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By Credit search: State House News Service

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Last month’s Boston Tea Party anniversary celebration was “just the tip of the iceberg” as Massachusetts prepares to leverage a series of upcoming historical anniversaries to market the state and draw in millions of tourists, the state’s top...

By CHRIS LISINSKI

BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey will press forward in her annual state budget with major investments into early education and child care despite her administration’s own forecast of limited revenue growth.Healey announced Tuesday that she will propose...

By MICHAEL P. NORTON

Home sales across Massachusetts sank to a 12-year low in 2023, the first year in office for Gov. Maura Healey, whose road to the corner office was paved with promises to boldly tackle the state’s housing crisis.The Warren Group reported Tuesday that...

By CHRIS LISINSKI

BOSTON — The climate crisis is fueling a steady growth in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather, and Massachusetts cities and towns face an increasingly common conundrum trying to respond to those crises.Many of the disasters that have hit...

By SAM DORAN

As towns and cities see a rise in natural disasters that require greater emergency response than their local resources can support alone, two western Massachusetts lawmakers renewed their call Tuesday to divert a portion of excess capital gains tax...

By SAM DRYSDALE AND CHRIS LISINSKI

BOSTON — Her first year in office is winding down, and Gov. Maura Healey is enthusiastic to point out where she thinks she has succeeded: signing into law a billion-dollar tax relief package, overseeing a hiring blitz at the MBTA, and creating a...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren threw her weight behind Gov. Maura Healey’s housing plan this week, and said the federal government will need to “step up” to help the state address its housing affordability and availability crisis.As many as...

By ALISON KUZNITZ

BOSTON — Seeking to remove more barriers to voting, the House approved legislation last week allowing employees to take paid time off on Election Day to cast their ballots in person.Without discussion, lawmakers passed the bill (H 4217) during an...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — After more than three years of considering the future of the natural gas industry in Massachusetts and what role it can play in the state’s efforts to significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades, the...

By SAM DRYSDALE

On the route to decarbonization, the state is so far on target with its goals, the Healey administration says, but there is more work to be done with the most intense period of rapid decarbonization quickly approaching.Gov. Maura Healey’s...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — The workforce shortage that has left employers across sectors scrambling to keep operations running in recent years isn’t likely to let up “any time in the rest of anybody’s lifetime,” one of the nation’s leading economists said last...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — A third of all UMass students will qualify for free tuition paid for by the new income surtax on the state’s highest earners under a plan the Healey administration rolled out Wednesday on an expansion of state financial aid.The governor...

By CHRIS LISINSKI

Voters will not be asked next year whether Massachusetts should revive local-option rent control after organizers working on a 2024 ballot question suspended their campaign late Friday.After facing pushback from other housing justice and progressive...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Calling it “historic,” Gov. Maura Healey unveiled legislation this week — timed to coincide with Veterans Day — that will increase benefits, modernize services and promote inclusivity for hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts veterans.Filed...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

After weeks of maintaining distance from Gov. Maura Healey’s handling of the state’s emergency shelter capacity crisis, the House is likely to approve a legislative directive that Healey establish a shelter overflow site — and the move is revealing...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — A Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied a request to put a temporary hold on the Healey administration’s plan to cap the number of families in the state’s strained emergency shelter system.The decision followed an emergency court hearing...

By SAM DORAN

BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey has unveiled an overhaul of the guidelines she will consider for pardon and commutation applications, which her office said “explicitly outline” for the first time how a governor will use executive clemency to “address...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Massachusetts needs to shift from an era of statewide planning for climate policy to the key details of implementing it, according to a new report from the state’s top climate official, which includes sweeping recommendations to accelerate...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — Two of the state’s top elected officials are encouraging colleges and universities in Massachusetts to find new approaches to “advance diversity, break down barriers, and increase access for historically underrepresented groups” in light of...

By COLIN A. YOUNG

The critically endangered North Atlantic right whale population might be starting to level off after years of decline, but researchers said human activities still present significant ongoing threats to the species.At its annual meeting this week in...