Carrie Healy

As the deadline approaches for them to get vaccinated for COVID-19, some Massachusetts state troopers remain at odds with the governor. This week, the police union representing some 1,800 troopers will sit down at the bargaining table with the state.

"On the Day the Horse Got Out" is a rhyming picture book written and illustrated by Hampshire College graduate and Greenfield resident, Audrey Helen Weber. Weber said she has created "a lot of little self-published books" throughout the years, but this is her first “official book.”

COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all on the upswing again in Massachusetts. The state continues to push vaccinations. In fact, in a recent radio interview, Gov. Charlie Baker seemed to leave the door open to the Commonwealth eventually using some sort of COVID-19 vaccination passport.

Dan Trant, a Westfield, Massachusetts, native recognized for his basketball playing in high school and college, died 20 years ago on 9/11. Trant was 40, married with children, and worked as a bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald in the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Springfield's Roderick J. Ireland Courthouse, renamed just a few years ago for the first African American justice appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, is on the minds of the city's legislative delegation. With the building falling into further disrepair, lawmakers want Governor Charlie Baker to step in and assist.

Very hungry caterpillars have been killing mighty oak trees across southern New England for years.

The Northeast sees a lot of different insect invaders, says Audrey Barker Plotkin. She's a scientist with Harvard Forest.

Some trees will die because of insect defoliation, but Plotkin learned in her recent multiyear study why some oaks have more resilience.

Over the summer, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker's administration was urging residents to get vaccinated. Then came a vaccine mandate for state employees, and a message encouraging private businesses to do the same.

Bennington County, Vermont, is home to novelist Thomas Henry Pope. His latest novel is a spy thriller featuring a journalist on a quest for truth, surrounded by political intrigue.

Last week, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed an executive order mandating COVID-19 vaccination for some 42,000 state employees. The order says they must be vaccinated by mid-October or face consequences, which could include losing their job.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recent COVID-19 guidance recommends that everyone — regardless of vaccination status — wear a mask in indoor public settings in areas of substantial and high community transmission. That now includes all of Massachusetts, except for Hampshire and Franklin counties, which the CDC lists as having a moderate level of transmission.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker faces pushback as the state's recent mask advisory falls well short of guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A spike in COVID-19 cases on Cape Cod prompted some communities there to call for mask advisories. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker says he's not planning another statewide return to masking — but in the past, he's put restrictions in place, and required residents to mask up.

Our summer fiction series continues now with a suspenseful eco-fiction story called "Waiting for the Night Song." It's the debut novel from author Julie Carrick Dalton, who spends part of the year in New Hampshire and part in eastern Massachusetts.

Officials across the country, including in some Massachusetts cities, are worried about upticks in COVID-19 cases. 

Our New England landscape was shaped over 10,000 years ago by glaciers that deposited sediments. On sunny summer days, people flock to relax on some of those glacial sediments — or beaches — up and down the New England coast.

Some states, like Connecticut and Vermont, have already decided how they'll spend their share of American Rescue Plan Act money. For Massachusetts, about $5 billion of it is still sitting in the state's piggy bank. 

Massachusetts lawmakers have called it quits ahead of the holiday weekend without passing a full-year budget or election reforms.

Garden designer and author Bill Noble says gardening is about feeling connected and getting familiar with your chosen piece of earth.

A new Massachusetts budget is due by Thursday, but if history is any guide, state lawmakers aren't stressing the deadline.

The Legislature is still working on the budget for the new fiscal year to prevent a state government shutdown. In the meantime, Governor Charlie Baker has filed an interim budget.

Massachusetts lawmakers are 10 days from needing a state budget for the new fiscal year, but the big fight now is about billions in federal aid and who controls it. 

A new report finds that when a female employee asks for an accommodation at work because of a pregnancy, in many cases, she'll be fired.

Transportation and education priorities in Massachusetts could get a step closer to reaping $2 billion a year with a vote this week.

Not all masks are coming off on Saturday, May 29, the day Massachusetts is scheduled to lift pandemic restrictions on businesses as well as on mask wearing.

More than 400,000 residents of western Massachusetts have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

At the same time, new deaths are reported most days, with about 2,200 victims from the region since the pandemic began. Patrick Serio of Hadley is among them.

In most cases, people fully vaccinated for COVID-19 probably don't have to wear a mask, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But, at least for now, mask mandates remain in place in Massachusetts.

Two reporters teamed up to write a series of stories on what academics call "charismatic carbon," or forest offsets. The focus was on California's emissions policy and polluters. But conservation nonprofit Mass Audubon is also involved.