Latest Massachusetts Headlines
All the headlines from our Massachusetts Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Massachusetts Tax on Ridesharing to Go to Taxis, Infrastructure
Aug 22 2016 // Massachusetts is preparing to levy a 5-cent fee per trip on ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft and spend the money on the traditional taxi industry, a subsidy that appears to be the first of its kind in the United...
Massachusetts Restaurant Owner Sentenced to Four Years for Insurance Fraud
Aug 19 2016 // A Leominster, Mass., man who set fire to his own restaurant to collect the insurance money has been sentenced to four years in prison. Jeffrey Cordio, who owned the West End Diner, was also sentenced in federal court to...
Massachusetts-Based PMC Insurance Hires Keenan
Aug 19 2016 // PMC Insurance Group, a Bedford, Mass., based workers’ compensation specialty wholesaler and program manager, has hired Ed Keenan as vice president of business development. In his new role, Keenan will be responsible...
Guidewire to Acquire Massachusetts Software Firm FirstBest
Aug 18 2016 // Guidewire Software Inc., a property and casualty insurance software provider headquartered in Calif., has entered into an agreement to acquire FirstBest Systems Inc., a Bedford, Mass. based provider of underwriting...
Massachusetts Motorist Injures 5 in Series of Accidents
Aug 9 2016 // Five people were injured after a motorist caused a series of accidents in Holyoke, Mass., that ignited his own vehicle and sent another hurtling into a home. Police said the incident began when a man driving at a high rate...
Massachusetts Lowers Employer Assessment
Aug 8 2016 // The Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents (DIA) reduced the assessment that private employers pay to the state on workers’ compensation policies to 5.6 percent of the policy premium for the new fiscal...
Northeast Drought, Wildfire Risk Could Last Through October
Aug 8 2016 // The drought that has taken hold in the Northeast, from Maine to Pennsylvania, is being driven by a second year of below-average rainfall. Though not as dire as the West Coast drought of five-years running, the dry, hot...
OSHA Cites Massachusetts Firm for Chemical Explosion
Aug 4 2016 // A Massachusetts chemicals manufacturer has been cited by federal labor officials following a January explosion that injured four workers. The U.S. Department of Labor says an investigation by the Occupational Safety and...
Massachusetts, New Hampshire Nonprofit Insurer Sues Over Federal Assessment
Aug 3 2016 // A nonprofit health insurer with 25,000 customers in Massachusetts and New Hampshire has filed a federal lawsuit claiming it is being illegally punished for offering lower-cost products. Under the Affordable Care...
Massachusetts Lawmakers Pass Ridesharing Bill
Aug 1 2016 // Massachusetts lawmakers over the weekend passed a bill regulating transportation network companies, or ridesharing firms like Uber and Lyft, that includes requirements for background checks on drivers, vehicle safety...
2 State AGs Refuse House Republicans’ Subpoenas Over Climate Change
Jul 28 2016 // The New York and Massachusetts attorneys general are refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas seeking records about their investigations into whether Exxon Mobil misled investors about man-made climate change. In an...
Drought in Northeast Could Last Through October
Jul 27 2016 // At Lavoie’s Farm in New Hampshire, beans and corn haven’t broken through the ground yet and fields of strawberries are stunted. The drought that has taken hold in the Northeast is especially felt at John...
Mass. AG Says FAIR Plan to Pay $350K for Wrongly Cancelling Policies
Jul 26 2016 // The Massachusetts Property Insurance Underwriting Association (FAIR Plan) has agreed to pay $350,000 to resolve allegations that it wrongly cancelled homeowners insurance policies over a four-year period, according to...
Massachusetts Lawmakers Negotiating Ridesharing Bill Compromise
Jul 20 2016 // Massachusetts House and Senate negotiators are set to begin hammering out a final version of a bill aimed at regulating ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft. A six-member conference committee was scheduled to begin...
3 States Sue Volkswagen, Charge Cover-Up of Diesel Fraud Went on for Years
Jul 20 2016 // Senior executives at Volkswagen AG including its former chief executive covered up evidence that the German automaker had cheated on U.S. diesel emissions tests for years, three U.S. states charged on Tuesday in civil...
States to Sue VW Over Diesel Scandal
Jul 19 2016 // New York and Maryland are among several states planning to sue Volkswagen AG over the environmental damage done by devices that were designed by the carmaker to cheat on pollution-control tests. Maryland Attorney General...
Massachusetts Lowers Employer Assessment for Workers’ Compensation
Jul 19 2016 // The Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents (DIA) reduced the assessment that private employers pay to the state on workers’ compensation policies to 5.6 percent of the policy premium for the new fiscal...
Massachusetts Man Indicted for ‘Working While Collecting’ Under Workers’ Comp
Jul 12 2016 // A Milford, Massachusetts man has been indicted on larceny and workers’ compensation fraud charges in connection with allegedly collecting more than $18,000 in disability benefits while he continued to work, according...
Comma Doesn’t Get Massachusetts Workers’ Comp Scofflaw Off the Hook
Jul 11 2016 // A Massachusetts company has lost its argument that it should not have been prevented from participating on state or municipal contracts for three years due to its its failure to have workers’ compensation insurance...
Massachusetts Auto Insurers Hiking Rates
Jul 10 2016 // More than a million Massachusetts drivers will see their auto insurance bills increase by as much as 9 percent this year. Insurance companies and industry officials told The Boston Globe that cheaper gas and an improving...
