🏀 Hoop! There it is!

It’s Tuesday, Boston.

🛍️ We’re nearly halfway through AAPI Heritage Month. Which means you’ve still got plenty of time to support this list of local AAPI- and Asian-owned businesses. Need a rec? Try the Vietnamese nitro cold brew from Reign Drink Lab in Dorchester. 

👀 What’s on tap today:

• When in Rome

• Mass. is screaming

• Emus on the loose

Up first…

SPORTS

Stay in the hoop

Women’s basketball is having a moment. Ticket sales, viewership, and media coverage have all popped off over the past few years. Those gains were on full display in this year’s truly electric March Madness tournament.

Today marks the beginning of the WNBA’s regular season, so here’s the local hoop on the rise of women's basketball. 

🏀 Women’s basketball didn’t just get good. In the past few decades, the sport has evolved and developed, said Michael Holley, an NBC Sports Boston host. But the OG fans and players “always knew they had a great product,” he said. Women’s games have “always been entertaining,” said Harvard head coach Carrie Moore, just in a less in-your-face way than men’s basketball, which tends to be more “high-flying,” with more dunks and above-the-rim play versus the technical style on the women’s court.

🤳 It just took a few factors to fall into place to get everyone on board. “Right now, it is just the perfect alignment of everything that you would want in a sport,” Holley said. Not only is the game good, but there’s solid media coverage, and a lot of exceptional (and marketable) talent who know how to promote themselves. All of that combined “allowed for it to have this huge growth and impact,” said Brianna Finch, associate head coach at BU.

👀 Local teams are feeling those changes at home. In the last two years, Moore said she’s seen a major uptick in ticket sales and general excitement for women’s games. “Our crowds were not like they are now,” she said. However, the changes do bring a little bit of extra exposure and pressure on the players which just wasn’t there before, said Finch. “We're all still kind of trying to figure out ways to best support them and for them to kind of adapt to this popularity and this visibility,” she said.

🏃🏻‍♀️ Plus, the Caitlin Clark effect certainly doesn’t hurt. Although Clark didn't single-handedly popularize women’s ball, Holley said, her flashy play style and home-grown status made her a perfect candidate to be the face of the game. “She has 100% like, changed the game … she's just brought so many more people to kind of take a look at women's basketball and … give it a chance,” said Kaitlyn Flanagan, Holy Cross’ point guard, who, BTW, guarded Clark during March Madness (!). 

QUICK QUESTION

🏀 Are you on the women’s ball bandwagon?

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CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

⛺ This graduation season, pro-Palestinian supporters are taking center stage. Emerson’s graduation this weekend saw its fair share of disruptions in the form of boos, students taking off their robes on stage, holding the Palestinian flag, and more. Meanwhile, Harvard and MIT have doled out suspensions for some students who were a part of the campus’ encampments, barring many from taking their finals, graduating, and being — or living — on campus. Despite the consequences that have come from their action, many of those students say they wouldn’t change a thing.

🇮🇹 Gov. Healey and Mayor Wu are having a “when in Rome” moment. Literally — both leaders are attending a climate summit at The Vatican hosted by Pope Francis. The two local leaders are there to speak about Boston and Mass.’ leadership in climate technology, sit on some panels, and have a joint audience with the Pope. Plus, while they’re in the area, Healey plans to tend to our business ties with the country, and Wu will visit some towns with ties to Boston and her own heritage. 

🚗 This week kicks off Uber and Lyft’s Mass. court drama. ICYMI: A few years back, then-AG Maura Healey sued Uber and Lyft over their classification of drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. On Monday, the trial to answer that question kicked off in Suffolk Superior Court. Bigwigs at Uber and Lyft (who are also trying to get a question on the November ballot to affirm drivers are independent contractors) will argue that a reclassification would lead to reductions in service and cost increases, while now-AG Campell’s team will argue the companies are profiting from denying workers their rights.

🍦 Everyone in Mass. is about to be screaming … for the soon-to-be official Massachusetts Ice Cream Trail. The initiative by the state’s Department of Agricultural Resources is whipping up a best-of list of spots state-wide that create or sell locally-made ice cream and dairy products in the same vein as this old(er) Wine and Cheese trail. The project just closed its application form for potential locations, and the whole thing will (hopefully) launch by July, a.k.a. National Ice Cream month, for us all to enjoy this summer.

GIVEAWAY

Together with Boston Calling

Enter to win a pair of 3-DAY VIP passes to Boston Calling from May 24 to May 26, a $2,400 value! If you have already referred a friend to B-Side (and they’ve accepted), you're eligible. Full details below*

ONE LAST THING

Emus on the loose

If you happen to live in or near the Blackstone Valley area and you’re missing a few large birds … one local animal control center would like to speak with you ASAP.

Two emus, Australian birds that can grow up to six feet tall and weigh 100 pounds, were spotted late last week on a hiking trail in the Mendon Town Forest. But the biggest mystery isn’t the emus’ presence — shockingly, this has happened before — but rather, where the birds came from.

Since the sighting almost five days ago, no one has been able to figure out where they conceivably escaped from, with all area emus currently present and accounted for in their homes. Although not for lack of trying: The comments section on this Facebook post of townies guessing is just priceless.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🐣 Thanks for reading! If these were our emus, we might stay quiet, too. The local animal control officer seems pretty peeved about the whole situation.

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, the WIC Nutrition Program, for supporting local journalism and helping families in Massachusetts develop healthier habits. 

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