The MassGrant Plus expansion plan that Healey recently announced includes no additional support to deserving low- and middle-income students who strive to attend the best private colleges and universities in the world, which happen to be in Massachusetts.
State tuition support should be for private as well as public colleges
Posted inOpinion
Drug pricing policies, proposals are a danger to Mass.
Government-mandated drug pricing policies included in the Inflation Reduction Act, and efforts to expand those policies to the commercial sector, could prevent Massachusetts and New England from remaining one of the top life science and biotechnology hubs in the nation.
Posted inMedia
CommonWealth Beacon’s most popular Codcasts of 2023
“I really take that as a kind of a philosophy, almost, at this particular point, that I want to be as optimistic as I possibly can, knowing the bleakness of my situation as a reality, but also to walk on air, meaning, I think, take chances that you might have put off at other times in your life.”
Posted inEnergy
State agency prepares to buy Salem offshore wind port land
Crowley will receive $30 million for the sale, the same amount the company paid when it originally purchased the land, according to Tyson. Another $45 million in state funding will support capital development at the site.
Posted inOpinion
Our economic future is tied to innovation, freedom
There are two simple components to our approach. We will continue to innovate and we will continue to champion freedoms and create caring, inclusive communities.
Posted inMedia
CommonWealth Beacon’s most-read commentary pieces of 2023
Perhaps not surprising at a time when it often feels like MBTA stands for “more bad transit agita,” half of the 10 most-read commentary pieces of 2023 related in some way to how we get around, two of them specifically zeroing in on the T.
Posted inMedia
CommonWealth Beacon’s top news stories in 2023
Three of the most-read stories from CommonWealth, which rebranded as CommonWealth Beacon in November, related to transportation, and the top story, about a Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation study, focused on transportation and the fallout from COVID and remote work on the downtown Boston office market.
Posted inOpinion
A New Year’s resolution: Make Mass. affordable
The big $1 billion tax cut celebrated by Beacon Hill leaders this year was, for the most part, a regressive giveaway to the already well-off, costing the state millions of dollars that could otherwise be used to support low-income people and the middle class.
Posted inGovernment
The ‘labor whisperer’ inside Boston City Hall
“Don’t demonize your opponent. Don’t question your opponent’s motives. I mean, I’m actually slipping here by even saying opponent,” said Lou Mandarini, who was called Mayor Michelle Wu’s “labor whisperer.”
Posted inThe Codcast
The road to a new Boston police contract
Mayor Michelle Wu has had to negotiate a tremendous number of labor contracts, including most recently with the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association. Lou Mandarini, Wu’s senior advisor for labor, joins CommonWealth’s Jennifer Smith and Gin Dumcius to discuss the BPPA contract and the city’s approach to collective bargaining.
Posted inOpinion
Confessions of a marijuana legalizer
We lacked the wherewithal to counter the propaganda, so we played to common fears, however unfounded, by pointedly including in the law ample authority for the proposed regulatory agency to enact rules addressing every jitter, however baseless, about marijuana.
Posted inOpinion
Finally, natural gas has no future
The future of gas order released here in Massachusetts is just the beginning. We have the opportunity to lead the nation in a just transition away from toxic gas for good.
Posted inMarijuana
Judge sides with Goldberg in dispute with O’Brien
A state judge sided with Treasurer Deborah Goldberg in her dispute with Shannon O’Brien, ruling that the suspended cannabis commission chair is not entitled to the public, name-clearing hearing she has been seeking.
Posted inEnvironment
New regulations would brace development for more severe storms
STORMS ACROSS Massachusetts have been growing in strength, with deluges this year sending bacteria-laden stormwater into the ocean and wreaking havoc in flash floods. The state’s environmental agencies are gearing […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Short takes: A (different) public apology in Stuart case
Four years before Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s public apology over the city’s handling of the Stuart murder case, Suffolk DA Rachael Rollins offered a similar, if little noticed, mea culpa.
Posted inOpinion
Transfers between state colleges should be automatic
In a groundbreaking initiative, Bunker Hill Community College and UMass Lowell have collaborated to create a program allowing Bunker Hill students to opt into simultaneous admission to UMass Lowell upon their graduation from Bunker Hill.
Posted inBy The Numbers
Emergency shelter facilities distributed unevenly across Mass.
A report released earlier this week indicates big disparities among communities in terms of emergency shelter facilities.
Posted inEducation
Dueling letters to Healey on vocational school admissions
More than two dozen lawmakers wrote to Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday, urging her to end the practice of using selective entry standards at the state’s vocational high schools and instead admit students by lottery.
Posted inCourts
Healey’s SJC pick questioned about lack of judicial experience
“I would bring a lot of experience with the different courts of the Commonwealth, in a different way,” Bessie Dewar said.
Posted inOpinion
The wheelchair repair system is broken
Bureaucracy and other complexities are creating undue delays in repairing complex wheelchairs, equipment that is essential for everyday life for thousands of people.
Posted inEconomy
For the ‘canna-curious,’ a new way to buy and ‘drink weed’
Theory Wellness, opening the state’s first drink-only cannabis dispensary in Medford, is betting on the growing cannabis beverage market and looking to make the process of buying and drinking marijuana look a lot more like the process of buying and drinking beer or the ever-more-popular spiked seltzer.