📸 🌸 Insta baddies, it's your time to shine

It’s Thursday, Boston.

💰 If you’re feeling a little nosy … Forbes just released their annual billionaires list, and quite a few locals (including our perennial faves, the Fidelity fortune heir siblings) made the cut. You can snoop through all of our richest residents here.

👀 What’s on tap today:

• The pot pardon is official

• Financial belt-tightening

• New England’s favorite PB

Up first…

OUT & ABOUT

Boston in bloom

Insta baddies, assemble! It may not feel like it this week, but cherry blossom season is just around the corner. 

Here’s what to know (and the best places to snap a pic):

🧐 Quick history lesson! The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in the Prunus family, which are generally native to countries like Japan and other parts of east Asia. Celebrating their annual bloom has been a Japanese tradition for centuries, one Japan definitely put the U.S. onto after they gifted thousands of flowering cherry trees to Washington D.C. as an act of friendship in 1912.

💡 Fun fact: Of the 36 cherries across the Public Garden, Boston Common, and Comm. Ave. Mall, two are from clippings of the OG trees that Japan gave to D.C. back in the day. 

🌸 Next week is when cherry blossoms will start picking up steam in Boston. “The second and third week of April is when you’re gonna see the majority of trees coming into full bloom,” said Cody Jennings, senior parks care manager at Friends of the Public Garden. Some are already coming in. “There are two magnolias that have started to bloom in the Public Garden,” Jennings said. Once the cherries come in, they typically hang around through mid-May.

✊ Despite the nor’easter, experts are confident the cherry trees will prevail. A late-spring cold snap in the 20s is perhaps the worst thing that could happen to a cherry in terms of frost damage. But even though temps are chilly this week, Jonathan Webb, Mount Auburn Cemetery's director of horticulture and landscape operations, isn’t worried. “If anything, it will slow down the progression,” he said, emphasizing that “our trees know how to adjust to New England weather!” And since they’re gearing up for bloom, they’re a little more hardy.

🌡️ But climate change is certainly something experts are keeping in mind. If anything, some public parks and gardens are looking at adding trees that thrive better in slightly warmer climates since they can handle warmer temps. Sugar maples, which are native to New England, are struggling because “they need that cold” and a “nice hard frost in the winter'' that we just haven't been seeing, Webb said. “If we can find something that’s grown more south, it may have a better ability to adapt.”

📝 Now the important part: Where to find said cherry blossoms. The Globe assembled a great list of cherry blossom spots around Boston, including classic spots like the Esplanade and Public Garden, but also including some sleeper locations like Brookline High School and Harvard University.

B-SIDE MADNESS

Boston’s best nightlife

🕺 Welcome to the Elite Eight rounds of Nightlife Madness! We crowdsourced some of Boston’s best nightlife venues to create our own March Madness bracket, where B-Siders can vote which spot is the city’s best. Last time, Club Café and Lansdowne made it into our final four. Make sure to keep voting!

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🥦 Healey’s pot pardon is officially official. Yesterday, the Governor’s Council unanimously approved Gov. Maura Healey’s statewide blanket pardon for adult, state-level marijuana possession convictions, effective immediately. It’s a move Healey’s office estimates could impact hundreds of thousands of people (though state officials say they don’t have an exact count of how many convictions would be forgiven). Advocates say the pardon will help some residents — disproportionately those of color — whose charges have previously hindered them from finding housing, jobs, and education. Most people won’t have to do anything to claim their pardon, but anyone who wants to be proactive can request a certificate.

💸 Mass. is tightening its financial belt. Gov. Healey is planning to put a freeze on hiring in portions of state government through at least June. And while officials are anxious to let us know that it’s not a reason for concern, this planned move is another in a series of signs that Mass.’ financial situation still isn’t doing too hot. State tax revenues have been sliding below expectations for several months now (even after Healey’s admin lowered projections earlier this year). And although March’s tax collections broke that months-long downbeat streak, it doesn’t necessarily signal a 180-degree turn for the better.

🏆 New England nabbed some spots on the James Beard Awards shortlist. The prestigious restaurant awards dropped its lists of finalists yesterday, and New England got some major representation. In Boston, our beloved (and Globe five-star reviewed) Comfort Kitchen earned a nod for Best New Restaurant, and Conor Dennehy from Cambridge’s Talulla is up for Best Chef: Northeast. You can dig into the rest of the nominees here, but we’ll have to wait until June 10 to find out who comes out on top.

☀️ If you can believe it, outdoor dining season is around the corner. If you’ve been searching for a reason to forget about our current weather situation, just visualize yourself come May 1 (the official start date), sipping a fruity drink or enjoying a meal on a warm, dry patio this summer. If you need some inspiration, the Globe’s running list of Boston’s best outdoor dining spots is a great place to start, and for our part, we’ll add Cisco Brewers Seaport’s iconic garden to the mix, which officially opens for the season on April 11.

ONE LAST THING

New England’s best PB

If you grew up around here, one thing is true: Teddie >  Jif, Skippy, and Justin’s, combined.

It makes sense that the natural peanut butter brand is a staple in most New England households, since it was founded in Boston and has continued to operate out of Everett since 1960. And this recent article is basically a “How’s it Made” episode on the stuff. 

For example, did you know that it takes exactly 541 peanuts to fill one, 16 ounce jar? Or that 20 or so 2,200 “super sacks” of peanuts arrive at the factory every single day? Or that, if you live near the factory, you’ll wake up every morning to the smell of fresh peanut butter in your window (yes, really)? 

You can get the inside look into Teddie’s innerworkings (including consumer thoughts on the bear that’s featured on the label) here.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🥜 Thanks for reading! Although a late-in-life New Englander, Gia was converted from Justin’s after just one Teddie’s PB&J. And while a life-long New Englander, peanut-allergic Emily must unfortunately live a life of FOMO. 

🍦 The results are in: B-Siders are torn between Van Leeuwen and the F1 Arcade as a B-Side certified pick, with Van Leeuwen currently winning by just four votes. One reader (who voted for F1) said: “if i can’t date Carlos Sainz might as well try to beat him racing.”

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