"LAST WEEK’S REVENUE REPORT from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission suggested the state’s casinos are doing pretty well, given the many restrictions imposed by COVID-19.
Monthly slot revenues for the Commonwealth’s two category 2 casinos showed modest increases, with Encore Boston Harbor posting a 3.9 percent increase over November’s numbers, and MGM Springfield showing a 9.51 percent increase. Plainridge Park, the state’s lone slots-only facility, reported a 20.77 percent increase in monthly slot revenue."
"IN EARLY APRIL, amid the first COVID-19 surge and an emerging shortage of health care workers, Gov. Charlie Baker signed an executive order allowing foreign-trained medical doctors to gain full licensure here in Massachusetts.
This came after a slew of legislators and immigration advocates appealed to his administration to utilize that workforce. At the end of July, when cases of COVID-19 were ebbing, Baker rescinded the order, a move that allowed those who received their license during the previous three months to continue practicing but barred any new applications.
Now, with cases rising fast and the state once again facing a shortage of health care workers, the Baker administration has gone strangely silent on why the program isn’t being resuscitated and even expanded beyond doctors."
Continue reading the article online https://commonwealthmagazine.org/health-care/baker-goes-silent-on-foreign-trained-docs/
"HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Massachusetts immigrants could be impacted by President Biden’s immigration overhaul, which includes a massive bill sent to Congress on Wednesday that was accompanied by a series of executive orders.
Those orders, signed after Biden assumed the presidency, will reverse Trump-era travel bans that focused primarily on immigrants from Muslim countries. Another executive order allows young immigrants brought into the country without authorization to once again apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which former president Trump suspended in 2017. A third will reverse a memo signed into law by Trump in 2020 that excluded undocumented immigrants from Census counts. "
