THERE WILL BE plenty of time for battling over the substance of the looming ballot question on gig workers. For now, the two sides are getting warmed up by hurling […]
News Analysis
Posted inTransportation
Can we hold off a return to carmageddon?
IT’S LIKE WATCHING a highway pile-up in slow motion. That seems to be the appropriate car-centric metaphor conjured up by a trio of op-eds in today’s Boston Globe that say […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Poll shows strong support for workplace vax mandates
AS THE DELTA variant spurs an increase in cases and renewed calls for masking indoors, new poll numbers show Massachusetts employees broadly support their vaccine requirements for their own workplaces. […]
Posted inPolitics
In-person meetings could reset relations between Baker, lawmakers
COULD THE RETURN of the “stale cookies” improve relations between Gov. Charlie Baker and legislative leaders? For most of his two terms in office, the Republican governor appeared to have […]
Posted inEconomy
Two-month sales tax holiday may not make economic sense
THE DEBATE OVER Gov. Charlie Baker’s proposed two-month sales tax holiday has turned into a partisan, interest-driven dispute. Baker, a Republican who has not yet announced whether he will run […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Poll shows strong support for requiring vaccines for teachers, first responders, and other groups
NEWS THAT THE state’s biggest health care provider systems will be requiring COVID vaccinations of their employees will likely renew debate about whether other organizations or types of businesses should […]
Posted inPolitics
Baker, Healey watch as field for governor forms
ANOTHER DAY, another candidate in the race for Massachusetts governor not named Baker. Or Healey, for that matter. With today’s campaign launch by Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, three Democrats have now […]
Posted inEducation
Withholding Boston School Committee texts backfires
THE COVER-UP is always worse than the crime. And so it is that Boston school officials find themselves dealing with the explosive fallout of a contentious school committee meeting almost […]
Posted inEconomy
Are feds sending too much money to states?
NO ONE HAS ever been inclined to give back free money handed to them by the federal government, so don’t look for Massachusetts state officials to start now, but the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Janey decried ‘blue wall of silence’ — while accepting it
THE MESS THAT is the leadership of the Boston Police Department was not of Kim Janey’s making. But it now falls squarely in her lap — right as the mayoral […]
Posted inPolitics
Mass. Republicans continue to contest 2020 election results
DID YOU THINK the battle over the 2020 election was over? Think again. This week, US Rep. Liz Cheney lost her position in Republican House leadership for rejecting former president […]
Posted inPolitics
Could pandemic population shifts help Democrats?
THE PANDEMIC COULD end up being bad news for big coastal cities like Boston, which have enjoyed a decades-long boom as centers of the knowledge economy but whose future now […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Holmes says residents surrounding Franklin Park deserve respect — and quiet
AT WEDNESDAY’S virtual community meeting about the plague of dirt bikes and all-night parties overtaking parts of Franklin Park in Boston, ideas for what to do about it ranged from […]
Posted inHealth Care
Are liberals ‘addicted’ to the pandemic?
IN THE FACE of a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 people in the US and more than 3 million worldwide, one group seems to be letting politics […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Stark differences make many Mass. communities neighbors in name only
IN 1847, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ordered that a line be drawn from the mouth of the Shawsheen River, down along its eastern bank, and “thence in a straight line […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Cracks in the thin blue line
IT WAS A day of national focus on policing, a moment when people at least began to allow for the possibility that there might be change in a seemingly never-ending […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Defund the police, or defang the gangs?
The “defund the police” slogan, born out of anguish and anger over police killing of unarmed black men, has existed uneasily alongside another painful reality: the predominantly black neighborhoods that […]
Posted inEducation
Boston exam schools face court test
HERE WE GO again. More than two decades after federal lawsuits forced Boston to ditch admission policies that set aside seats for black and Latino students at the city’s selective-entry […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Why tax forecasts during COVID have been so wrong
ONE OF THE GREAT PUZZLES of the past year is that the world was devastated by a plague and Massachusetts tax revenues were…pretty much OK. Month after month, the state […]
Posted inPolitics
Janey already scoring from her potent perch
For more than three years, Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu — who was way out in front on the issue — has been hammering away at the idea of making […]
Posted inEducation
Duxbury Dragons and death camps
Almost more shocking than the news of Duxbury High School’s football team using terms like “rabbi” and “Auschwitz” for its line-of-scrimmage audible play calling is the fact that it apparently […]
Posted inEducation
Hesitancy over childhood vaccines could prolong education inequities
A NEW POLL of K-12 parents in Massachusetts foreshadows potentially huge gaps in childhood vaccination rates once an FDA approved vaccine is available for children. These gaps are reminiscent of […]
Posted inGambling
Slot revenues rise, but fall on per-machine basis
OVERALL GAMING revenue numbers for the most part were up in February over the previous month, but there was a surprising decrease in daily per machine revenues. In February, Encore Boston Harbor […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Poll: Home energy upgrades could be challenge
THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE has once again sent a comprehensive climate bill to Gov. Charlie Baker, and this time Baker has sent it back with a series of amendments. While the […]
