INTRO TEXT Even crime has its growth sector, and in the Bay State, it’s burglary. The only violent or property crime category to increase between 2002 and 2003, burglary rose 1.3 percent, according to the latest State Police figures. Trace DNA evidence from blood, perspiration, or saliva can help to solve those crimes, as well […]
State House News Service
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, Transportation
CommonWealth Forum weighs mass transit
INTRO TEXT The state’s plan to extend the MBTA’s Green Line to West Medford does not promise enough environmental benefits to justify its cost, according to one panelist at the latest CommonWealth Forum, but public-transit advocates responded that the project is only one of many needed to improve transportation and stimulate economic growth in the […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
Sense of Loss
Population drop may have been a fluke, but slow growth has its costs By Robert David Sullivan Coming at the end of a year when Massachusetts had more than its fair share of the national spotlight (thanks to football, baseball, and presidential politics), it was disconcerting to learn that we were the only state in […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service
CommonWealth Forum totes up assets and opportunities
INTRO TEXT “Asset inequality” is a major reason why African-Americans continue to lag behind white Americans in terms of homeownership and education, agreed several speakers at the latest CommonWealth forum, though there was less agreement on the causes and cures of this condition. “With a Little Help From Our Friends (and Families): Assets, Race, and […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
Commonwealth Forum figures the odds on slot machines and stock markets
INTRO TEXT The Bay State’s current fiscal crisis has, not surprisingly, revived discussions on increasing revenue by expanding legalized gambling here. At the Commonwealth Forum “Taking a Gamble: Risk, Reward, and Rolling the Dice in Government and Society,” held on June 11 at the Omni Parker House Hotel in Boston, panelists discussed the role of […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
The Boston iMetroi is a tabloid on the fast track
Joe Pesaturo gets paid to know what’s going on at the MBTA. So you’d better believe that when Pesaturo, the transit authority’s chief spokesman, is waiting for his trolley, he’s watching what his fellow riders are doing. And what are they doing? According to Pesaturo, they’re picking up the Metro. “It’s almost automatic,” he says. […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
iCommonWealthi Forum capitalizes on nonprofits
INTRO TEXT Nonprofit organizations and the government agencies and funders that finance them need to think more creatively in the face of lean budgets and a sagging economy. That was the theme running through the Commonwealth Forum, “Innovation and Economy: The Role of the Nonprofit Sector in Tight Fiscal Times,” held March 7 at the […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
Commonwealth Forum panelists give Romney a taste of the future
INTRO TEXT “We do want Mitt Romney to succeed. If he succeeds, we succeed,” said House Speaker Thomas Finneran at the first of two Commonwealth Forums entitled “No Ordinary Time: Advice for the New Governor in a Changed and Challenged Commonwealth,” both moderated by CommonWealth editor Robert Keough. The first forum was held on November […]
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State of the marital union
INTRO TEXT “Politics and marriage don’t really mix,” said Boston College political science professor Alan Wolfe at the June 18 Commonwealth Forum on “The State of the Union: Understanding Marriage in Massachusetts,” moderated by MassINC deputy director Matt Malone. But Wolfe and his fellow panelists agreed that changes in the institution of marriage have had […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service
The New Economys dubious dividend
As we find ourselves heading into a particularly brutal state budget-debate season, the focus, naturally enough, is on the fiscal realities ahead and how to come to terms with them. Still, we ought not to neglect the story of how we find ourselves in the current mess. After all, this has been, in historical terms, […]