Menu
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
A Fall River city councilor is considering pushing a ban on thin-film plastic bags in the city, although he says he's concerned it might hurt poor people. "I recognize there would be resistance and I also know from my research in other communities that those most adversely
Around New England
A Wellfleet resident has raised $40,000 toward a goal of $200,000 on a GoFundMe web site to lease two buoys that are designed to warn swimmers about the presence of a shark. The Arthur Clever Buoy Pilot, as founder Heather Doyle calls it, is named for Arthur Medici,
Around New England
A New Bedford man charged with drug trafficking is challenging a Superior Court judge's ruling that automatic license plate readers recording all cars that go over the Bourne Bridge and Sagamore Bridge to or from Cape Cod are constitutional. Jason McCarthy's car was on a Hit
News
The Massachusetts House of Representatives has approved what it calls emergency legislation that would allocate up to $8 million for clinics that provide contraception for poor people – even if they also refer people for abortions or perform abortions at the same site. The House passed the measure Wednesday, 140-14.
Around New England
A left-of-center advocacy group is lamenting $4.15 billion in what it calls "lost revenue" from incremental decreases in the Massachusetts taxes since the late 1990s. A report issued by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center highlights decreases in personal income tax (from 5.95 percent to 5.
Around New England
The city of Nashua, New Hampshire paid $60,000 to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by a former alderman and school board member whom the superintendent of schools barred from visiting the city's public schools for one year. Jahmal Mosley, the superintendent, got a no-trespass order issued against
Around New England
The tiny community of Cary Plantation in Aroostook County in northern Maine held its final town meeting this week before it gives up local government this summer. In November 2018 the 189-person plantation, a form of local government in Maine, voted 105-4 to give final approval to de-organize, meaning residents
Around New England
The chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party blasted the pro-abortion ROE Act bill as pro-infanticide. "Under the radical infanticide bill, absolutely nothing would be done to protect or even comfort a baby who survives a late-term abortion," party chairman Jim Lyons said in a written statement Wednesday, March