The first report of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board is a grim catalogue of the dire realities facing the transit system. Much is already known: operating expenses outstrip revenues by a mind-numbing margin. Operating deficits are on track for the next year and every year after that. The state of good repair backlog is, well, huge.

The bad news was punctuated by a few rays of sunshine, including the coming-soon publication of performance metrics and weekly scorecards on the system that commuters can use to document the quality of their commutes.

The control board says things are even worse than previously believed at the transit authority, yet most of the problems cited have been raised before. The soft-landing report essentially summarizes data that had already been made public. That seems to be just the way the MBTA and MassDOT want it. Instead of dumping out a boatload of bad indicators all at once, the control board parceled them out over the summer.

That left news outlets with little more to do than to highlight a two-sentence statement from control board chairman Joseph Aiello, bullet-point the major items, and link to the report. (The best of those rundowns comes from the Boston Business Journal.) That saved the Baker administration from a State House press conference featuring sour-faced officials answering the same tough questions from pesky reporters. (Though many of them will just swoop on over to Gov. Charlie Baker’s Wednesday’s confab on winter resiliency to ask them.)

It’s an interesting new strategy that sets the stage for a more important event: the control board’s appearance before a Joint Committee on Transportation oversight hearing next week featuring sour-faced lawmakers asking the same tough questions. Most of these lawmakers are well-acquainted with the difficult realities at the MBTA. They will want to know what the MBTA control board intends to do about them.

The most pressing issue facing the MBTA is one that got short shrift in the report, the Green Line Extension cost overruns. The federal government is providing about half of the original $1.9 billion price tag. With the project cost shooting up to $3 billion, count on lawmakers to ask where the $1 billion is coming from. Because Massachusetts doesn’t have that kind of money.

—GABRIELLE GURLEY

BEACON HILL

Attorney General Maura Healey slams Gov. Charlie Baker’s DPU for its approval of three gas company contracts with Kinder Morgan. (CommonWealth)

House Speaker Robert DeLeo backs a north-south rail link. (State House News)

Lawmakers consider new tax breaks for businesses that hire more workers and recent college grads. (Salem News)

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

A group of Quincy residents have mobilized to try to save the Wollaston Theater from being demolished even though the landmark single-screen movie house hasn’t shown a film or held an event in years. (Patriot Ledger)

The Boston Water and Sewer Commission is considering levying a new tax on ratepayers to cover storm water runoff control. (Boston Herald)

Dracut Selectman Cathy Richardson will face five animal cruelty charges related to her care of four horses and a donkey. (The Sun)

CASINOS

Judge Janet Sanders seems skeptical of the legal challenges by Boston, Revere, and Mohegan Sun to the Gaming Commission’s award of a casino license to Wynn Resorts. (CommonWealth)

Experts say the decision by federal officials to allow the Mashpee Wampanoag to take land in trust for its planned Taunton casino is the “death knell” for a proposed Brockton casino despite the developer’s insistence the project would still be successful. (The Enterprise)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

Pope Francis arrives for his first visit ever to the US. The New Republic‘s Brian Beutler thinks John Boehner‘s invitation for the pope to address Congress will backfire on Republicans.

Los Angeles declares a homelessness state of emergency and sets aside $100 million to address it. (Los Angeles Times)

ELECTIONS

The Lawrence City Council candidate who is leading the effort to recall Mayor Dan Rivera finishes last in the preliminary election and is out of the race. (Eagle-Tribune)

Jasiel Correia, a 23-year-old first-term city councilor, was the top vote-getter in Fall River’s preliminary mayoral election and will square off with incumbent Mayor Sam Sutter, who came in second. (Herald News)

Incumbent Brockton Mayor Bill Carpenter will face off against City Councilor Chris MacMillan in November after the two finished first and second respectively in Tuesday’s preliminary election. Former mayor Win Farwell, wading back into the local political scene, made the final cut for one of four at-large seats on the City Council. (The Enterprise)

Andrea Campbell‘s insurgent run at Boston City Councilor Charles Yancey is being fueled by lots of out-of-town donors. (Boston Globe)

(Super) lightly sourced: The Herald reports that a former New York Times Magazine editor reports that, based on “the talk in Democratic circles” and other sources, President Obama would throw his support behind a Joe Biden run for president if Biden gives him final say over his running-mate, which would potentially lead to a Joe Biden-Deval Patrick ticket. Former state Democratic Party chair Phil Johnston calls the entire storyline “just nuts.”

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Feel free to sing along: A federal judge has ruled the copyright on the song “Happy Birthday” is invalid and the tune belongs in the public domain, a decision which, if it stands, could cost the music publisher some $2 million a year in royalty fees. (New York Times)

EDUCATION

Gov. Charlie Baker headlines a State House rally to build support for a ballot question campaign to raise the cap on charter schools. (Boston Globe)

Boston school superintendent Tommy Chang says he wants to see less testing in the city’s schools and favors an assessment system that captures more dimensions of student work. (Boston Globe) Chang discussed his views on testing in detail in this July interview with CommonWealth.

North Shore Community College holds a groundbreaking for a 37,000-square-foot addition. Sen. Thomas McGee of Lynn wields the same shovel his father, a former House speaker, used when ground was broken for the original campus in 1983. (The Item)

Worcester officials hope to curb a school choice exodus with a marketing campaign. (Telegram & Gazette)

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

Turing Pharmaceuticals was preparing to raise the price of a drug to treat a parasitic infection from $13.50 to $750, but backed off amid a huge protest. (Governing)

TRANSPORTATION

The Pioneer Institute says Uber and Lyft shouldn’t be subject to the same regulations that have hurt taxis.

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton unexpectedly announced her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline extension, calling the project a “distraction” from efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. (U.S. News & World Report)

Braintree officials have postponed plans for a new $95 million power generator for at least a year because of changes in the way electricity is transmitted from Boston that makes the need for more power less pressing. (Patriot Ledger)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

The Supreme Judicial Court rules that police cannot stop motorists solely based on suspicion they possess marijuana since having small amounts was decriminalized in 2008 to a civil offense. (Boston Globe)

Whitey Bulger‘s girlfriend, Catherine Greig, already serving an 8-year sentence, has been indicted on new charges of criminal contempt for refusing to testify about who aided Bulger during the couple’s 16 years on the lam. (Boston Globe)

A juvenile court judge has refused to dismiss involuntary manslaughter charges against an 18-year-old Plainville woman accused of urging another teen to commit suicide through text messages she sent him when she was 17. (Standard-Times)

MEDIA

Johnny Depp was right. So says Jeff Jacoby, who writes that criticism of the Black Mass star for saying Whitey Bulger had good as well as evil in him was off base. It was, says Jacoby, precisely the free will Bulger exercised at times to be so evil — while at others times showing concern for others — that is the mark of his wretched character. (Boston Globe)

PASSINGS

Baseball legend Yogi Berra — whose goofy persona was the basis for cartoon character Yogi Bear and who once famously advised people, “Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise, they won’t go to yours,” among other well-known bits of catcher wisdom — has died at the age of 90. (New York Times)