After keeping politicos guessing for months, and then recently saying he’d make a decision by the spring, Tito Jackson is diving into the race for mayor of Boston this afternoon, with an announcement scheduled for Dudley Square’s Haley House at 2 p.m.

With that, the Roxbury district city councilor will become the only declared candidate ready to take on Mayor Marty Walsh, who is in the last year of his first term.

Jackson, who has brought on the guy who managed Bill de Blasio’s successful mayoral campaign in New York, seems ready to also take a page from the Gotham mayor’s vow to address widening income inequality. A kickoff video posted last night talks about a 33-year difference in life expectancy on opposite ends of his district — in Back Bay and Roxbury — and the fact that half of all Boston families earn $35,000 a year or less.

Jackson was an outspoken opponent of the Boston Olympics effort, which Walsh strongly backed. He tells the Globe that was the tipping point in his thinking about challenging Walsh, whom he supported in the two-way final election for mayor three years ago. The issue seems tailor-made for a campaign based on the inequality message, giving Jackson a platform to hammer at the mayor for being preoccupied with a glitzy — and financially reckless — project at the expense of attention to everyday issues affecting struggling city residents.

But it will be hard to peg Walsh, a longtime labor leader and Dorchester state rep, as the out-of-touch champion of the downtown plutocrats.

One way this does look like battle of the 1 percent versus the hoi polloi, however, is in campaign funding. Walsh is sitting on $3.6 million, and there’s more where that came from — the developers, lawyers, and others who do business in town. Jackson, meanwhile, had $64,000 in his account as of the end of December.

That creates a huge hurdle for Jackson, as does the overall power of incumbency, which has not seen a Boston mayor thrown out of office since 1949.

We’re surely in a time of political unpredictability. Jackson has to believe that long run of incumbents will end sometime, and he’s betting it’s now.

–MICHAEL JONAS

BEACON HILL

Gov. Charlie Baker, reversing course, is including a provision to tax short-term rentals like Airbnb in his  upcoming budget proposal. (State House News)

A Suffolk Superior Court judge has ruled in Attorney General Maura Healey’s favor in her battle with Exxon Mobil, saying the company must hand over 40 years of records related to climate change. (Boston Globe)

A state program designed to give consumers confidence in their dealings with contractors is providing a false sense of protection. (CommonWealth)

MassHealth enrollment surges, putting more pressure on the state budget. (State House News) Healey says her office recovered $80 million over the last year related to fraud in the Medicaid budget. (MassLive)

A Beacon Hill commission is weighing whether to tinker with time, doing away with spring forward, fall backward. (CommonWealth)

An Eagle-Tribune editorial says the recent pay raise for lawmakers sticks in the newspaper’s craw.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS 

Joe Battenfeld reports on a slew of emails that show lots of bragging by former aides to Mayor Marty Walsh to leaders of the ultimately ill-fated IndyCar race about their direct line to the mayor. (Boston Herald)

State legislators from Dorchester are lashing out at a report suggesting stakeholders were close to reaching a deal to site a soccer stadium for Robert Kraft’s New England Revolution in their neighborhood, saying the community has been entirely cut out of any discussions to date. (WGBH News)

The Quincy Planning Board wrapped up public hearings on a proposed 60-unit luxury apartment development near the Adams family mansion but the project was left in limbo when no board member made a motion to vote on the plan, a lack of action the chairman said is unprecedented. (Patriot Ledger)

Easton selectmen will hold a special meeting Friday to vote to suspend and possibly fire the town administrator as part of the fallout from revelations that the former town clerk failed to submit bylaws to the attorney general over the last eight years as required by law for approval. (The Enterprise)

A Brookline woman lived in the large home she shared with her sister for more than a year with her sister’s dead body in the kitchen. (Boston Globe)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL 

The circus came to town yesterday in New York, as President-elect Donald Trump convened a press conference in which he denounced an unverified leaked intelligence report as “fake news,” got into a shouting match with a CNN reporter, and bragged about not doing a $2 billion business deal with a Dubai mogul. (He also reminded reporters that he is a germaphobe.) (Boston Globe) Joan Vennochi says it was no press conference, but “a rambling, bizarre show starring Trump and his ever unchained ego.” (Boston Globe)  This New York Times editorial offers a sense of how the show unfolded.

The Times peels apart the layers of how the salacious report with unverified allegations of compromising information held by Russians on Trump came to the surface and triggered a crisis.

Trump’s relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin was a focus of confirmation hearings for Rex Tillerson, his pick for secretary of state. (Boston Globe)

In an unprecedented move, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey became the first senator ever to testify against a fellow sitting senator when he urged colleagues to reject Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general. (U.S. News & World Report)

The Senate takes an initial step toward repeal of the Affordable Care Act. (Time)

Globe columnist Eric Fehrnstrom says Sen. Elizabeth Warren is just as polarizing as Trump.

ELECTIONS 

Abington selectman Alex Bezanson says he will run against Rep. Geoff Diehl the next chance he gets. (Patriot Ledger)

BUSINESS/ECONOMY 

The head of the federal Office of Government Ethics says Trump’s plan to transfer oversight of his businesses to his sons is inadequate and leaves the incoming president vulnerable to “suspicions of corruption.” (New York Times)

EDUCATION 

At least 10 Sudbury middle school students were injured when the bus in which they were riding collided with an SUV and rolled over on Route 128. (MetroWest Daily News)

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

The growth in Massachusetts health care costs appears to be moderating, but not for everyone. (CommonWealth)

STAT has a gripping account of how a Harvard researcher ultimately beat back a lawsuit from the sketchy CEO of a nutritional supplement company.

President-elect Donald Trump said he supports bidding for prescription drugs, a stance that puts him at odds with most congressional Republicans. (U.S. News & World Report)

TRANSPORTATION 

Milton selectmen are putting a proposal before voters at Town Meeting to give the board the power to reduce speeds on many of the town’s streets to 25 mph. (Patriot Ledger)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS 

For the second time in less than half a year, the Supreme Judicial Court has said police cannot stop and detain someone simply because they flee from a street corner interrogation, ruling in a 10-year-old case involving a Cambridge 17-year-old caught with a gun. (Boston Globe)

MEDIA 

BuzzFeed was right to publish the Trump-Russia files, writes the managing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review.

Trump’s press conference starts a war with and within media. (New York Times)