Government & Politics

The Massachusetts Department of Revenue on Friday announced its preliminary collections of $1.979 billion in February, which included a 32% increase in meals tax collections on restaurant sales.

A host of environmental and consumer protection groups are lined up behind legislation that would take a two-pronged approach to PFAS: ban their use in most products to prevent new contamination, and create new programs to clean up contamination that already exists.

Gov. Maura Healey is angling to attract federal dollars to Massachusetts for microelectronics and other tech advancements, despite the House appearing to not share her urgency.

Pulte Homes of New England of Westborough has proposed a 300-unit condominium community, called Emerald Run, off Route 20 in Shrewsbury.

The National Institutes of Health awarded Worcester Polytechnic Institute researcher Emmanuel Agu $2.4 million to develop a smartphone app to detect infections in open wounds.

State regulators have approved additional gas supply rate reductions, and customers will see lower costs beginning on March 1 and lasting until May 1.

Worcester developer GoVenture Capital Group, LLC, has requested an $11.3-million tax break over 15 years for its planned 364-unit apartment complex on Franklin St. in Worcester.

After a couple of high-profile violations of the City of Worcester’s policies on diversity hiring and contracting on public projects, the city government is considering instituting stricter enforcement for developers not meeting those goals.

Massachusetts lurched back into the tax debate on Monday as Gov. Maura Healey unveiled details of a relief package whose cost could swell to nearly $1 billion per year, giving lawmakers a menu to add or slash from in the coming months as they wade back into a topic they spurned last summer.

Deputy commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources Ashley Randle is blazing trails in the department by being named to succeed John Lebeaux as commissioner, the first woman named to the position.