The Salem lawmaker at the center of a heated battle over a proposed North Shore power plant has dropped legislation short-circuiting all legal challenges to the proposed plant, saying he’ll […]
Keenan relents on gas plant amendment
Posted inPolitics
Murray tells senators she won’t leave early
Senate President Therese Murray told her fellow Democrats on Thursday that she intends to serve out the remainder of her term as the head of the body, which means Senate […]
Posted inPolitics
Ethics Commission revises conflict law
State Sen. Dan Wolf can keep his day job. The State Ethics Commission today finalized a change in regulations that will allow officials at the state and local level who […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Clearing the Cops: Additional Information
« Return to “Clearing the cops” Winter 2014 cover story [themify_button style=”large red rounded” link=”https://commonwealthbeacon.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Deadly-force-table.xlsx” ]Download Sortable Data about Specific Cases[/themify_button] Of the 73 people on the list, 56 […]
Posted inEnvironment, State House News Service, Transportation
South Coast Rail worries environmentalists
South coast rail, which is already facing questions about its nearly $2 billion cost, will also have to contend with environmental concerns about the impact of the rail line on […]
Posted inEnvironment
Post-coal decisions
Coal-fired power plants are failing across Massachusetts. They’re closing down because they can’t compete with power plants that burn cheap natural gas. And as the coal plants close, communities are […]
Posted inEconomy
DOR to taxpayers: Don’t forget use tax
Revenue department commissioner Amy Pitter has three words for those still debating whether sales tax should be paid on Internet purchases: pay use tax. Policymakers in Washington and on Beacon […]
Posted inEducation
Lawrence school receiver cuts central office staff by 30%
Two years ago, when Jeff Riley was put in charge of Lawrence’s failing school system under a new state law, he made a surprising declaration for someone who had just […]
Posted inEconomy
BRA lawyers don’t do eminent domain
The Boston Redevelopment Authority has eight attorneys on staff, but apparently none of them are qualified to do eminent domain work. Records indicate the agency farms out the eminent domain […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
How the data were gathered
It wasn’t easy assembling the data for this report. No one agency or office compiles a comprehensive list of instances when police use deadly force, so CommonWealth gathered the information […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
Public defender blues
Malden District Court is 50 shades of grim. The defendants in the packed courtroom—men and women, some young, most not—appear somber, resigned, or just plain petrified. The female judge whispers […]
Posted inEducation
The change agent
John McDonough is the interim superintendent of the Boston Public Schools. He’s the anonymous guy who is supposed to keep the school bureaucracy at 26 Court Street running smoothly until […]
Posted inHealth Care
Healing health care
THROUGH THE FALL, and on into winter, health care was everywhere in the news, with one story after another about problems with various aspects of the rollout of the Affordable […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Clearing the cops
FROM THE TINY TOWN of Colrain at the Vermont border to the siren-pierced streets of Boston, state and local police have shot and killed 73 people across Massachusetts over the […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Henriquez convicted of assault and battery
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICERep. Carlos Henriquez was led away in handcuffs Wednesday after being found guilty by a jury in a domestic violence case stemming from an early morning rendezvous […]
Posted inEducation
Educational teamwork
Fly over Fitchburg, Salem, or any of the state’s roughly two dozen Gateway Cities and you’ll get a glimpse of the industrial past in the outlines of old mill buildings. […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Resetting the bar
With headlines routinely proclaiming that Massachusetts “tops the nation” on national or international comparisons of student performance, it might come as a shock that over 40 percent of all students […]
Posted inOpinion, Uncategorized
It’s time to dredge
Boston has some big decisions to make in the next few years that will impact one of the city’s greatest strengths, which is the diversity of its workforce and the […]
Posted inUncategorized
Winter 2014 Editor’s note
Public policy at times can be very theoretical and dry, but this issue isn’t like that at all. It draws you in with great writing and photography that helps you […]
Posted inOpinion
Winter 2014 correspondence and updates
Why no Olympian effort on racial diversity? Just after I read your Fall 2013 cover story, “No seat at the table,” an article appeared in the Boston Globe about an […]
Posted inPolitics
Dark money rising
Citizens United upended electoral politics across the country. The 2010 Supreme Court decision, and the court rulings and regulatory decisions that have followed, held that corporations and unions could spend […]
Posted inHealth Care
Sex at the cellular level
What do you mean when you say every cell has a sex? Men and women are different down to the cellular and molecular levels. You either have two X chromosomes, […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment, Transportation
Pumped over gas tax
When the Massachusetts Legislature voted last year to raise the gas tax by 3 cents to 26.5 cents per gallon and allow the tax to rise automatically in future years […]
Posted inPolitics
The blue-red color divide in Massachusetts
On a national political map, Massachusetts is reliably blue, a Democratic stronghold. The congressional delegation is all Democrat, the State House is overwhelmingly Democrat, and every constitutional officer is a […]