The Download

New from CommonWealth Beacon THE CODCAST: After 28 years at the helm of Massachusetts Health Quality Partners, Barbra Rabson is stepping down. Data gathered by MHQP paints a picture of […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon RETREAT: Local and state officials are looking more directly at the logistics of managed retreat – long a delicate subject for coastal residents. The state is […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon ELECTRIC BUSES: A quiet debate about how and whether the T can or even should meet an ambitious electric bus mandate is now spilling into the […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon BOTTLES: Just one-third of the eligible bottles and cans sold in Massachusetts were redeemed last year under the state’s recycling-incentivizing deposit law, a new low as […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon INSURANCE: Massachusetts insurance commissioner Michael Caljouw sat down with Jordan Wolman to for a wide-ranging conversation about the insurance industry, affordability, health care, and climate change. […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon RETIREMENT: Massachusetts House Republicans will be faced with a choice once Minority Leader Brad Jones leaves office in January: pick a new leader who carries Jones’s […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon BALLOT BATTLES: Dueling housing ballot measures, one proposing strict rent control and one looking to ease restrictive zoning, collided with frustrated lawmakers over two days of […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon POLITICS: In the Political Notebook, CommonWealth Beacon reporters take stock of the campaign significance of a House roll call vote, note the inspector general’s increasing workload, […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon ELECTRICITY: A provision in the House-approved energy affordability bill would crack down on competitive electric suppliers, third-party companies that regulators have long alleged mislead consumers with […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon DATA CENTERS: Gov. Maura Healey’s big bet on the tech sector’s artificial intelligence boom is colliding with shifting politics around data centers as a key tax […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon BALLOT: A proposed ballot measure to change the way legislative stipends are doled out seems well-intentioned enough, but could create a host of unintended consequences, Chris […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon IMMIGRATION IMPACTS: Schools across Massachusetts are grappling with shrinking enrollment that they say is likely connected to President Donald Trump’s ramped up immigration enforcement push. Hallie […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon AFFORDABILITY: Five years ago, fighting climate change had so much momentum that even half of the Legislature’s Republicans voted in favor of ambitious decarbonization requirements. But […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon CHARTER SCHOOLS: The state’s highest court ruled that charter schools must comply with the state’s public records law, rejecting Mystic Valley Regional Charter School’s argument that […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon COMPETITIVENESS: Gov. Maura Healey’s top economic development official and state lawmakers musings at a recent budget hearing about affordability in the nation’s second-most expensive state centered […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon NEW CODCAST: This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon senior reporter Jordan Wolman hosts a discussion about how rising utility bills became the chief political headache […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon LAWSUIT: Democratic Party insiders are suing to block a proposed ballot question that would end partisan primaries in Massachusetts. If that measure passed, it could create […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon MBTA COMMUNITIES: Did the controversial MBTA Communities housing law impermissibly force towns to shell out money to devise carefully crafted multifamily zoning plans, or were any […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon Records: Lawmakers kicked off their review of the massive ballot-question field with trepidation about subjecting themselves to the public records law — plus another round of […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon CLEANUP: Communities in western Massachusetts are split on the prospects of a landfill planned to hold sediment contaminated with low levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon New Codcast: This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Hallie Claflin sits down with Department of Early Education and Care commissioner Amy Kershaw and Strategies […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon OPINION: What totally predictable crisis will start in just five years? The doubling of the need for elder care. A dangerous demographic cliff lies just ahead, […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon MASS SAVE: House Democrats have passed a major energy bill that aims to cut rising utility costs that have inflamed an affordability crisis in the state […]

New from CommonWealth Beacon LITERACY: Massachusetts is inching toward a major overhaul of literacy instruction that would require districts to use state-approved curricula including phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension, but some […]