All politics was local Thursday morning when Governor Charlie Baker and Newton Mayor Setti Warren — a Democrat considering challenging him next year — both spoke to the Newton-Needham Regional Chamber breakfast meeting.

Warren said he wanted to address the “elephant in the room,’’ an important upcoming contest “that both Governor Baker and I have a vested interest in.’’

Cue the awkward silence in the Needham Sheraton Hotel ballroom.

“The Newton North Tigers are going to defeat the Needham Rockets on the football field this fall!’’ Warren said.

It wasn’t the last of the squirming.

After Warren’s speech, Greg Reibman, chamber president, introduced Baker with a nod to Warren’s likely ambitions.

“Right now, I’m the only thing standing between Setti Warren and the governor,’’ he said. “Next year it’ll be the Democratic primary.’’

Baker is a Needham native who was introduced with fond memories of his early days there — playing basketball for the Rockets, pumping gas at the local Mobil, and covering sports for the Daily Transcript before he moved on to Harvard and Northwestern universities, the Weld-Cellucci administrations, and the Corner Office.

In his remarks, Baker touted the region’s low unemployment rate and pointed toward his own reelection campaign, highlighting his administration’s efforts to streamline processes, from the removal of toll booths on the turnpike to municipal codes and wait lines at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. He also talked up his efforts to combat the opioid crisis and to provide bipartisan leadership at a particularly partisan time.

And Baker teased Warren back in his remarks, noting that, in his days, Newton and Needham didn’t even play one another because they weren’t in the same league.

“When the mayor talked about the elephant in the room,’’ Baker said, “I really thought he was talking about the Republican.’’

Warren, who has begun fund-raising but not yet declared himself a candidate for governor, said after the event that he will be making a decision soon. Already in the race to challenge Baker are Democrats Jay Gonzalez, who served as a top official to former governor Deval Patrick, and Robert K. Massie, an environmentalist and entrepreneur who launched but withdrew a challenge to former US senator Scott Brown.

Stephanie Ebbert

Trump’s Mass. campaign chair joins administration

Vincent DeVito, a Boston lawyer who helped lead President Trump’s campaign in the state last year, is getting a top post in the Department of the Interior.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Monday that DeVito, a partner at the Bowditch and Dewey law firm, would be his energy policy counselor, a newly created position.

Trump has vowed a range of policy changes on the energy front, including expanding offshore drilling and reviving the coal industry. On Monday, the same day DeVito was appointed, Zinke signed an order instructing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to begin drafting a five-year plan for drilling rights.

A federal Department of Energy veteran, DeVito has also worked for the state, both within the Legislature and with the Department of Public Utilities. He was Trump’s state campaign chairman last year.

Jim O’Sullivan

City Hall lobby gets a mini-makeover

Entering City Hall can feel like a walking into a bygone era.

You wait in a winding line, put your belongings on a slow-moving metal detector, and then you walk through another metal detector that goes off if you are wearing any jewelry.

But just this week, visitors had a glimpse of some modern fixtures that will soon be added to the main entrance of Boston’s government.

A crew began installing four new automated turnstiles near a massive touchscreen monitor that will provide information about where to get help in the building in multiple languages.

Other fixtures planned for the third-floor lobby — otherwise known as the mezzanine — include a 96-inch television screen that will show images of the city, a coffee kiosk, and flashy lighting that changes colors at the flip of a switch.

The entire effort is part of the city’s “Rethink City Hall’’ effort, which is intended to “reinvigorate one of the most perplexing buildings’’ in Boston, officials said online.

“People have been going in and out of the building the same way since 9/11,’’ when the metal detectors were installed after one of the deadliest terror attacks in the country, said Patrick Brophy, the city’s chief information officer.

“This is the first time it’s been reinvented since [2001],’’ Brophy added.

With the lobby’s renovations, city workers will get new identification card they can use to swipe at the automated turnstiles. A guard will keep watch.

Visitors to the building will still use the metal detectors at a separate check-in on the same floor, Brophy said.

The project — which costs $1.7 million for design and construction — is expected to be completed mid-June.

Meghan E. Irons

Seth Moulton fund-raises off presidential buzz

The 2020 election cycle has entered the joyous phase where potential candidates bat away speculation they might run for the White House, then raise money off that same speculation.

That’s what US Representative Seth Moulton is doing, sending out a campaign fund-raising e-mail under the subject line “What I’m doing.’’

“You may have heard some speculation in the news about me over the past 48 hours,’’ said in the wake of New York Times and Globe stories mentioning the second-term House Democrat as a potential challenger to President Trump. The e-mail hit supporters’ inboxes the same day as the Globe story.

“Rather than focus on what I’m not doing, I’m writing to share what I am doing. Simply, my priorities haven’t changed,’’ Moulton wrote, continuing, “I’m listening to my constituents, because I can’t do my job well without hearing what’s important to you. I hope you’ll continue to speak up over the coming weeks and months.’’

Moulton, who beat a longtime incumbent from his own party in 2014, has been a pointed critic of Trump, raising his national profile over the last year. He has said he is “not running for president.’’

“I’m standing up to President Trump when he undermines our democracy and puts our national security at risk. I know firsthand that reckless statements can place our troops’ lives in danger,’’ Moulton wrote in the e-mail. “And, I’m recruiting more people — many of whom are veterans — to run for office and be part of the new generation of leadership we need in Washington.’’

At the bottom of the missive, a link slugged “Join me in embracing the future’’ that connects to a fund-raising site.

“Your contribution will benefit Seth Moulton,’’ reads the landing page.

Jim O’Sullivan

Mayoral candidates count up signatures

It didn’t take long for the two top mayoral candidates to start playing the numbers game following the first day of collecting signatures to make the fall ballot.

Mayoral candidates must get 3,000 signatures from registered voters and submit them to Boston election officials by May 23.

Mayor Martin J. Walsh said his team of 500 volunteers collected 12,317 signatures in under 10 hours, according to an e-mail his campaign sent Wednesday morning.

His top opponent, Councilor Tito Jackson, said his team collected more than 3,000 signatures in 10 hours on Tuesday, when the signature papers became available.

Both candidates declared success and urged their volunteers to keep on working.

“This is about more than just getting on the ballot — it’s about talking to every Bostonian about what they care about, and how they want to see their city move forward,’’ Walsh’s e-mail said. “Whether you sign your name or not, I want to hear what you have to say. As always, I will listen, I will learn, and I will lead.’’

“THIS is what momentum looks like,’’ wrote Jackson, adding that his campaign has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from voters.

“The people of Boston told us they thirst for a transparent, open, scandal-free government that will finally address rising rents and displacement, fully fund our world-class public schools, and provide economic opportunity for every one of us,’’ he wrote. “A Jackson Administration will uplift all people.’’

Both candidates have said they aim to make the campaign about the issues. But in an interesting power play, Walsh went straight to Dudley Square on Tuesday evening to collect signatures near the front of Jackson’s campaign office.

At one point, the two men stood side by side.

Meghan E. Irons

Joe Shortsleeve to run as Democrat

Joe Shortsleeve, who uncovered skulduggery as a longtime WBZ-TV newsperson reporting on Massachusetts politics, now wants to step into the belly of the beast he once covered.

But first he has some difficult explaining to do to the anti-Trump activists who will dominate the Democratic nomination battle in the special election for state Senate.

Shortsleeve voted for President Trump.

That’s a real hurdle, but Shortsleeve said he thinks he can make the case, particularly since he voted for US Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.

“I voted my pocketbook,’’ he said Wednesday just hours after he registered his campaign committee with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance. “I thought the plans put out by the Republicans would help people who were hurting.’’

And now, more than 100 days into the Trump administration, he says he is “deeply disappointed’’ in the president. He also says that, while he voted for Trump, he still holds positions in line with the Democratic Party, such as supporting the science of climate change, abortion rights, LGBT rights, and gay marriage. Shortsleeve also says he is against the repeal of Obamacare (which he says needs some fixes but not a full repeal).

He insists he is “not going to hide’’ from his Trump vote. Still, it may be a tough sell in a year that, so far, has seen a surge of energized Democratic activists hitting the streets.

In the state Senate district, which includes Bristol and Norfolk, some 90,000 voters cast ballots in the 2016 election. Nearly 41,000 voted for Trump, a percentage that is significantly higher than the president’s statewide average.

Shortsleeve may point to his vote for Sanders, but it may not get much traction: One of his major Democratic opponents appears to be Paul Feeney of Foxborough, an IBEW labor leader who served as Massachusetts director for Sanders last year.

Shortsleeve, 60, has been working for a political consulting firm, Liberty Square Group, since he fell victim to a downsizing at WBZ-TV in 2014. He is seeking the seat being vacated by Senator James E. Timilty, a Walpole Democrat. Timilty is taking over the job of Norfolk County treasurer.

Frank Phillips