Greater Worcester

Massachusetts will receive $8 million to address the opioid crisis as part of a $350 million national settlement with Publicis Health.

An attorney for suspended Cannabis Control Commission Chair Shannon O'Brien said Thursday he is not aware of any federal investigation into his client and has not seen the subpoena that the Boston Globe reported Thursday had been sent to state officials in the fall by federal prosecutors seeking information on O'Brien.

Massachusetts was third in the New England region in union membership in 2023.

Worcester joined a growing list of municipalities no longer collecting community impact fees from cannabis businesses in January 2023, after collecting nearly $5.2 million in those fees from fiscal 2019 to 2023.

Tenet Healthcare Corp., the Texas-based, for-profit healthcare services company that owns Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, has entered into a definitive agreement to sell four hospitals that the company operates in Southern California.

The state's retailers sold 232,894 pounds worth of cannabis flower to recreational consumers in 2023, about the weight of the average blue whale.

WynnBet confirmed Wednesday that it plans to cease online wagering in Massachusetts and Betr announced last week that it would not renew its temporary license to take bets in Massachusetts.

During a policy breakfast at a Boston hotel, Health Care Financing Committee Co-chair Rep. John Lawn told biopharmaceutical and health care industry leaders that ensuring constituents have access to care is the "number-one priority" for the Legislature.

One of the two co-CEOs of Heywood Healthcare has been voted onto the board of an association representing 70 hospitals and healthcare facilities across the state.

While the demand for services is there, the lack of utilization is a workforce issue, said Jehlen, who co-chairs the Legislature's committees on both elder affairs and labor.