Government & Politics

Time's up for single-use plastics. Or at least that remains the hope of representatives from ten environmental organizations who gathered this week on Beacon Hill to promote bills that would ban the distribution of plastic shopping bags at retail stores statewide.

City of Worcester Mayor Joe Petty is requesting a public hearing on the April closure of several Community Healthlink programs, according to the agenda for Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

A wide-reaching long-term care reform bill is on the move in the Legislature, and it could soon emerge in the House after Speaker Ron Mariano named it one of his early priorities for the session.

The Massachusetts unemployment rate for May fell to 2.8%, down 0.3 of a percentage point from April. This is the third month in a row that the unemployment rate has decreased, and the first time it has dipped below the 3.0% percent mark in 2023, according to the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.

Amid debate over how to keep Massachusetts competitive and how tax cuts figure into that goal, Senate President Karen Spilka emphasized Thursday the importance of "shoring up and expanding" the state's middle class.

The fate of tax relief will now rest with a legislative negotiating committee after the Senate on Thursday stamped its unanimous approval on a nearly $590 million package.

Cities and towns will likely need to wait weeks longer to find out how much state aid they'll receive in the next year, and the answers they get will have spillover effects on municipal budgets and possibly even local property taxes.

Across the street from its first near-complete apartment building, Boston developer Madison Properties has begun a lease on the Polar Park parking garage that will pay the City of Worcester $4.3 million in base rent over the next 20 years.

Gov. Maura Healey announced Tuesday the launch of a "green bank" that she hopes will attract private investment and federal money to pay for building retrofits and new construction of decarbonized buildings in Massachusetts.

A leadership transition is underway at Associated Industries of Massachusetts, one that will see president and CEO John Regan hand the reins of one of the state's leading business groups to Executive Vice President for Government Affairs Brooke Thomson at the end of this year.