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By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — Cannabis Control Commission Chairwoman Shannon O’Brien was suspended from her position Thursday by Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, who chose her for the job a year ago, as upheaval continues to collide with the CCC’s hefty regulatory and policy...

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 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 COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — The deadline for the second round of law enforcement officer recertification passed about two weeks ago and the executive director of the state’s police certification agency reported Wednesday that things went “very smoothly” and that most...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

As more police departments adopt officer-worn cameras and body cam footage becomes a more regular piece of evidence in court cases, district attorneys are finding that their statewide network that handles the footage is overloaded, leading to...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — Two Newton lawmakers are hoping to begin to stamp out abusive coaching practices and the toxic culture of some middle and high school sports teams with a piece of legislation that would help districts emphasize self-awareness, self-control,...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — The population of Massachusetts shrunk by nearly 8,000 people between July 2021 and July 2022, a drop of about 0.1 percent, but the newest estimate released in fresh data from the U.S. Census Bureau puts the state’s population ahead of its...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — From fish being reeled in by anglers in Taunton to the drinking water at an elementary school in New Salem, so-called forever chemicals known as PFAS are everywhere, the questions and comments from lawmakers from various corners of...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

Tax season starts this week on Beacon Hill, when the Revenue Committee will dive into the specifics of Gov. Maura Healey’s tax relief and reform plan as well as about 50 other bills that deal with similar tax credits and tax code changes.The hearing...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey, who made gun laws a central part of her eight years as attorney general, said Thursday that so-called ghost guns should be banned and that she would support legislation to do that in Massachusetts.Untraceable ghost guns can...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — The budget that Gov. Maura Healey will file next week will boost the largest source of state education aid by almost 10% in what the administration said would be the biggest percentage increase since the last millennium.Local officials are...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

More than $3.7 million in state gaming tax revenue is flowing to 43 nonprofit and municipal performing arts centers to help them compete with the state’s casinos to book touring artists and performances, the Mass Cultural Council announced...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

Gov. Maura Healey tapped Lt. Col. John Mawn Jr., a 30-year veteran of the Massachusetts State Police, to serve as interim colonel of the department as she looks both inside and outside its current ranks for someone to assume the role on a permanent...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

New England grid operators expect demand for and use of electricity to hit their highest points yet this winter on as bone-chilling cold takes over Friday and Saturday, but they also expect they will have more than enough power available to meet that...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

The day before he resigned as chair of the Department of Public Utilities last week, Matthew Nelson responded to nearly 100 state lawmakers who had written him with concerns about winter energy bill increases to tell them that the gas bill reductions...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

After two years of double-digit increases in home sale prices and inventory that couldn’t keep up with demand, signs of a correction in the Massachusetts housing market were apparent in the final 2022 statistics, analysts at The Warren Group said...