Based on other states with iLotteries, some of the products would be as straightforward as allowing someone to play Mass Cash or Powerball over their mobile device. Others look like something of a high-tech scratch-ticket. Some approach the appeal of more traditional mobile games – matching patterns, playing battleship – and still others approximate games more often found in casinos than on a lottery ticket.
Jennifer Smith
Jennifer Smith writes for CommonWealth Beacon and co-hosts its weekly podcast, The Codcast. Her areas of focus include housing, social issues, courts and the law, and politics and elections. A California native who also lived in Utah, Jennifer has covered Massachusetts since 2011 for a variety of publications. She worked breaking news in the Boston Globe’s metro section and provided courtroom coverage of the Boston Marathon bomber trial for the international wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) while completing her undergraduate journalism degree at Northeastern University in Boston. For four years, Jennifer was a staff writer and later news editor for the Dorchester Reporter, covering her home neighborhood and the city of Boston with a particular focus on politics and development. Her work and commentary have appeared in WBUR, GBH News, Harvard Public Health Magazine, and Politico’s Massachusetts Playbook. She has co-hosted MassINC’s Massachusetts politics and policy podcast The Horse Race since 2018, interviewing newsmakers, journalists, and elected officials across the state.
Posted inEducation
Comerford calls free community college one of the ‘great equalizers’
“I think of it as opening doors in every level of higher education,” Sen. Jo Comerford of Northampton.
Posted inEnergy
Holtec considers appeal to discharge water from Pilgrim plant
David Noyes of Holtec told the panel that there are “still avenues available to us, should we decide to pursue them, in order to be able to still consider the option of liquid discharge.”
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: Wu-Kraft race looking more and more likely | Full-tilt toward artificial intelligence
The official word from Josh Kraft is that he’s not a candidate for mayor of Boston and has to plans or timeline for such an announcement, but some coffee shop chatter overheard this week suggests a run could be in his future.
Posted inPolitics
Mass. delegates explain why they’re backing Biden in new survey
While President Biden faces unprecedented calls from within his party to step down as the Democratic nominee, members of the Massachusetts delegation who are headed to the national convention in Chicago appear largely supportive of Biden staying at the top of the ticket, according to a new survey.
Posted inCourts
Failure to put down dying dog is not crime, SJC rules
“Our opinion should not be read to condone the conduct alleged in the complaint or take a position one way or the other regarding ‘complicated’ and ‘heartbreaking’ end-of-life decisions,” Justice Frank Gaziano wrote for the court. “Instead, we hold, on these facts, that the defendant committed no crime.”
Posted inPolitics
Raise a glass or pour one out? Happy hour back on legislative menu
“We’re the Athens in the United States, and how many of those people leave, and why are they leaving?” asked Sen. Julian Cyr. “They’re leaving because they can’t afford to live here. And because there’s just not a lot to do and it’s not a lot of fun.”
Posted inBallot Questions
Campbell explains why she settled Uber, Lyft case on eve of likely court victory
“A win in court might have given drivers restitution for pay they were owed in the past, but a successful ballot initiative would have wiped out its impact going forward,” Attorney General Andrea Campbell said
Posted inEnvironment
Advocates press for more emphasis on environmental justice populations
Environmental justice populations, broadly speaking, tend to be low-income communities and communities of color hit hard by the impacts of climate change. Getting to a clear definition in Massachusetts, let alone its policy implications, has been a long road through several climate bills.
Posted inHousing
The senior struggle to age in community
MASSACHUSETTS SENIORS, particularly those who are low income, are often stymied in their hunt for later-in-life homes because of a mismatch between their specific demographic needs and the dearth of […]
Posted inBallot Questions
Tech-backed ballot question dead after settlement
WHAT WAS SHAPING up to be perhaps the buzziest ballot measure of the cycle, with Massachusetts residents barraged with millions of dollars of ad spending by both sides, will not […]
Posted inPolitics
Last-minute $175m Uber, Lyft settlement throws wrench in ballot fight
The same day the state’s high court gave the go-ahead to an array of ride-share-focused ballot questions, Attorney General Andrea Campbell announced a sweeping settlement with Uber and Lyft that could upend a buzzy ballot fight.
Posted inGambling
Addiction in mind, Mass Gaming officials mull stricter advertising regulations
Researcher Rachel Volberg advised restricting celebrity endorsements to reduce their appeal to young people and problem gamblers. Volberg emphasized the importance of monitoring emerging forms of advertising on social media platforms, which can be more insidious and harder to regulate.
Posted inHealth Care
The artificial intelligence frontier hits health care
A panel moderated by Rahsaan Hall, president and CEO of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, considered the practical applications and equity red flags of incorporating artificial intelligence into regular practice.
Posted inHealth Care
Data indicate warning signs for Massachusetts health care
CHIA’s most recent total health care expenditure data show a 5.8 percent growth rate, Peters said, which represents the highest one-year growth trend since measurement began in 2012, with the exception of the “anomalous” COVID year of 2021.
Posted inPolitics
Seeking a right to medical aid in dying
Margaret Miley is frustrated, in pain, and dying. But Massachusetts has thus far resisted the movement, now law in nearly a dozen other states, to allow patients near their end of their life to obtain medication that would hasten their death.
“Who benefits from this?” she asks.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Political Notebook: Never-ending State Police problems | Transit beer summit? | Ranking Boston’s choices
The woes of the Massachusetts State Police never seem to end, with the latest black eye coming at the high-profile murder trail of Karen Read, where a State Police investigator copped to making comments about the defendant that Gov. Maura Healey termed “disgusting.”
Posted inBallot Questions
SJC green-lights tipped wages ballot measure
A ballot initiative that would raise the minimum wage for tipped workers and let employees pool tips cleared the state’s highest court, with justices concluding the petition’s language is just fine to put before voters.
Posted inState Government
Much ado about the multibillion dollar housing bond bill
Major bond bills set the widest parameters for possible spending. But there’s little to no chance that $6 billion in bonding power actually gets pointed at the housing crisis.
Posted inTransportation
Shrinking the transportation gap with micro-transit
Once a person gets west of Worcester, the best connection between regional transit bus systems might be a small van network overseen by a scrappy community organization.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: Cain skips vote | Anonymous donor | Ballot title battle
Quincy City Councilor Ian Cain, who recently called his rival for the Republican US Senate nomination, John Deaton, evasive for brushing off a call to debate, did some evading of his own this week, skipping a council vote on the massive pay raise approved for Quincy’s mayor.
Posted inHousing
Business groups cheer, progressives knock House axing transfer fees
The House offered up a version of Gov. Maura Healey’s housing bond bill that leaves out a local-option transfer tax on high-end home sales, disappointing housing advocates and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, the levy’s most prominent booster, and setting up a potential clash with the the more liberal Senate.
Posted inHousing
Taking aim at barriers for underrepresented developers
Rather than waiting for underrepresented groups to become eligible for traditional housing funding sources, a new fund is “just doing away with this chicken and egg thing.”