Search Results

By Credit search: State House News Service

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Advocates for decriminalizing psychedelic drugs are hoping to get traction on Beacon Hill and in Massachusetts cities and towns this year, though they are taking different approaches to changing the law.Grassroots coalition Bay Staters for...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

More than 200 farms across western and central Massachusetts started receiving checks last week from the Massachusetts Farm Resiliency Fund, which was launched by the Healey administration and United Way of Central Massachusetts after devastating...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — Critics and supporters of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) are gearing up for a fight in the wake of Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s ruling this week that two proposed ballot questions related to the role of the...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

State utility overseers have ordered Eversource and National Grid to split two of the coldest (and often most costly) months of the year into two procurement and billing periods, implementing an idea that Maura Healey’s office proposed when she was...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — The road to the November 2024 ballot continues for the most closely watched initiative petitions, dealing with the role of the MCAS test as a graduation requirement, the rights and benefits for drivers on app-based platforms, rent control,...

By SAM DORAN

BOSTON — There’s been a rash of late-summer gun violence in Massachusetts, but in the Legislature the situation around proposed gun law reforms hasn’t changed and Democrats, who have been away from Beacon Hill since late July, remain stuck in a...

By Colin A. Young

State agriculture officials are moving to prohibit the importation, sale and trade of two plants thought to be invasive to Massachusetts, including one that “is well known for having nasty smelling flowers.”The Department of Agricultural Resources is...

By CHRIS LISINSKI

State and federal regulators appear to have made a breakthrough to move forward with a voter-approved vehicle repair data law after legal battles and safety concerns stalled its implementation.A bit more than two months after the National Highway...

By Alison Kuznitz

Pioneer Valley farms that were flooded out during July will soon receive $10,000 checks from a fundraising campaign launched by the Healey administration and United Way of Central Massachusetts last month.About 100 farms will be awarded money from the...

By ALISON KUZNITZ

Nearly $2 million in federal dollars will flow into Massachusetts and Boston city coffers to tackle the migrant housing crisis, with the money arriving just over a week after Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency due to strained shelter...

By SAM DRYSDALE

Calling the spate of domestic violence crimes that Massachusetts has seen in recent months “a statewide crisis,” Secretary of State William Galvin announced Wednesday the launch of a new grant program that aims to make victims aware of the services...

By ALISON KUZNITZ

BOSTON — Hundreds of aspiring nurse aides can start taking their certification exams in Spanish and Chinese next year, the start of a multilingual policy that advocates and lawmakers say will tackle a major workforce shortage in nursing homes and...

By ALISON KUZNITZ

BOSTON — Attorney General Andrea Campbell and 18 of her counterparts from around the country urged the federal government Wednesday to expedite the work authorization process for immigrants, who are experiencing “incredibly long waits” spanning 10...

By SOPHIE HAUCK

AMHERST — The University of Massachusetts Amherst has won bragging rights for having the best campus food in the country for the seventh consecutive time, the Princeton Review determined, based on feedback from college students across the country.The...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — Mortgage interest rates are almost double what they were a year ago, but the prices of single-family homes and condominiums in Massachusetts continued to set new records and erode paths to homeownership in July, real estate market analysts...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — A swath of regulatory changes are coming to Massachusetts’ cannabis industry, including measures to clear the way for people with past criminal records to work in marijuana shops and to allow all cities and towns to eventually host cannabis...

By MICHAEL P. NORTON and CHRIS LISINSKI

BOSTON — Supporters of a minimum wage increase have opted not to pursue a ballot question in 2024.Raise Up Massachusetts spokesman Andrew Farnitano, whose group had been weighing an initiative petition to secure another minimum wage hike, confirmed...

By Sam Drysdale

BOSTON — Someone has officially filed a petition to put on the statewide ballot the question of whether students should be required to pass a standardized test in order to graduate — but it wasn’t the state’s large teacher’s union, which has been...

By Colin A. Young

BOSTON — Cash used to be king, but most diners now pay their bill with a credit or debit card, and restaurateurs told lawmakers Monday that the habit is squeezing their already-thin profit margins.Massachusetts is one of two states that does not allow...

By ALISON KUZNITZ

BOSTON — The volume of people 30 and older who gave birth decreased for the first time in 10 years during 2020, according to new data published by the Department of Public Health.The drop of 1.8% comes as overall births in Massachusetts in 2020 —...