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The New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has been a close friend of President Donald Trump for many years. He has even visited him at the White House multiple times over the past four years. That’s why it had to have come as a shock to Trump that Belichick snubbed him by turning down the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

BOSTON — Massachusetts lawmakers last week took a step toward potentially replacing the official state seal and motto, a victory for activists who have argued for decades that the current versions disparage Native Americans. A legislative resolve creating a commission to recommend a new seal and motto (S 2848) emerged in the final hours of the 2020-2021 lawmaking session, earning support from both branches and landing on Gov. Charlie Baker's desk just after 4 a.m.

Massachusetts plans on ending the sale of all gas-guzzling vehicles by 2035 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Kathleen Theoharides released a proposal last week that outlined the state’s goals in 2030 and further into the future.

A veteran returned a sword he stole from a statue of a Revolutionary War general 40 years ago, telling the head of the Massachusetts town's historical commission that he regretted taking it. Cindy P. Gaylord, the chair of Westfield's Historical Commission, said a man contacted the city hall saying he had the sword stolen from the town's statue of Gen. William Shepard in 1980, the Springfield Republican reported on Sunday. Gaylord agreed to give the man anonymity if he returned the bronze sword and arranged for him and his wife to drop it off at her home, she said.

Just days after Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed a bill that would expand abortion access in Massachusetts, the state’s Democrat-led House of Representatives has voted to override the veto. Last week, Baker, a Republican who supports abortion, elected to veto abortion legislation known as the ROE Act. The bill, which was originally included as part of the state’s budget for fiscal year 2021, would codify the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide into law and loosen abortion restrictions in the state. “I strongly support a woman’s right to access reproductive health care, and many provisions of this...

A sustained effort is under way to deny children access to literature. Under the slogan #DisruptTexts, critical-theory ideologues, schoolteachers and Twitter agitators are purging and propagandizing against classic texts—everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Dr. Seuss. Their ethos holds that children shouldn’t have to read stories written in anything other than the present-day vernacular—especially those “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” as young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman writes in School Library Journal. No author is valuable enough to spare, Ms. Venkatraman instructs: “Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived...

'Squad' bill not tied with other coronavirus aid, unlike bill introduced by Rep. Richard Neal ------ Members of the progressive "Squad" in the House on Thursday introduced their own bill to send $2,000 stimulus checks to Americans after President Trump this week demanded the $600 checks included in Congress' stimulus deal be increased to that number. The legislation was spearheaded by Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; and Pramila Jayapal D-Wash. It came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the House will meet on Monday to vote on stand-alone legislation for $2,000...

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) announced another wave of restrictions taking effect prior to New Year’s, including a ban on gatherings over ten, with the restriction extending to “private homes.” Baker announced the latest set of restrictions Tuesday, which will go into effect on Saturday, December 26 — the day after Christmas

A woman who worked for the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance after getting out of prison for identity theft got right back to her old tricks, the feds say, claiming she used her position to try to swindle money out of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for her, her husband and their seven fictional children. Tiffany Pacheco, also known as Tiffany Tavery or Tiffany Wolfe, 35, and her husband Arthur Pacheco, 47, were both arrested in Texas on Thursday. Both are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and Tiffany Pacheco is also charged with wire fraud. Though Tiffany Pacheco in...

A prominent Black Lives Matter leader has been arrested on assault and battery charges after he was filmed punching an 80-year-old woman in the face. 32-year-old leftist Ernst Jean-Jacques Jr. is accused of attacking the elderly woman while she was rallying for President Donald Trump in Swampscott, Massachusetts, on Saturday.

Thus far in Florida, approximately 20,000 people have died of COVID-19. In Texas, the number stands around 24,000, and in New York, about 35,000.New York is the smallest of the three, with 19.54 million residents. Then comes Florida, with 21.67 million, before Texas, with 28.7 million residents.COVID numbers are difficult to trust. Cases are often counted more than once as patients go in and out of the hospital, and some deaths are attributed to COVID that are barely related, if at all.There’s a perverse incentive to write down “COVID” and get state and federal money, no doubt, but one thing...

We’ve posted explanations and factsheets and critiques from our affiliate, Massachusetts Citizens for Life, of the latest over-the-top pro-abortion proposal–abortion up until birth and the removal of protection for abortion survivors, for starters. But all that our affiliate did, along with the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, did not prevent the legislature from passing Amendment 759 (in the House) and Amendment 180 (in the Senate) to the proposed fiscal year 2021 state budget. As the Boston Pilot explained Legislators had inserted amendments into house and senate budget bills that would effectively implement the “ROE Act,” a bill proposed in 2019 to legalize...

During the annual “Hat’s off to Heroes” Ceremony with the Boston Red Sox, the team typically honors members of the military but it’s 2020 and this year team the decided to honor 32-year-old Black Lives Matter leader Ernst Jean-Jacques Jr. On Saturday, Jean-Jacques Jr. was arrested in Swampscott, Massachusetts for punching an 80-year-old female who was attending a support rally for President Trump. OutKick reported that Jacques Jr., was released on $550 bail. According to ItemLive, he was charged with assault and battery on a person 60 years or older. According to his Facebook page, Jacques Jr. was approached by...

"It shouldn't take mayors and governors begging the federal government for help. Congress and the sitting administration needs to do their job. The American people need help right now."

Gov. Charlie Baker declared Tuesday that Massachusetts will soon roll back a single step within the current phase of its economic reopening plans, as cases continue to spike across the state. The changes — which officially begin on Sunday, Dec. 13 — broadly impact restrictions on the number of people allowed inside facilities and implement new rules related to masks and dining.

Of the two communities that confronted each other 400 years ago in New England, it may now be the Indians who most resemble today's Americans.The following essay is part of The Federalist’s 1620 Project, a symposium exploring the connections and contributions of the early Pilgrim and Puritan settlers in New England to the uniquely American synthesis of faith, family, freedom, and self-government.Possibly someone will surprise us at the last minute. Possibly the coronavirus is to blame. But with 2020 nearly over, it looks like the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’s arrival at Plymouth, Massachusetts, is going to pass uncommemorated.There have...

BOSTON — Gov. Charlie Baker is urging those attending services at houses of worship in Massachusetts to adhere to COVID-19 precautions, like wearing masks and practicing social distancing particularly for indoor services. The state is still seeing too many COVID-19 clusters that can be traced back to houses of worship, the Republican said at a Tuesday press conference. Since the start of the pandemic, houses of workshop have experienced a total of 36 clusters, Baker said. “We know that houses of worship have always served as a place of refuge especially in difficult times like this,” Baker said at a...

Massachusetts police on Tuesday arrested a man accused of spitting at two women hikers who weren’t wearing face masks — and telling them he had COVID-19. Hale Powell, 71, was charged with false threat of a biological agent and assault and battery for Saturday’s caught-on-camera incident on a hiking trail in Ashburnham. The septuagenarian pleaded not guilty at his arraignment later Tuesday — where a judge ordered him to quarantine and get tested for the coronavirus, the Telegram & Gazette newspaper reported. One of the two women hiking on the trail captured video of the encounter, showing an elderly man...

Massachusetts Democrats rammed through a radical pro-abortion amendment Wednesday in the state Senate that would expand late-term abortions and allow young girls to abort their unborn babies with a parent’s knowledge.State House News Service reports the amendment to the state budget passed in a 33-7 vote and soon could be headed to Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk. The state House passed the measure last week.The pro-abortion amendment is similar to the ROE Act, an unpopular bill that languished in committee for more than a year. Using a new strategy to expand abortions and appease pro-abortion lobbying groups, Democrats now are trying...

The Nantucket Police Department in Massachusetts announced Wednesday that its officers would indefinitely halt new weapons permit applications due to heightened risk of coronavirus spread. The department initially announced the decision on Twitter, writing that all fingerprint services were to be suspended, but the post was removed shortly after. The law enforcement body said the reason for its decision was that the employees who fielded the applications expressed “concern that they could not safely do their jobs,” according to a press release.