AT A MONTHLY WINTER FARMERS market run by Roots Rising in Pittsfield, shoppers can buy apples, canned tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, onions, and winter squash. A shopper using SNAP benefits can spend $1 to buy $2 of produce under the state’s Healthy Incentives Program, or HIP. But as of Feb. 24, shoppers on public benefits will […]
Shira Schoenberg
Shira Schoenberg is a reporter at CommonWealth magazine. Shira previously worked for more than seven years at the Springfield Republican/MassLive.com where she covered state politics and elections, covering topics as diverse as the launch of the legal marijuana industry, problems with the state's foster care system and the elections of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Gov. Charlie Baker. Shira won the Massachusetts Bar Association's 2018 award for Excellence in Legal Journalism and has had several stories win awards from the New England Newspaper and Press Association. Shira covered the 2012 New Hampshire presidential primary for the Boston Globe. Before that, she worked for the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, where she wrote about state government, City Hall and Barack Obama's 2008 New Hampshire primary campaign. Shira holds a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
Posted inUncategorized
Baker signs law creating caregiver abuse registry
NICKY CHAN was attending a day program for people with intellectual disabilities when he was beaten by a caregiver. The caregiver was found not guilty in court, and there was no way to ensure the caregiver would not get a job at another program. Michael Long was the sole nighttime caregiver for a woman with […]
Posted inHealth Care
Senate passes mental health bill
SEN. JULIAN CYR has struggled with anxiety and depression since childhood. As a boy who was gay, he was bullied in school, had panic attacks and developed an eating disorder. Therapy helped him manage his anxiety. But Cyr still cannot get his health insurance to cover his outpatient mental health care. “I’m a pretty savvy […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
2 Walsh aides cleared of federal charges
When two Boston City Hall aides were found guilty on federal charges for pressuring officials at the Boston Calling music festival to hire union labor, critics pointed to the trial as prosecutorial overreach and the criminalization of politics. Apparently, those critics were right. On Wednesday, in a step that even he acknowledged was unusual, US […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Healey sues JUUL for creating youth vaping epidemic
MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL Maura Healey on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the e-cigarette giant JUUL Labs, alleging that the company intentionally created the epidemic of youth vaping by marketing and selling e-cigarettes to minors. The lawsuit accuses San Francisco-based JUUL of crafting youth-oriented advertising campaigns and illegally shipping e-cigarettes to underage buyers who bought them […]
Posted inEducation
Ed coalition urges focus on students with greatest need
THE NEWLY OVERHAULED state education funding formula has been touted as a way to improve the persistent gap in educational achievement between groups of students – poor students compared to wealthy ones, black and Latino students compared to white students, English language learners compared to native English speakers. A new report being released Wednesday by […]
Posted inEducation
How pro should college athletes go?
WHEN CHRIS WEBBER was a top basketball player for the University of Michigan in the early 1990s, paraphernalia with his name was being sold nationwide, but Webber could not receive a cent. Webber was forced to end his career after a scandal in which he accepted money from a local booster, which is illegal under […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
House jumps back into pot policy
It’s been five months since House Speaker Robert DeLeo said he was unaware of any legislation filed by the Cannabis Control Commission seeking to change state laws around agreements between marijuana companies and their host communities. A month before that, a legislative committee (with DeLeo-appointed co-chair Rep. David Rogers) held a public hearing on a bill that […]
Posted inGun ownership
Gun control redux
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. And again, and again. US Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat running for president, and US Rep. Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, on Thursday introduced the Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act, a bill the sponsors say, “includes and builds upon Congressional Democrats’ strongest gun safety […]
Posted inUncategorized
SJC: Blind people can serve as jurors
IF A BLIND JUROR is called for jury duty, a judge must decide on a case-by-case basis whether that juror is capable of serving, according to a unanimous decision issued Thursday by the Supreme Judicial Court. The SJC, in an opinion written by Justice Kimberly Budd, ruled in Commonwealth vs. Lawrence Heywood that a judge […]