The Codcast

8/19/21--On the finale episode of Mass Reboot, we examine the early days of the pandemic when elected officials' jobs quickly got even more complicated and important. State Senator Adam Hinds, State Representative and Boston Medical emergency room physician Jon Santiago, and State House News Service Reporter and president of the Massachusetts State House Press Association Katie Lannan discussed wh...

When the pandemic hit, just about every aspect of our lives changed. And that includes our relationships-- with family, friends, and partners. Whether you were single, dating, married, or divorced during the pandemic, chances are, dynamics changed at least slightly. Today, we hear from two sets up couples -- Honey Goodenough and Kenneth Dyer, and Eden Heller and Dan Hopkins -- about their experien...

8/5/21--School administrators, teachers, parents, and students were all thrown for a loop when COVID shut down school buildings and demanded immediate innovation. Some schools, and some students, were better off than others. So much depended on available resources like technology, Internet, and childcare. Families that lacked any one of these struggled with remote school and hybrid school. Learnin...

Senate President Karen Spilka and Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues say there is "wisdom in waiting" to spend the federal American Rescue Plan Act money.

7/28/21--Each episode of Mass Reboot thus far has touched on one thing over and over again-- a particular, consuming aspect of our lives: work. Restaurant workers lost jobs due to the pandemic. So did artists. Work has, for the most part, dictated where we live, and how and where we travel day to day. If any one event had the ability to upend work as a grounding force in our lives, it was the COVI...

This week on Mass Reboot, the pandemic’s impacts fell heavily on restaurants. What did industry professionals do to survive the pandemic, and how are they bouncing back as eager diners return in droves as the state reopens? Find out on Episode 4, Food. Bob Luz, President and CEO of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, describes what it was like reckoning with an entire sector of the economy s...

7/8/21--Welcome to the third episode of Mass Reboot, a summer podcast series about restarting Massachusetts after COVID-19 and what we lost along the way. Each week, we’ll dive into a sector of life in the commonwealth, exploring how the pandemic hit it, how it adapted, and how the people inside it envision a new normal. This week: Transportation. The pandemic swiftly brought the traffic crisis we...

6/30/21--Welcome to the second episode of Mass Reboot, a summer podcast series about restarting Massachusetts after COVID-19 and what we lost along the way. Each week, we’ll dive into a sector of life in the commonwealth, exploring how the pandemic hit it, how it adapted, and how the people inside it envision a new normal. This week: Home. In a state where housing costs were already sky-high, what...

6/23/21 Welcome to the first episode of Mass Reboot, a summer podcast series about restarting Massachusetts after COVID-19 and what we lost along the way. Each week, we’ll dive into a sector of life in the Commonwealth, exploring how the pandemic hit it, how it adapted, and how the people inside it envision a new normal. This week: Art. Hosts Libby Gormley, Steve Koczela, and Jennifer Smith of The...

Hi Codcast listeners! We're taking a brief hiatus for the summer. We'll be back in the fall, but until then, please enjoy a 10-week podcast series created by our friends at The MassINC Polling Group called Mass Reboot. --- What happens when you reboot a whole state? Yesterday, after one year, three months, and five days, the COVID-19 state of emergency ended in Massachusetts. With millions vaccina...

Massachusetts Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver talks about the return of traffic and the challenge of finding room for all of the transportation infrastructure in the Allston I-90 project.

Tax tutorial by Sen. Adam Hinds by CommonWealth Beacon

Annissa Essaibi George: A 'Boston girl' shaped by immigrant roots by CommonWealth Beacon

Baker pressed on Holyoke labor agreement by CommonWealth Beacon

Vaccines may be here, but the need for COVID-19 testing is not going away any time soon. That’s the prediction of Tim Rowe, the CEO of CIC Health, a private company that has been overseeing COVID-19 testing programs and also running mass vaccination sites in Massachusetts. “We are going to have a period of time where not everyone has the vaccine,” Rowe said. “And it's a little unclear what younger...

Harvard economics professor Ed Glaeser is one of the foremost thinkers about the role played by cities. His 2011 book "The Triumph of the City" lays out all the ways cities have been central drivers of human civilization and innovation. Could the pandemic lead to a long-term repositioning of their role? Yes and no, he says on this episode of The Codcast.

Dr. Eric Dickson, the CEO of UMass Memorial Health Care, says the health care inequities that have surfaced during the coronavirus pandemic can be addressed through policies that help hospitals like his that cater to some of the poorest people in the state. On The Codcast with John McDonough of the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard and Paul Hattis, formerly of Tufts University Medical S...

Danielle Allen is a scholar of Athenian democracy who has decided that she may have something to offer to the practice of democracy in 21st century Massachusetts. The Harvard professor announced in December that she was launching an exploratory run for governor,

Four questions for MBTA GM Steve Poftak by CommonWealth Beacon

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell is of two minds about Vineyard Wind, which after lengthy regulatory delays seems poised to finally get underway. The mayor is excited about the potential for offshore wind farms to transform New Bedford the way they have many older European port cities, but he also worries that Massachusetts may be missing the boat when it comes to capturing the true value of the ind...

Suffolk DA Rachael Rollins and the no-prosecution study findings by CommonWealth Beacon

The US could have prevented the surge of COVID-19 cases this winter that killed hundreds of thousands of people if only the FDA had approved methods for at-home rapid testing and made the tests widely available. That is the argument made by Dr. Michael Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, one of the country’s strongest proponents for the use of...

Beacon Hill's public health priorities by CommonWealth Beacon

Chelsea leaders reflect on COVID's toll on state's hardest hit community by CommonWealth Beacon

Sen. Joseph Boncore and Rep. William Straus, the chairs of the Transportation Committee, engage in a lively debate about free bus fares.