The Latest
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Despite diversity efforts, professional soccer has very few Black head coaches
As the United Soccer League expansion team Rhode Island F.C. plays its first-ever professional match on March 16, it will have a unicorn on the sidelines. Former New England Revolution forward Khano Smith is the club’s head coach — and the league’s only Black head coach among 24 teams. One tier above the USL, in Major League Soccer, the representation…
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Mass. needs more health care workers — can virtual reality help train them?
While new jobs data released Friday put the Massachusetts unemployment rate at an ultra-low 3%, the demand for workers in health care is surging to incredibly high levels. The health care sector had 49,030 job openings as of January 2024, according to the state’s Labor and Workforce Development Office, with demand for nursing especially strong — 17,627 job postings were…
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How marijuana is becoming big business in Fitchburg
Fitchburg, Massachusetts, a relatively small city in Worcester County, has transformed itself into a mega town for marijuana. Converting an old wire-making factory into a cannabis cultivation operation, Garden Remedies was the first to move to Fitchburg in 2016. Since then, six other companies have created similar set ups within the city’s limits and six others are in the...
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Mass. seeks to end disparities that endanger Black women in pregnancy
The first-ever assistant health commissioner in Massachusetts with the word “equity” in the job title has put a priority on eliminating racial disparities in maternal health. Black women in the state are more than twice as likely to suffer severe health complications during pregnancy when compared to white women — and recently, the disparity has widened. “There is something profoundly…
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Harmony Montgomery ‘was afraid of her father,' Mass. investigators were told after issuing report
On the day Adam Montgomery was convicted in New Hampshire of murdering his daughter, the attorney assigned to protect the legal interests of Harmony Montgomery in Massachusetts received a stinging rebuke from a public official. In an NBC10 Boston exclusive interview, Maria Mossaides, the state’s chief child advocate, says after her investigation was published, a credible source came forward...
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Black students say departure of Harvard President Claudine Gay is devastating
Some members of the Black student body at Harvard University, once proud of Claudine Gay’s history-making appointment as the school’s first Black leader, returned to campus this week sorting through the implications her public departure may have on their own futures. “For her to no longer be there, I’m devastated,” said student, RuQuan Brown on TikTok. Days later, the...
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Plastic pot packaging and sustainability: Program provides incentives for recycling
The child safety standards in cannabis packaging require extra layers of plastic to make them more difficult to open. Tree House Craft Cannabis — with two dispensaries in Massachusetts — has a strategy to redeem, recycle and, in some cases even reuse the plastic packaging. “This benefits everyone in the industry,” said Wes Ritchie, co-owner of Tree House Craft Cannabis….
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Acting Mass. Cannabis Control Commission chair speaks on agency's current challenges
The Massachusetts Cannabis Commission continues to be embroiled in controversy, from the suspension of its chairwoman to concerns that the body has not followed through on its regulatory promises and obligations to the promises made when the industry first launched in the state. The majority of people we contacted in the Massachusetts cannabis space said they do not believe the…
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Mass. bill would make services more accessible to all veterans
The Army-Navy game is a sporting spectacle brimming passionately with patriotism and pageantry, and for the first time ever, it was played in Massachusetts. In the stands at Gillette Stadium on Saturday was the state’s first ever secretary of Veteran Services, a new cabinet-level position in the Healy administration: Jon Santiago. In the lead-up to the game, NBC10 Boston...
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Disability claims are denied more for Black veterans, data shows
New data received by NBC News from the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that Black veterans were denied disability claims more than white veterans across the VA healthcare system in the last 20 years. The disparities were highlighted in a series of reports by NBC News Now and NBC local stations in a series called “American Vets: Benefits, Race and...
