Logan International Airport has improved its ranking among North America’s largest airports in a new J.D. Power ranking released Wednesday.
The Boston airport is now 10th among the 20 largest airports, although it’s still slightly behin…
Massachusetts
These are the MBTA service changes planned for October as repair work continues
The MBTA has announced service changes for next month on the Mattapan, Green and Orange lines as the agency continues working to improve reliability across the system.
Riders will be able to find more information on these services changes through in-station signage, in-station public announcements and online at mbta.com/alerts. There will also be transit ambassadors and MBTA staff available on-site to offer information and assistance during these service changes.
Here’s what we know about the planned service changes in October:
MATTAPAN LINE
Mattapan Line service will be suspended between Mattapan and Ashmont during the following days and times:
- Beginning at approximately 11:30 p.m. through the end of service each day from Sept. 22 – 26.
- Beginning at approximately 11:30 p.m. through the end of service each day from Sept. 30 – Oct. 3.
- Beginning at approximately 8:30 p.m. through the end of service on Oct. 4.
- The weekend of Oct. 5 – 6.
Free and accessible shuttle buses will make all stops between Mattapan and Ashmont.
This service change is in place to perform routine track maintenance along the line, which prevents possible speed restrictions from manifesting. the MBTA said.
GREEN LINE
Green Line D branch service will be suspended during the following weekends in the following locations:
- Oct. 5 – 6: Between Kenmore and Newton Highlands.
- Free and accessible shuttle bus service will make stops between Kenmore and Newton Highlands.
- Riders should also note that fare gates will be open at Riverside and fares will not be charged onboard trolleys between Riverside and Newton Highlands. Riders do not need to tap when boarding these trolleys during this weekend.
- October 19 – 20: Between Riverside and Brookline Hills.
- Free and accessible shuttle bus service will make stops between Riverside and Brookline Hills.
These weekend service changes are in place to perform signal work along the D Branch, the MBTA said. Accessibility upgrade work will also be advanced at Waban, Eliot, Beaconsfield, and Chestnut Hill.
ORANGE LINE
Orange Line service will be suspended in the following areas during the following dates, according to the MBTA, which adds that there will be increased Green Line service during these times to accommodate anticipated increases in ridership:
- Oct. 8 – 11, Oct. 15 – 20: Between Forest Hills and Back Bay.
- Free and accessible shuttle buses will make stops between Forest Hills and Back Bay as well as Copley on the Green Line.
- Riders are also encouraged to consider the Commuter Rail for fare-free service between Forest Hills, Ruggles, Back Bay, and South Station.
- Oct. 12 – 14: Between Forest Hills and North Station
- Free and accessible shuttle buses will make stops between Forest Hills and Back Bay as well as Copley on the Green Line.
- Riders should note that there will be no shuttle bus service between Back Bay and North Station. Riders are encouraged to utilize parallel Green Line service between North Station and Copley for travel through the downtown area.
- Riders are also encouraged to consider the Commuter Rail for fare-free service between Forest Hills, Ruggles, Back Bay, and South Station.
- Oct. 26 – 27: Between Oak Grove and Ruggles.
- Free and accessible shuttle buses will make stops between Oak Grove and North Station.
- Free and accessible shuttle buses will also make stops between Ruggles and Back Bay as well as Copley on the Green Line.
- Riders should note that there will be no shuttle bus service between North Station and Back Bay. Riders are encouraged to utilize parallel Green Line service between North Station and Copley for travel through the downtown area.
- Fare gates will be open for free service at Ruggles and Copley.
- Riders are also encouraged to consider the Commuter Rail for fare-free service between South Station and Forest Hills as well as fare-free service between Oak Grove and North Station.
- This weekend service change is extended to Ruggles to accommodate critical signal work between Back Bay and Ruggles.
- Oct. 28 – Nov. 1: Between Oak Grove and North Station.
- Free and accessible shuttle buses will make stops between Oak Grove and North Station.
- Riders are also encouraged to consider the Haverhill Commuter Rail Line for fare-free service between Oak Grove, Malden Center, and North Station.
The MBTA says these service changes are in place to perform necessary work as part of the Track Improvement Program, which is taking place between Oak Grove and North Station and will replace tracks and ties to alleviate speed restrictions along the line while crews maximize the outage by performing signal work and station amenity upgrades, including new lighting, painting, tiling, power washing, and more.
The MBTA says it understands how these service changes affect riders’ daily travels but the agency is committed to improving travels long-term with more reliable, timely, and safe service: “We thank riders for their patience as we deliver this important work and for continuing to ride our system.”
Is Massachusetts number one in the most important rankings?
How many people are leaving Massachusetts for other locales? At what point does that become a crisis? Are we number one in the most important rankings, or a number much larger than one?
Like so much else on Beacon Hill, the answer to those questions depends on who you ask.
A new report published Tuesday by the left-leaning Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center suggests fears about outmigration are overblown or at least built on data that that points to “inconsistent” conclusions. Several hours later, industry leaders raised concerns about that very topic while unpacking the Bay State’s summertime tumble in one set of business competitiveness rankings.
Kurt Wise, a senior policy analyst at MassBudget, wrote that different datasets show varying population changes, making it too murky to draw a clear conclusion about migration patterns.
The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau show a slight increase in population, about 18,700 people, from July 2022 to July 2023, Wise said. That includes a net gain from migration of 11,500 people, not a net decrease.
Other data available from the Internal Revenue Service show that about 157,000 people left Massachusetts in 2021, compared to 112,000 people who came to the state that year, according to Wise.
“In short, the picture that can be drawn from available official data is inconsistent, though in any case, it is not one of crisis,” he wrote. “Nevertheless, migration data often is used — and misused — to push an agenda of tax cuts for very high-income households, the ultrawealthy, and large corporations. Cutting such taxes, however, would do nothing to help most people who choose to leave Massachusetts. Instead, it would deprive the Commonwealth of much-needed revenue that otherwise could be used to address challenges that likely are a factor in some people’s decision to leave the state.”
Based on the IRS data, Wise said 55 percent of the people who left Massachusetts in 2021 were between the ages of 26 and 45 years old. Employers and state leaders view that demographic as key because they can put down roots for decades to come as both workers and as taxpayers.
About one in six people who departed the Bay State in 2021 earned more than $200,000, Wise said.
“Again, tax cuts for very high-income households are not a policy prescription that aligns with the income demographics of Massachusetts outmigration,” Wise wrote.
Migration patterns and competitiveness have become key topics on Beacon Hill, fueled by the sky-high costs of housing and child care pressuring many residents.
While she has repeatedly called for action to address those issues, Gov. Maura Healey has also been touting Massachusetts as a national leader. Her office recently compiled more than half a dozen lists where the Bay State fares well, most from personal finance company WalletHub. That includes Massachusetts earning the spot of top state to live in and best public school system in the country.
Business groups and their allies have pointed to other metrics where Massachusetts fares poorly, including the Tax Foundation’s 2024 State Business Tax Climate Index report, to argue that legislators and the Healey administration need to change course.
CNBC in July published its latest annual rankings of top states for businesses, which showed Massachusetts falling from 15th in 2023 to 38th in 2024 — the lowest the Bay State has ranked since the metric launched in 2007, according to rankings creator Scott Cohn.
The business news network grades states on more than 120 metrics across 10 categories: infrastructure, workforce, economy, quality of life, cost of doing business, technology & innovation, business friendliness, education, access to capital, and cost of living. Analysts adjust how those categories are weighted over time.
Cohn said 2024 was the first year that infrastructure (where Massachusetts earned a D grade and ranked 44th among all states, down from 34th in 2023) was the top-weighted category.
“We figure that [infrastructure] has a lot to do with all of the government money that’s out there, between the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, all of this money that’s out there that states and companies want a piece of,” Cohn said Tuesday at a virtual event hosted by the Massachusetts High Technology Council. “When we talk about infrastructure, we’re talking about not just roads and bridges, [but also] broadband, utilities, the population that’s accessible within a day’s drive, and also … the sites that are available for development, and particularly shovel-ready sites.”
CNBC rated Massachusetts poorly on workforce (F grade, ranked 38th), economy (D grade, ranked 40th), cost of doing business (F grade, ranked 49th), business friendliness (D+ grade, ranked 40th) and cost of living (F grade, ranked 48th). The network also sang praises for the Bay State on technology and innovation (A+ grade, ranked third) and education (A+ grade, ranked second), while giving solid grades on quality of life (B grade, ninth ranked) and access to capital (B+ grade, ninth ranked).
Asked by hosts of Tuesday’s event how the Bay State could simultaneously earn excellent marks for education and a bad score for workforce, Cohn said it largely comes down to population movement impacting the pool of available employees.
“It seems like people are still moving to the state because population is growing, but too many people, and particularly too many working-age educated people, are leaving,” he said.
Cohn declined to speculate on how the new surtax (which took effect in 2023) might be affecting data on people leaving Massachusetts.
“I don’t have data on that, but when we’re looking at workforce and we’re looking at migration, we’re basically looking at the whole ‘butts in seats’ thing. The workers that companies really prize, which is college-educated and graduated-educated and so on, these workers, what are they doing?” he said. “In the data that we have, there are some coming in, but a lot are leaving.”
State House News Service and MASSterList will convene their own discussion of residential movement patterns and competitiveness on Thursday. Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao will offer the keynote address, and Mass. Taxpayers Foundation President Doug Howgate delivers a presentation ahead of panel discussions.
Crane Beach in Ipswich remains closed to swimming after great white shark sighting
A popular beach on the North Shore of Massachusetts remains closed Wednesday after a great white shark sighting a day ago.
Swimmers were ordered out of the water Tuesday morning after a great white shark sighting was confirmed off the east end…
Former classmate of Mass. State Police recruit speaks out as death investigation continues
A former classmate of Enrique Delgado-Garcia is speaking out, even as authorities continue to search for an outside agency unbiased enough to oversee the investigation into the Massachusetts State Police recruit’s death.
Giovanni Jn Baptiste told the NBC10 Boston Investigators he lasted just 18 weeks in the Massachusetts State Police Academy before he was kicked out. He’s now questioning how a supervised training could lead to his friend and former classmate Delgado-Garcia’s death.
Delgado-Garcia, 25, died at a hospital on Friday, a day after becoming unresponsive during a training exercise at the Massachusetts State Police Academy in New Braintree, according to state police. A state police spokesman said the academy’s on-site medical team responded immediately after Delgado-Garcia became unresponsive. They determined he required urgent medical care and took him to the hospital, where he died. Authorities have said there is video of the incident, which happened in a boxing ring.
Jn Baptiste said he participated in a boxing exercise while at the academy and can’t understand how Delgado-Garcia ended up with such serious injuries, like missing teeth, skull damage and a fractured neck.
He said as an army reservist who went through basic training, Jn Baptiste knew 16 hour days at the academy would be grueling, but he alleges he was bullied, told on multiple occasions to go back to Haiti and deprived of food and sleep.
“One trooper, he assured me, he told me, ‘You’re not going to graduate. I’m not going to lie to you. I will never let you graduate that place. You don’t deserve to be here. You will never wear that uniform,’” Jn Baptiste told NBC10 Boston.
“Physically, I was prepared. Mentally, I was prepared for training, but not mental abuse… Every day, bullying me. It’s the first time I saw bullying, like what is really bullying… What is really really, hard for me is to confirm that Delgado is dead from the Academy… I want to know what happened to him.”
Massachusetts State Police released a statement saying in part that they do “not tolerate any form of hazing, discrimination, or misconduct, and (we) thoroughly investigate any allegation of such behavior … Privacy laws prevent the Department from commenting further on any details of the trainee’s dismissal, however, the Department vehemently denies the allegations.”
Who will investigate Enrique Delgado-Garcia’s death?
Meanwhile, we’re still waiting to learn which agency or entity will investigate Delgado-Garcia’s death.
Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said Monday that he cannot oversee the investigation because it would be a conflict since Delgado-Garcia previously worked in his office as a victim witness advocate. But he said state police detectives assigned to his office are continuing to investigate the case until it is assigned to another agency.
“Because of this close relationship, someone else will be handling this matter,” Early said. “There’s no way this office can handle this.”
That means an outside entity will need to investigate, but that is complicated by the fact that all of the other district attorneys’ offices in the state and even Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office has state police detectives assigned to them.
“We have to figure some things out and we have to figure them out rather quickly,” Campbell said Tuesday. “I’m in conversation with DA Early and other agencies to talk about who is best positioned to take on this investigation. We all agree he has a conflict of interest. He knows the family, it’s too deep.”
“We’ll have a decision point very soon to figure out who is best to lead this investigation,” she added. “I get the sense of urgency here for the family. They have a lot of questions. They need a point of contact to go to and someone to navigate this investigation on their behalf.”
Making it even more difficult, Campbell said, is that there’s a civil case as well, and as the attorney general she represents state agencies like the state police.
“So it’s a dual role here I have to navigate very carefully,” she said. “We’ll get to a place where the family has answers and an appropriate authority to investigate for them.”
‘It just doesn’t seem right’
Delgado-Garcia’s family is demanding answers in the wake of his death, saying they don’t understand how a training exercise could have left him with fatal injuries, including severe brain trauma. His mother told NBC10 Boston and Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra that he was hit and injured.
The police training in question can cover a range of physical encounters to defend against tackles, punches and other attacks. A state police spokesman did not specify the type of exercise Delgado-Garcia took part in.
“I don’t understand why it was so rough if it was just training,” Sandra Garcia said in Spanish. “I want them to explain it to me, that the state explains to me what happened with my son. … Why did he hit him so hard that it killed him, that it destroyed his brain and broke all of my son’s teeth and he had a neck fracture too, my son.”
Kelly Ochoa, a Mattapoisett teacher who knew Delgado-Garcia from volunteer work they both did at a homeless shelter in New Bedford, was horrified to learn of his death and was eager for the investigation to share what happened.
“Nobody right now, apparently, knows exactly what happened,” she said. “But it just doesn’t seem right. You don’t just die in a boxing ring. Something went wrong. I don’t know.”
“I hope that whatever agency (investigates this) that they are unbiased and can get to the bottom of what actually really happened, and maybe if someone needs to be held accountable, they’ll be held accountable, because there’s no reason for him to have passed on from this. This just doesn’t make sense.”
Gov. Healey urges people not to jump to conclusions
Gov. Maura Healey made her first public remarks about the tragedy on Tuesday, calling Delgado-Garcia’s death “absolutely so heartbreaking and sad,” while also urging people not to jump to conclusions.
“My heart goes out to Enrique’s family,” the governor said. “Obviously, as with any death, there will be an investigation… We certainly want to understand exactly what happened and be very clear in communicating with Enrique’s family about that.”
“As governor, I’m committed to making sure we have a fully understanding of what happened and will clearly communicate with the public on that,” she added.
Healey said she did not want to comment on the family’s remarks until the investigation is complete and does not see any need to halt training exercises as a result of Delgado-Garcia’s death.
“I think people need to not jump to conclusions,” Healey said. “I think that’s important, until we know the facts. Right now that class, actually, they’re about to wrap up training. In fact, their graduation ceremony is in just a few weeks. But we’re going to make sure the matter is thoroughly reviewed and we understand exactly what happened. Protecting the men and women who are both training and serving us out there is certainly first and foremost.”
More on Enrique Delgado-Garcia
2 candidates running to unseat Norfolk County DA Michael Morrissey in 2026
It may be two years away, but the race for district attorney in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, is already heating up.
Two candidates have thrown their hats into the ring to try to unseat Michael Morrissey, who has faced criticism over the case against Karen Read.
Over the months, there have been continuous calls for Morrissey to step down as district attorney, and now, two people are vying to take his job in 2026.
“I’ve become frustrated, especially as of late, that the general lack of objectivity and integrity in the investigative process in Norfolk County has led to, essentially, an erosion of public trust and confidence in that office,” said Cohasset attorney Craig MacLellan, who is running for the office.
A former assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, MacLellan says he’s been practicing law for 20 years. He says he’s upset with how the Read and Sandra Birchmore cases were handled by the DA’s office.
“They are examples of cases where there are clear problems with a lack of integrity and objectivity,” he said.
MacLellan says he’s focused on transparency and an effort to bring back trust.
“We need to get out there and meet with residents, and meet with community leaders, and listen,” he said.
Djuna Perkins, an attorney from Dedham with more than 30 years experience as a prosecutor and litigator, is also running for Morrissey’s position.
“I really just think that Norfolk County deserves better,” she said.
Perkins, who has also served as an assistant district attorney and assistant attorney general, is calling for a re-professionalization of the office and an unwavering commitment to do the job.
“There has to be a clear message that no one is above the law, no matter who you are, no matter what your relationships are,” she said. “We should be a model for justice, and right now, we’re not, and it’s just wrong.”
NBC10 Boston reached out to Morrissey’s office to see if he intends to run again in 2026, but our calls were not returned.
