• To preview your ballot, go to the website of Secretary of State William Galvin and enter your home address.
   
• Galvin's office has also posted information about the four statewide ballot questions that voters will be asked to vote "Yes" or "No" on.

The Statewide Quality Advisory Committee Releases 2014 Final Report
The Statewide Quality Advisory Committee is pleased to release the Committee's 2014 Final Report. This report is an annual summary of the Committee's process of prioritizing, evaluating and recommending health care quality measures for the Standard Quality Measure Set (SQMS). The 2014 Final Report includes the Committee's final recommendations for updates to the SQMS.
 

Mass. Health Connector chief says about 400,000 must sign up soon to avoid coverage gap

About 400,000 Massachusetts residents currently enrolled in Massachusetts Health Connector insurance programs will need to fill out a new application during open enrollment starting Nov. 15 or risk losing coverage.

Electricity impasse
Electricity prices are going to skyrocket this winter, and state officials are discovering it's too late to do anything about it. National Grid, which purchases electricity for many of its customers, reported last month that prices this winter will be 16 cents a kilowatt hour, double the current price and 37 percent higher than what homeowners were paying last winter.

Displaced Long Island homeless crowd South End shelter

Trailing the flashing lights of a police escort, the city bus completed its journey in front of a bleak building in the South End, where more officers and guards were waiting. Out filed some of the 700 former residents of Long Island, where the city's largest homeless shelter operated until earlier this month - before officials condemned the only bridge leading to the refuge on Boston Harbor.
 

The bias fighters

It may not be easy to admit, but chances are you've been guilty of racial discrimination. Perhaps just in small ways: that time you got disproportionately mad at someone for walking too slowly or laughing too loudly on the bus, or that time you talked down to a call-center guy because of his accent. Maybe it didn't register as prejudice when it happened.
 

Report: Mass. public higher-ed system needs big investments
The Massachusetts Legislature should pass a higher education borrowing bill to meet $4.2 billion in deferred maintenance needs, add $95 million a year for five years to public higher education institutions' coffers, and boost student financial assistance by $210 million, a state higher education commission said in its report Tuesday.

Antiviolence program by Roca expands into Boston

For more than 25 years, Roca has served Greater Boston from its Chelsea headquarters. It is now putting down roots in the heart of Boston with a new facility that opens Tuesday in the shadow of the South Bay House of Correction.

High suicide rate in prisons in state

Prisoners in Massachusetts are dying behind bars at a higher rate than the national average, and suicide is among the leading causes. From 2001 to 2012, the suicide rate among the state's prison population was nearly twice the national average.
 

Report ranks MA last among 48 states for maltreatment in foster care

The Bay State's embattled child welfare system ranked dead last in the country in keeping kids in foster care safe, according to a new bombshell federal review that critics say deserves "immediate attention" from the Patrick Administration and his would-be replacement.

Boston Area Middle Schools 'Get Real' About Sex

According to Planned Parenthood, 90 percent of parents say sexual health is the biggest social concern they have for their teens, but 37 percent of teenagers say they have never talked about sex with their parents. Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts' Get Real: Sex Education That Works program hopes to change that.
 

Young adults needed for interviews re: pathways out of homelessness

Do you know any individuals who may be interested in helping us out by participating in our interviews? The interviews will be flexible, informal conversations where we will speak about individuals' experiences of transitions into (and out of) homelessness, experiences with shelters and other services. Of course, no-one would have to answer any questions they are not comfortable with. Conversations are no longer than an hour, in a location convenient for the person we're speaking to, and to say thank you for their time each participant receives a $10 CVS card.

In a vacant lot, the story of Boston's housing crunch

Walsh just challenged the city to build 53,000 new homes by the year 2030, and his neighborhood coffee spot sits directly across the street from a piece of land that should be pushing Boston toward that mark. Instead, a tug-of-war over 15 parking spaces is threatening to preserve a prime housing development parcel as an overgrown patch of nothing. And it's showing that Boston's broken zoning code weighs heaviest on the people who are least able to navigate it.
 

Child poverty in U.S. is at highest point in 20 years, report finds
Child poverty in America is at its highest point in 20 years, putting millions of children at increased risk of injuries, infant mortality, and premature death, according to a policy analysis published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

Poor kids who do everything right don't do better than rich kids who do everything wrong
America is the land of opportunity, just for some more than others. That's because, in large part, inequality starts in the crib. Rich parents can afford to spend more time and money on their kids, and that gap has only grown the past few decades.

Bring Back the Earmark
With midterm elections less than two weeks away, though, candidates who criticize the United States' crumbling infrastructure must speak truth to power. The fact is, while much maligned, earmarks were the linchpin of American infrastructure investment. And it's time we gave them a second chance.

Young, Gifted & Homeless

First, the numbers: In 2012-13 the U.S. Department of Education documented more than 1.2 million homeless students in the nation's public elementary, middle and high schools, defining homelessness as "the lack of a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence." That represents an astounding 58% increase since the beginning of the recession in 2008. The total includes students who sleep in cars, parks and motels, but the vast majority, about 900,000, "double up," residing with relatives or friends.

For "grandfamilies," raising grandkids can mean going broke

When Karen Best Wright took in her three grandchildren in 2002, she was doing what she thought was the best for her family -- helping raise a newborn and a 2- and 4-year-old while her daughter dealt with a crisis. "We mortgaged our home," Wright told CBS MoneyWatch. "We spent $20,000 on legal fees." Financially, she notes, "we were in a mess."

Why it was important for foster youth to tell her story

Foster Youths Re-Writing their Past

"When you go through the system, you train yourself not to remember your life, so I only remember my life from second grade on." - Sade, former foster youth. Sade and her siblings officially went into the system when she was 13. Her mother was a drug addict and physically abusive. That's all Sade knew. Anger and rage become the words that identified her.

It costs a lot to raise a child: According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an average middle-aged couple whose baby was born last year can expect to spend over $245,000 to raise the child, not including paying for college. If you're planning to adopt, you may end up spending an extra $40,000.