My Turn: The past is always present

Single-payer health bill hits milestone after 30 years

A legislative committee has ruled favorably on a Medicare for All bill for the first time in the measure’s 30-year history in Massachusetts, marking a major milestone for the state’s single-payer healthcare movement. About a week before the current legislative session ended on Friday, the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing advanced a redrafted version […]

From floods to funding: Massachusetts farmers receiving disaster aid three years later

Massachusetts farmers will soon be able to apply for $42 million in federal disaster relief funding following the announcement of a $220 million New England block grant designed to help small and midsize farms recover from recent crop losses and infrastructure damage.

District outreach efforts drive down chronic absenteeism in Athol-Royalston

The Athol-Royalston Regional School District reduced its chronic absenteeism rate from 26.9% to 21.3% between fiscal years 2025 and 2026. Superintendent Matthew Ehrenworth attributed this success to consistent weekly monitoring and targeted community outreach. To support families, the district's Family and Community Center provides resources like gas cards and transportation assistance to remove barriers to regular school attendance.

Pushback: State housing projections are the floor, not the ceiling

Massachusetts needs more housing, but how much more? On July 28, 2026, the Recorder published a front-page story in which five local housing developers and municipal planners questioned the accuracy of state data on projected housing need that were originally presented 17 months ago in a report from the Healey Administration called “A Home for Everyone.” The state’s […]

From Global to Local: Lessons from the forest floor while Gaza stands alone

The methodical destruction of Gaza and its people — a genocide in little over 1,000 days — has taken the crime of genocide to an extreme unprecedented in history. This was preventable if the will to prevent were there. That is, if the genocide enraged the world enough to stop it, principally, the UN; the […]