Maura Healey

The first-term executive team described alcohol licensing reform as one of several key features in a wide-ranging "Municipal Empowerment Act" they rolled out Friday, pitching it as a way to remove the existing hurdle of securing state approval.

The funding jolt from subsidies and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, which saw a $20 million increase in the tax package Gov. Maura Healey signed in October, will benefit more than 1,900 housing units.

The most significant burden on the single-family market, not just in Central Massachusetts but around the country, is interest rates.

Hundreds of people crowded into the State House's largest hearing room to offer feedback on the five-year, $4.1 billion housing bond bill, representing a cross-section of affordable and public housing activists, real estate developers, and residents who themselves continue to withstand the crushing pressure of high costs and low supply.

Gov. Maura Healey launched into her second year as governor with big spending promises, but Democratic leaders in the Legislature say they aren't planning to raise taxes to pay for them, even as the state's fiscal picture looks grimmer than it did a year ago.

Beleaguered public transit, K-12 education, and the growing climate and clean energy technology sector would all get major boosts in state funding under Gov. Maura Healey's vision for the year ahead.

According to her spokeswoman, Healey plans to discuss investments she hopes to see advance this year for housing, transportation and infrastructure, education, child care and economic development, including the life science and climate technology.

At a Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast in Boston, Gov. Maura Healey on Monday announced that two state offices are partnering to reopen unspecified statewide contracts to provide more opportunities to diverse and small businesses.

Cries of "shame" echoed in front of the State House as speakers like Rebekah Gewirtz of the National Association of Social Workers deplored how the cuts will mean "more desperately hard times" for residents including "the most vulnerable kids."

Healey signed the tax relief into law on Oct. 4, less than a year after voters approved a new income surtax -- which Healey and legislative Democrats supported -- on high earners designed to generate more revenue for transportation and education investments.