Despite clear evidence that cannabis has had negative health effects in Massachusetts, our state has done little to survey and confront these harmful consequences.

The modernization project is a key phase of MassDOT's Springfield Area Track Reconfiguration Project, which will upgrade tracks, signals, and other infrastructure to ease a major rail bottleneck in the city by reducing conflicts between freight and passenger trains. West-East Rail construction is set to begin next year.

Gov. Maura Healey and Republican challenger Mike Minogue clashed over rising energy costs, abortion rights, and accountability for misconduct in their second and final gubernatorial debate before Election Day.

A project already pockmarked with delays and growing costs will once again stretch on longer than MBTA officials hoped, this time due to federal scrutiny of components shipped from China.

Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.

Roughly 55 percent of Massachusetts adults who have opioid use disorder and are enrolled in MassHealth will need to satisfy new federal work requirements outlined in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The change, if implemented, would “dramatically and inaccurately favor southern states where many northern residents, sometimes called snowbirds, spend some or all of the months of December through March, despite spending a majority of their time voting in and paying taxes to northern states like Massachusetts," Jessie Partride Guerrero, director of data services at the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, testified.

As lawmakers debate the Massachusetts Data Privacy Act, they should be careful not to adopt an approach that unintentionally makes it harder and more expensive for local businesses to compete, grow, and innovate online.  

Regular people’s ability to sue businesses for the alleged violation of a law is called private right of action, and it is a necessary inclusion if the future Massachusetts data privacy law is to truly protect citizens’ rights, safety, and privacy. 

Schools can apply for funding and then use it for "age-appropriate" classroom instruction, materials, educator training and resources to help families support healthy social media use, according to the Healey administration.

Danielle Allen, a Harvard University professor who founded the group advancing Question 3, and Jordan Berg Powers, chair of Voting Rights MA, which is opposing the ballot initiative, faced off in a debate about all-party primaries, which is shaping up to be perhaps the most controversial of the nine ballot questions that will appear before Massachusetts voters in November.

Massachusetts public schools are entering an era of fewer children and students, but the causes and consequences of that decline look markedly different depending on where a district is located.

The legal challenge comes as the country considers the messy legal question of whether reproductive care services are being provided where the patient is — which may be a state with a ban — or where the abortion medication is issued.  

The complexity of our few bills tells us very little, if anything, however, about the quality of the bills or of the process that produced them. In fact, the complexity of bills covering multiple topics often only adds to the dysfunction and underperformance of our Legislature.

Democracy depends on being able to give positive and negative reinforcement to elected officials. Constituents should be able to praise legislators for what they do right and criticize them for what they do wrong. Omnibus bills weaken that ability, and that’s the point. 

The modern trend of relying on omnibus bills for routine legislative work is not a neutral choice. It turns a simple democratic process into a labyrinthine ordeal.

We now know that learning is not simply a matter of delivering the same content to every student on the same schedule.

Nolan’s comments that Healey will tone down her rhetoric after the election stand in stark contrast to Healey’s pitch to voters that Massachusetts will take on utility profits and go to bat for ratepayers.

Voters in the deep-blue state are sometimes open to a gesture toward bipartisanship through a Republican governor that could, at least in theory, square off against a Democratic supermajority in the Legislature. But Minogue’s odds look long.

MassDOT has agreed to fund improvements and additions that would support permanent seasonal weekend Berkshire Flyer service and lay the groundwork for expanded passenger rail in Western Mass.

Across the country, cities are abandoning their parking minimums and hoping to end up with fewer parking lots and walkable, transit-oriented neighborhoods. The local rules have been used to ensure new developments can accommodate residents with cars and do not overwhelm on-street public parking. But urbanists have argued that the requirements gobble up land that could be used for more housing and drive up construction costs.

Nearly 350,000 Bay Staters are currently enrolled in individual Connector coverage. People will need to navigate double-digit premium hikes and some discontinued plans, particularly among Tufts Direct and Fallon Health enrollees.

The details are different. The university is different. But the questions students are asking are ones generations of us have asked before.

A political backlash to Mass Save, amid a rising tide of angst over soaring utility bills, has taken root in the Bay State.

Nurses authorized an indefinite strike last week, and the Massachusetts Nurses Association said it submitted the required 10-day notice for an "unfair labor practice" strike to Mass General Brigham.