AS THE Massachusetts K-12 Graduation Council nears its June deadline for final recommendations on new standards for high school graduation, the Commonwealth faces a defining choice. We can follow the familiar path of standardized testing and compliance—as the framework’s proposed end-of-course assessments would do. Or we can embrace what education researcher...

ERIN MCAULIFFE, 33, has worked at Merrimack Health’s Methuen campus – formerly Holy Family Hospital – for the last 10 years as a nurse in the maternity unit’s special care nursery. Both she and her mother were born at the hospital. In just a few weeks, McAuliffe will deliver her first baby there as well.

“This birthing center has been a big part of...

THE COMPANY THAT OWNS Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp is not automatically shielded from litigation alleging that Instagram has addictive features that exploit children, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said in a first-of-its-kind ruling Friday, dealing another blow to the tech giant Meta amid a growing national movement to hold th...

BEACON HILL is approaching a proposal to reduce the state’s income tax with a club in one hand, an olive branch in the other, and a furrowed brow to top it all off.

Just a few weeks after the House voted to condition access to federal tax cuts on the failure of a ballot question that would reduce the state income tax rate, Speaker Ron Mariano sugge...