“The state rules have to catch up with the reality of climate change,” said Matthew Fee, a Nantucket select board member. “A town road can’t be abandoned if someone’s [living] on it, but what happens when the road goes into the ocean?”
‘Water doesn’t know property lines’: Where Massachusetts’s climate and housing crises meet
Posted inMedia
CommonWealth Beacon celebrates multiple wins at 2024 NENPA awards
CommonWealth Beacon was recognized for journalistic excellence by the New England Newspaper & Press Association, taking home multiple awards for its work, including top honors for Best Overall Website and Racial, Ethnic or Gender Issue Coverage.
Posted inPolitics
Trump’s shadow looms as offshore wind price negotiation deadline missed
The latest delay was the second time since Trump was elected that the two sides have failed to meet a deadline and contract negotiations had to be extended.
Posted inPolitics
Boston developer Tom O’Brien decides against mayoral run
O’Brien’s friends and acquaintances said he has long wanted to run for the top job inside City Hall.
Posted inThe Codcast
Primary care physicians organizing union at Mass General Brigham
This week on The Codcast, John McDonough of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Paul Hattis of the Lown Institute talk to Michael Barnett, who is both a primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor of health policy at the T.H. Chan School, about the ongoing effort to unionize PCPs across the Mass General Brigham system.
Posted inOpinion
With arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk, Trump is pulling out all the stops to divide us. It won’t work.
They know that the more that Americans are preoccupied by false enemies and straw men, the more vulnerable we will be to their campaign to dismantle our democracy, strip us of our rights and our privacy, and funnel wealth from everyday Americans to the billionaire class.
Posted inPolitics
Boston nursing home may have to be sold or closed, court-appointed overseer says
The options include finding a buyer for the facility, or closing up the nursing home and selling off the building and the land it sits on.
Posted inMarijuana
Mass. inspector general calls on cannabis regulators to conduct an audit over $550,000 in uncollected fees
MASSACHUSETTS INSPECTOR GENERAL Jeffrey Shapiro called on the Cannabis Control Commission to conduct an audit following the commission’s failure to collect approximately $550,000 in licensing fees since August 2022. In […]
Posted inOpinion
Big Tech is exploiting teens with addictive social media feeds. We can stop it.
Massachusetts is not powerless in the face of these harms to our children. In January, we filed legislation that would prohibit social media companies from directing content at minors through algorithms that are capable of hijacking their attention.
Posted inCourts
Judge orders HUD to release $30 million in grants to fair housing groups
In approving a temporary restraining order to return federal grant money, a Massachusetts judge said options were limited by a recent Department of Education case.
Posted inOpinion
Minimizing the cost of the state’s huge energy storage procurement
Massachusetts ratepayers have a newfound interest in charges on their utility bills since the large price spikes of recent months.
Posted inEducation
Mass. education secretary’s votes reflect growing Democratic hostility toward charter schools
Growing Democratic opposition to charter schools was cast in sharp relief at February’s state education board meeting, where Gov. Maura Healey’s education secretary, Patrick Tutwiler, voted against all five proposals for expansion of charter schools.
Posted inPolitics
New poll: Mass. residents want back-up plan for funding transportation projects
A MassINC Polling Group survey of 702 residents found that 59 percent said the state should have a plan to pay for transportation improvements without billions of dollars in federal funding.
Posted inState Government
Mass. exploring possible third state-run veterans’ home
Talks are underway within state government about establishing a third long-term care home for veterans, Veterans Services Secretary Jon Santiago said Tuesday.
Posted inGovernment
‘Cut hay, not USDA’: Mass. farmers rally in Hadley against agriculture program cuts
Hundreds gathered outside Hadley Town Hall Sunday protesting a deluge of changes to the USDA by the Trump administration, including frozen grant money, program cuts, staff layoffs, and the slated closure of Massachusetts’ Natural Resources Conservation Service office.
Posted inHealth Care
Fresh allegations of mismanagement swirl around Benjamin Health Center, court documents show
Established in 1927, the Benjamin has more than 80 patients and residents, the vast majority of them people of color.
Posted inThe Codcast
Sec. Augustus on housing policy base hits
CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith sits down with Ed Augustus, Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, to discuss how federal policy changes threaten state housing goals, the Commonwealth’s response, the tools it is using to meet those goals, and much more.
Posted inPolitics
Kitty Dukakis, a champion for the dispossessed who spoke openly of her struggles with depression and addiction, dies at 88
Kitty Dukakis was a prominent presence throughout her husband’s public life, which included a record-setting 12 years as governor and serving as the Democratic nominee for president in 1988.