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Matt McDonald, a Boston-area native, has decades of experience as a reporter, editor, and copy editor. His work has appeared in The Mashpee Messenger, Cape Cod News, and The Norfolk Boomerang.
Around New England
Harvard graduate students who belong to four identity-politics groups are complaining that several college officials haven't supported them enough. The administrators have treated the students as "separate but equal," the students said, using the language of the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson,
Around New England
A legislative committee in Maine has voted 7-5 to recommend banning American Indian mascots in Maine public schools, on party lines. A Democratic supporter of the ban called it "a civil rights issue" while Republican opponents said they support local control, according to the Bangor Daily News.
Around New England
A tiny town in northern Maine that has been mostly dry for generations has voted to let restaurants serve alcohol on the premises. Or make that "restaurant," since it has only one.
News
Governor Charlie Baker poured cold water on the abortion-expansion ROE Act bill in the Massachusetts Legislature on Monday without saying he'd veto it. Baker took questions from reporters after a ceremonial signing of a separate bill that guarantees state funding of Planned Parenthood abortion clinics in Massachusetts even
Around The Web
A female politician who unsuccessfully ran for lieutenant governor of Nevada in 2014 says then-Vice President Joe Biden approached her from behind, smelled her hair, and planted a slow kiss on her head. Lucy Flores, now 39, a Democrat and a former member of the Nevada State Assembly, was waiting
Around New England
The Massachusetts Senate has passed a version of a conversion therapy ban, 34-0. Five Republicans voted "present" rather than either yes or no, because they oppose conversion therapy for minors but believe the bill "provides too much room for interpretation in an area that requires caution and
News
The conservative Massachusetts Republican Assembly is challenging supporters of legal abortion to see Unplanned, a movie depicting former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, who became a pro-life activist after seeing a real-time ultrasound image of a fetus while assisting a doctor with an abortion. The Massachusetts Legislature is considering
Around New England
An alumni group called The Coalition for a Diverse Harvard has endorsed 18 candidates for two boards that influence policies of Harvard University in hopes of implementing overtly race-conscious admissions and an ethnic studies program, but organizers lament the lack of homosexual, bisexual, or transgender candidates among them. "We