NEPM Newsroom

Updated at 9:30 a.m. on 10/7/21 

Former President Donald Trump gave his "Complete and Total Endorsement" to Geoff Diehl on Tuesday evening, staking out the former state representative and U.S. Senate candidate's turf as the Trump candidate in the 2022 contest for governor of Massachusetts.

Almost every member of Springfield's legislative delegation signed onto a letter to Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker asking that he issue an emergency order to rehabilitate or rebuild the Roderick Ireland Courthouse, which has fallen into such disrepair that the Hampden district attorney has removed his staff. 

Henri is now a hurricane. The National Hurricane Center issued an advisory late Saturday morning upgrading the tropical storm to a hurricane as it moves northward toward New England.

Massachusetts Auditor Suzanne Bump, a Democrat who began her Beacon Hill career in the 1980s and has worked in various public roles, said Tuesday she would not seek a fourth term.

Hampden County's top prosecutor said investigators were preparing to seek an arrest warrant for a defrocked Roman Catholic priest long considered a suspect in the 1972 killing of a western Massachusetts altar boy shortly before his death last week.

The Massachusetts Legislature should require the Holyoke Soldiers' Home superintendent to be a licensed nursing home administrator, elevate the secretary of veterans' services to the Cabinet, create a paid ombudsman position at both state-run soldiers' homes, and impose a raft of chain of command protocols and training requirements, a panel of lawmakers concluded after reviewing the deadly COVID-19 outbreak that struck the facility last year.

Updated at 5:33 p.m. 

A 964-acre brush fire in western Massachusetts is now 90% contained, according to the state.

All six New England states are pausing use of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The decisions follow a federal recommendation for a pause while investigators look into six cases of a rare and severe blood clot reported in women who received the vaccine.

President Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan could bring expanded or improved Amtrak train service to every state in New England.

Attorney Mark Pearlstein's probe into the COVID-19 outbreak that killed at least 76 veterans who lived at the Holyoke Soldiers' Home did not face any constraints imposed by Gov. Charlie Baker's administration, Pearlstein said Friday. But he acknowledged the inquiry's timeframe left investigators unable to dig more deeply into "a long and rich history" of issues at the facility, 

Decades-old allegations of assault at a youth summer camp in the Berkshires are at the center of new criminal charges filed against a former Olympian.

A Massachusetts legislative committee heard testimony Tuesday on a $400 million spending bill crucial to reconstructing the Holyoke Soldiers' Home.

Six Dr. Seuss titles — including a well-known children's book set on Mulberry Street in Springfield, Massachusetts — will no longer be published.

A day before Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker is set to testify before lawmakers on the state's COVID-19 vaccine rollout, he announced 11 regional vaccination sites in the state, including locations in Berkshire, Franklin and Hampshire counties.

Updated at 5:44 p.m. 

The town of Amherst, Massachusetts, will keep in place capacity limits and a business curfew — both of which were set to loosen on Monday — as part of efforts to contain a COVID-19 outbreak at its flagship University of Massachusetts campus.

As they shift back to 24/7 operations now that Gov. Charlie Baker's 9:30 p.m. curfew for businesses has been lifted, none of the three gaming facilities in Massachusetts have come close to encroaching on the 25% capacity limit that remains in effect, regulators at the Gaming Commission said Thursday.

Frustration about the state’s rocky COVID-19 vaccine rollout and its impact on older adults continued to escalate Thursday, even as Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker promised more appointments would become available and the launch of a new call center to help with scheduling.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced on Monday an expansion of free COVID-19 testing in the western part of the state.

Communities across Massachusetts have made "excellent progress" slowing the spread of the highly infectious coronavirus, Gov. Charlie Baker said Wednesday, praising Springfield’s approach in particular.

The University of Massachusetts is canceling its 2020 football season, officials announced Tuesday.

Updated 4:25 p.m.

UMass Amherst has reversed its plans to allow students to decide whether to return to campus housing.

Democrats claimed victory in two Massachusetts special elections Tuesday, seizing state Senate seats that had long been held by Republicans in races that party chair Gus Bickford said reflected a rejection of President Donald Trump's politics.

Governor Charlie Baker is ready to let people tee off in Massachusetts again.

Hours after Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker cautioned against drawing conclusions from a five-day drop in new confirmed COVID-19 cases, that streak came to an end with the Department of Public Health's report of 1,745 new cases Wednesday, up from 1,556 on Tuesday.

Updated at 8:23 p.m.

Massachusetts school buildings will remain closed to students for the rest of this school year, Gov. Charlie Baker announced Tuesday, a dramatic step aimed at preventing a rebound in COVID-19 transmission once the state emerges from the worst of the outbreak. 

On the heels of the two deadliest days so far in Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker said Sunday morning that "we're right in the middle of the surge now." A top White House official highlighted the state as an area where the continued spread of COVID-19 is a concern.

Massachusetts recorded nearly 2,000 new COVID-19 infections and 156 new deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, according to statistics posted Saturday afternoon by state public health officials.

Massachusetts has more than 30,000 confirmed COVID-19 infections as of Thursday, one of the highest state totals in the country, as Gov. Charlie Baker said the peak demand on hospitals is approaching fast.

As expected, casino revenue plunged in Massachusetts in March, according to the latest report from state gambling regulators.

An East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, man is accused of trying to blow up a Jewish assisted-living residence in Longmeadow.