HOUSE SPEAKER ROBERT DELEO has a challenger—but it’s not a member of the chamber he oversees. The insurgency is coming instead from a 27-year-old Franklin resident who says he’s grown […]
Challenging DeLeo
Posted inOpinion
Mass. critical hub for autonomous systems
IT’S AN EXCITING TIME to be in the Commonwealth’s innovation sector. There’s a technological revolution taking place around the world and Massachusetts is ground zero as an emerging new industry […]
Posted inTransportation
Is Baker’s commission another delay tactic?
LIKE RED LINE TRAINS, the state’s efforts to address transportation funding are constantly bedeviled by fits and starts in a seemingly endless quest to reach the destination. In the latest […]
Posted inEnvironment, Opinion
Fuel cell vehicles need more support
NATIONAL HYDROGEN & FUEL CELL DAY is just around the corner on Sunday, and there’s no better place than Massachusetts – the state declared the nation’s “most innovative” by the […]
Posted inTransportation
Group sees regional rail potential
IT WAS BILLED AS A LOOK at the real estate opportunities associated with an underground rail link between North and South Stations, but the presentation ended up centering more on […]
Posted inThe Codcast
Episode 69: Brownsberger tees up criminal justice reform bill
The tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and 90s has given way to what some are calling the smart-on-crime era, a time in which policymakers and politicians are rethinking what it […]
Posted inThe Download
The Codcast: Brownsberger tees up criminal justice reform bill
The tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and 90s has given way to what some are calling the smart-on-crime era, a time in which policymakers and politicians are rethinking what it […]
Posted inEconomy
Chinatown residents protest short-term rentals
RESIDENTS MARCHED through the streets of Chinatown to the Massachusetts State House on Thursday to protest a short-term rental industry that they say is squeezing out residents of the downtown […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Middlesex DA Ryan backs mandatory minimum repeal
MIDDLESEX DISTRICT ATTORNEY Marian Ryan said she supports many pieces of the Senate criminal justice bill unveiled last week, including the repeal of some mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Middlesex DA Ryan supports repeal of some mandatory minimum drug sentences
Here is the statement released by Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan on October 5, 2017, on the Senate criminal justice reform legislation: “As a prosecutor for more than thirty […]
Posted inOpinion
Sound lessons from Seattle
MASSACHUSETTS IS ABUZZ with talk about whether Amazon might choose one of our communities for its second North American headquarters. Just days after Amazon announced a nation-wide search for “HQ2,” […]
Posted inThe Back Story
MBTA still having problems with some contracts
Two years ago, when the Green Line extension ballooned in cost from $2 to $3 billion, the project highlighted the MBTA’s inability to hire competent contractors and to oversee their work to a satisfactory […]
Posted inThe Download
Telling Amazon a good story
The countdown clock is ticking for delivery of proposals to host a second Amazon headquarters.The plans are due two weeks from today, and there is wide agreement that Boston is […]
Posted inTransportation
Senators grill T officials on privatization
IN APRIL, THE MBTA’S Fiscal and Management Control Board approved a budget that counted on millions of dollars in savings from bus maintenance operations, and the five members unanimously approved […]
Posted inOpinion
Could electricity become too cheap to meter?
YEARS AGO, DURING AN ERA in which nuclear power had great promise, advocates for this energy form said that it would produce electricity “too cheap to meter.” While that prediction […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Conley opens the door to repeal of some mandatory minimums
Here is the statement provided on October 3, 2017, by Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley on the Senate criminal justice reform bill: “Massachusetts has among the lowest violent crime […]
Posted inThe Download
No laughing matter
Nothing is more responsible for televisions in bedrooms than late-night talk shows and the comedians who hosted the programs that generations of Americans tuned into at the end of a […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Senate goes big on criminal justice bill
THE SENATE IS poised to consider a wide-ranging criminal justice bill that would reform everything from the bail system to mandatory minimum sentences and fees and penalties that weigh heavily […]
Posted inHealth Care
Commission hears worries on health cost trends
STUART ALTMAN, the chair of the Health Policy Commission, summed up two days of hearings on cost trends in the state’s health care market by highlighting what was and what […]
Posted inHealth Care
DeLeo, Rosenberg on same health care page
HOUSE SPEAKER ROBERT DELEO signaled on Tuesday that he and Senate President Stanley Rosenberg are on the same page when it comes to passing health care reform legislation. Rosenberg told […]
Posted inThe Download
What front pages say
The shootings in Las Vegas dominated the nation’s news coverage Tuesday morning, but the front pages of newspaper print editions showed some different points of emphasis. Most of the front […]
Posted inTransportation
T notes: Pollack slams Keolis on-time performance
TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY STEPHANIE POLLACK took Keolis Commuter Service to task on Monday for failing to improve its on-time performance. Pollack acknowledged after the meeting of the Fiscal and Management Control […]
Posted inTransportation
Problems surface with T’s collision-avoidance contract
THE PRIVATE CONTRACTOR installing a $459 million system to prevent commuter rail train collisions came under heavy fire on Monday for failing to detect problems with its work that were […]
Posted inHealth Care
Hospital care shifting to high-cost medical centers
HOSPITAL ACQUISITIONS BY large Massachusetts provider networks are leading to more patients receiving care in higher-cost teaching hospitals and fewer patients being cared for in community hospitals, according to data […]