Regional News

Tracking deaths in Massachusetts jails and prisons has long been difficult, with details of fatalities kept secret from the public, and often from family members, too.

Last year, the federal government changed the way it counts deaths in custody — a move that’s received little notice in a chaotic period marked by a global pandemic and political unrest. The new method has done little to improve transparency for the public.

As dignitaries filed into their seats for President Joe Biden’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., roughly a dozen people affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement in Connecticut marched to the front of the state Capitol in Hartford.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont and state lawmakers would have enough revenue to balance the state’s next budget without raising taxes.

The lobby of the emergency homeless shelter in the old Ascension Church in Worcester — known as Hotel Grace — turned into a makeshift clinic Tuesday morning. Shelter guests sat behind temporary curtains, answered medical history questions and rolled up their sleeves to receive vaccines against the coronavirus.

Homeless shelters are among the congregate care settings where the vaccinations are being rolled out this week.

Steven Fontaine, 48, has been staying at Hotel Grace for two weeks and wanted to get the vaccine at his first chance.

Two Massachusetts residents were arrested by FBI agents Tuesday and charged in connection with the riot at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month.

For Massachusetts to meet its 2050 climate change emission goal, the state is going to have to green the grid, replacing fossil fuel power plants with clean renewable energy sources. To do this, the commonwealth is banking on offshore wind.

“Offshore wind is the linchpin of Massachusetts clean energy strategy and critical to our success,” said State Sen. Michael Barrett, head of the committee that oversees utilities and energy.

By 2030, developers of offshore wind hope to install over 2,000 turbines in the seas from Massachusetts to North Carolina.

It’s a snowy afternoon in early January and the carpool lane at the Bromfield High School in Harvard, Mass. is packed with cars. But the families inside aren’t here to drop off their kids. They’re here for COVID-19 tests.

“I’m going to just swab each side about four times around,” says a healthcare worker to 13-year-old Emma Squire and her 16-year-old sister, Molly. The two girls look straight ahead as they got the test.

The percentage of Hartford students in racially integrated schools dropped significantly this academic year amid the challenge of the COVID pandemic and a major change in the operation of the regional school choice lottery, according to figures provided by the state Department of Education.

State and local law enforcement agencies blocked off and locked down the Connecticut State Capitol complex Sunday in anticipation of pro-Trump protests that never came to pass.

Police plan to have a massive presence at a demonstration possibly taking place Sunday at the state Capitol in Hartford, anticipating it could be much larger than a typical protest there.

Connecticut officially opened its online registration for phase 1b of its Coronavirus vaccine rollout Thursday morning, just days after New York’s website went live with an appointment backlog.

Studies show that climate change could prompt millions of Americans to relocate in the coming decades. And by some measures, New Hampshire and northern New England could be ideal places to move.

But preparing for those potential waves of climate migrants will be no easy task – and some are already arriving.

The Mountain West always felt like home for Judith and Doug Saum. Until recently, they lived in the hills above Reno, Nevada.

Severe storms. Heat waves. Rising seas. New England is already seeing the impacts of climate change, and scientists project they will become more severe and deadly, shaping how we live and work in the northeastern U.S.

In a special ahead of Inauguration Day, the New England News Collaborative and America Amplified look at climate change in our region and how President-elect Joe Biden’s administration could affect future climate action. Biden has proposed the most ambitious climate platform of any incoming U.S. president in history.

After 10 months of contending with the coronavirus pandemic, the largest addiction treatment provider in Massachusetts expressed relief as it began vaccinating workers and long-term patients against the virus.

Spectrum Health Systems received 700 doses of the Moderna vaccine last week, and as of Tuesday, the company had administered about half of the first doses to staff and 20 people in residential addiction treatment.