees are killing the game with a league-best 3-0 record, and play their final game in Quincy on April 19 before finishing out the season in Pawtucket. Grab tickets here! You can also watch games for FREE here.

TOGETHER WITH TOAST

The best race views? Right next to the snacks.

🍟 🏃‍♂️Marathon Monday is a full-day event, and standing around hungry is not the move. Luckily, some of the best spots to grab a bite also happen to be the best places to watch the action. Whether you’re kicking things off near the starting line with a slice of Detroit-style pizza, grabbing farm-to-table bites mid-route, or posted up on Boylston with a burger and a beer, we’ve mapped out three stops along the route for great spectating and snacking. Check out the full video and celebrate the Boston Marathon with Toast.

QUICK QUESTION!

📺 Have you jumped on the women’s sports bandwagon?

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

😬 Boston is about to be down one City Councilor. This is not a drill: District 7’s Tania Fernandes Anderson announced her plans to resign. ICYMI: Fernandes Anderson was arrested in December for allegedly orchestrating a kickback scheme involving her staff. And this week, she agreed to plead guilty to two of the six(!) federal corruption charges. As if that weren’t news enough, this means Boston’s in for a special election soon. Want allll the tea? Boston mag has a juicy profile of the councilor.

🙋🏻‍♀️ Mayor Michelle Wu’s blasting student visa cancellations. She said they’re “wreaking havoc on our economy and our global relationships” on GBH’s Boston Public Radio. Wu’s thoughts came shortly after yet another school — this time, M.I.T. — dropped news that multiple students had their visas revoked by President Trump’s admin. “We shouldn’t just think of this as ‘the problem for international students,’” she said. “We’re not sure if constitutional rights are being respected.”

🤖 The latest addition to Northeastern’s curriculum: AI. You read that right. The local university is one of three U.S. schools to incorporate Claude, an AI tool similar to Chat GPT, into its curriculum by giving access to all students, faculty, and staff. But there’s an academic twist: They’ll only get access to Claude’s “learning mode,” which, instead of straight-up answering prompts, asks users how they’d answer the questions, making users prove their claims. So, god willing, this won’t mean the end of society — or term papers — as we know them.

⚾ The new Red Sox doc is making headlines for some heavy news. “The Clubhouse: A Year With the Red Sox,” recently dropped on Netflix, and one major revelation is dominating the news: Outfielder Jarren Duran shared that he attempted suicide during the 2022 season. Durran, who’s faced controversy in the past, said the pressure that came from playing with the Red Sox “felt like a dark cloud over me.” Since then, tons of Red Sox staff — from GM Alex Cora to president Sam Kennedy to players — have come out in support of Duran.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues, here are some resources: Crisis Text Line — Free 24/7 support for anyone in crisis. Text “MLB” to 741-741. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline — Free 24/7 support for anyone in suicidal crisis. Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

MEDIA PARTNERSHIP

A “Simple Favor?” It’s never so simple.

Love Letters, your favorite advice column and podcast, is hosting a special free preview screening of “Another Simple Favor” in Boston on April 24. 

Want to win your way in with a plus-one? Do us a simple favor: Send an anonymous question to Love Letters about whatever relationship issue is on your mind (it can be about dating, complicated friendships, marriage, getting over breakups, etc.). The letter gets you entered. If you win, you’ll get two seats and a night of fun/more free stuff ... plus, Blake Lively on the big screen in all of the outfits. Click to get all the details and win your way in.

ONE LAST THING

The pileated pillager

Tired: A turkey keying your car. Wired: A woodpecker shattering your sideview mirrors. 

That’s what’s been happening in Rockport, Mass. lately. One pesky pileated woodpecker has single-handedly destroyed nine mirrors in the last few weeks, earning himself the moniker “the pileated pillager.”

According to NBC10, the pileated pillager doesn’t mean to shatter the glass. He simply climbs onto the cars, thinks he sees another male woodpecker in the mirror, and starts going at it. But we have to say, after NINE attacks in a row, this bird is either way too into cars … or there’s something more sinister going on.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🦃 Thanks for reading! We’d still rather go toe-to-toe with a woodpecker than a turkey any day.

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, Toast, for supporting local journalism and helping local restaurants run smoothly on Boston’s busiest day. 

🤩 The results are in: 36% of readers guessed that Taylor Swift’s new worth is $2.1 billion — it’s actually $1.6 billion. But as one reader said: “Compared to real humans, these are all pretend numbers anyway.” 

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].