IN ATTORNEY GENERAL Andrea Campbell’s view, sports betting is not only a potentially hazardous vice in and of itself, but also a gateway to other addictive behavior – especially if […]
Jennifer Smith
Jennifer Smith writes for CommonWealth Beacon and co-hosts its weekly podcast, The Codcast. Her areas of focus include housing, social issues, courts and the law, and politics and elections. A California native who also lived in Utah, Jennifer has covered Massachusetts since 2011 for a variety of publications. She worked breaking news in the Boston Globe’s metro section and provided courtroom coverage of the Boston Marathon bomber trial for the international wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) while completing her undergraduate journalism degree at Northeastern University in Boston. For four years, Jennifer was a staff writer and later news editor for the Dorchester Reporter, covering her home neighborhood and the city of Boston with a particular focus on politics and development. Her work and commentary have appeared in WBUR, GBH News, Harvard Public Health Magazine, and Politico’s Massachusetts Playbook. She has co-hosted MassINC’s Massachusetts politics and policy podcast The Horse Race since 2018, interviewing newsmakers, journalists, and elected officials across the state.
Posted inTechnology
Taking shots at tech CEOs from Facebook’s birthplace
JUST A FEW BLOCKS from the dorm room where Mark Zuckerberg launched the first version of what would become Facebook, Gov. Maura Healey and tech journalist Kara Swisher got some […]
Posted inEconomy
$15 minimum wage in hand, advocates look to $20
As the “Fight for $15” crossed the country over the last decade, Massachusetts joined states like Oregon, New York, California, and Connecticut in reaching or exceeding a $15 hourly wage. Areas with higher costs of living have gone even further, like New York City’s $16 hourly wage and Washington, DC, with the country’s highest minimum hourly wage at $17.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: Mariano’s blunt urinalysis of Steward
We may be in an era of “Mariano missiles.” House Speaker Ron Mariano, a former schoolteacher from Quincy, can be similarly blunt, or teasing, in his remarks, as he was while speaking at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.
Posted inCourts
SJC gives life to complaints of Tufts tenured faculty
The Supreme Judicial Court partially overturned a lower court decision that Tufts University did not violate promises of academic freedom and economic security made to tenured professors, concluding that a group of professors whose salary and full-time status were reduced can sue the university.
Posted inBallot Questions
Little sympathy for app-based tech companies at ballot question hearing
Two ballot campaigns underway would fundamentally redefine the relationship between gig-work drivers, the companies that manage them, and the state.
Posted inHealth Care
On Steward crisis, Massachusetts Nurses Association head says ‘we invited it in’
As pressure ramps up to find a way to shore up the nine Massachusetts hospitals owned by Steward, which employ about 3,000 nurses represented by the nurses association, Pinkham worries that the state may be in the same position that let Steward get a foothold at the core of the state’s health care system more than a decade ago.
Posted inPolitics
House Dem caucus appoints Pressley to key panel
The caucus, with the full backing of New England Democrats, named Pressley to the committee, replacing Rep. Lori Trahan who was elected co-chair of the caucus’s messaging arm in 2023.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Restorative justice funding on the budget chopping block
A late-in-the-budget-process ask and a shrinking revenue forecast could spell trouble for two state initiatives – a three-year-old community grant program and a bid to launch a dedicated statewide office of restorative justice.
Posted inArts and Culture
A first for Old Ironsides
“I fight and drive ships and lead sailors,” said Commander Billie JU. Farrell.. “And so that’s what I’ve done for the past 20 years. I’m very fortunate that I’ve worked with a bunch of great commanding officers.
Posted inCourts
Unions launch pre-emptive strike against ride-share ballot questions
Massachusetts is Not For Sale, a coalition of labor organizations including the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, is arguing that the SJC should keep five different versions of the Big Tech-backed ballot initiative away from voters, claiming in a new brief that each petition “contains multiple unrelated policy choices” and “all the petitions appear designed to sow maximum voter confusion.”
Posted inPolitics
Political notebook: ‘Java with Jimmy’ now Uber mouthpiece…Point person Peisch…Murphy’s law quest…Cain for Senate
‘Java with Jimmy’ now an Uber cheerleader Jimmy Hills, host of the online show “Java with Jimmy,” sits somewhere between a journalist and a talk show host. His episodes feature […]
Posted inCourts
SJC asks, do you have to put down a dying dog?
The state animal cruelty statute, among other things, criminalizes an owner or person caring for an animal who unnecessarily fails to “provide it with proper food, drink, shelter, sanitary environment … or knowingly and willfully authorizes or permits it to be subjected to unnecessary torture, suffering, or cruelty of any kind.”
Posted inState Government
House looks poised to punt again on sex ed bill
Proponents have expressed mystification, and frustration, about the House’s continued resistance to the bill. Former Senate president Harriette Chandler, who supported the bill during her time in office, repeatedly called the long delay “a disgrace” last month on a local cable show she hosts while talking with bill sponsor Rep. Jim O’Day.
Posted inHousing
AG Campbell sues Milton over MBTA Communities law
Attorney General Andrea Campbell filed suit on Tuesday, asking the court to order that Milton has to comply with a sweeping state law requiring that communities within a certain distance of public transit rezone to allow for minimum amounts of multifamily construction as-of-right.
Posted inPolitics
Fifth time’s the charm for sex ed law?
Supporters of the Healthy Youth Act are taking a fifth swing at passing the legislation, which has made it through the state Senate four times only to fizzle in the House.
Posted inArts and Culture
Embrace Boston looking to build two new monuments
The first monument, Paris Jeffries hopes, will be at the site of the former Emancipation statue and involve rotating interpretations of what emancipation means. Another will go at the promised King center in Roxbury.
Posted inState Government
Short takes: The House departure lounge fills up
Several of the lawmakers hold leadership positions and committee chairmanships, prompting some musing inside the building, and out, about what the departures mean in the context of House Speaker Ron Mariano’s future.
Posted inPolitics
What does #mapoli mean?
For years, Massachusetts had one of the most active state political universes on Twitter. Times – and the social media landscape – have changed. Legislative usage is down, usage of […]
Posted inHealth Care
Uncertainty swirling around Steward, state ramps up monitoring
State officials will ramp up monitoring of the safety-net hospitals owned by troubled Steward Health Care, which was revealed last month to be in grave financial distress with the fate of its many facilities in limbo.
Posted inCourts
Courts preparing to give restorative justice a try
THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM has a well-founded reputation for focusing on punishing offenders, but the Massachusetts court system is preparing to launch a three-year experiment this spring utilizing an approach […]
Posted inHousing
Boston development retool looms with planning shuffle ordinance
Gears are in motion for one of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s showpiece campaign promises – with a new ordinance filed that would move BPDA operations largely into a city planning department.
Posted inGambling
Mass. Gaming Commission looks to study sex trafficking in casinos
With casino gambling booming, state regulators are looking to pursue a study assessing the influence of the expansion of gaming on sex trafficking in Massachusetts.
Posted inEnergy
Utilities dig into geothermal systems in race to decarbonize
THE GROUND BENEATH Massachusetts is key to a relatively new strategy to decarbonize the state’s building stock within the next decade. Deep beneath Framingham, Lowell, and Boston, pipes will exchange […]