A group of Massachusetts mayors, fed up with what they say is legislative inaction on skyrocketing municipal health care costs, has launched a ballot initiative for 2012 aimed at giving cities and towns more flexibility in reducing expensive benefits for employees, retirees, and elected officials.

An overwhelming majority of Bay State voters back newly elected U.S. Sen. Scott Brown's performance, and 53 percent think the anti-incumbent wave that carried the Wrentham Republican to office should sweep the nation, according to a new Rassmusen poll.

House leaders prepared members in a closed session yesterday for a politically unpleasant effort to reduce state aid to cities and towns in the budget proposal expected to emerge in mid-April. House Democrats said the local aid cut in the House Ways and Means Committee budget could hit 5 percent.

As critics blasted the state's vacation and sick-time buyback perk yesterday, new figures show University of Massachusetts employees cashed in $8.7 million in unused days in the past year. More than 1,300 UMass employees left their jobs with bonus buyouts as high as $157,000, according to figures released yesterday by the state comptroller's office.

A looming budget deficit could lead to the closing of a significant number of Boston schools over the next two years and further reductions in staff, Superintendent Carol R. Johnson said yesterday.

Children in nearly two dozen Boston public schools ate meals in cafeterias cited for conditions so severe - including mouse droppings, peeling paint and a rusty oven - that one inspector said they would shutter a typical restaurant. Making matters worse: The central food facility that feeds another 21 Hub schools without cafeterias also has been tagged by health inspectors, records show.

In Michigan, where many enterprises are struggling to survive, the renowned University of Michigan is in the midst of a construction boom and hiring spree. Michigan State University, on the other hand, plans to lay off faculty and cut programs, blaming state funding that is lower than it was a decade ago. Flagship universities in other states are also prospering, while their lesser-known counterparts suffer from vanishing state appropriations. 

So, why not change the arrangement and require big-name universities to take responsibility for their own financing, leaving more state money to support the other state schools? As legislatures face their toughest budget year since the recession began, the idea of giving a few universities autonomy to control their own finances has some appeal.

In a case that drew attention from the Gun Owners Action League and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the Supreme Judicial Court yesterday upheld a state law requiring trigger locks on guns kept in people's homes. In what was seen by some as a victory for law enforcement and advocates of gun control, the state's highest court ruled that the Second Amendment does not restrict the right of Massachusetts to impose its own rules on gun ownership.

Attorney General Martha Coakley's office joined a federal lawsuit yesterday that contends that Johnson & Johnson paid tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks to get its drugs, especially the powerful antipsychotic Risperdal, prescribed in nursing homes.

After sinking $125 million into the controversial project over 13 unlucky years, the developers of Columbus Center will never break ground. California Urban Investment Partners, co-developer of the $800 million mixed-use development along with Boston's Winn Cos., have told the state's transportation agency that they are bowing out of the plan to build a massive mixed-use development over the Massachusetts Turnpike in the Back Bay.

Gov. Deval Patrick says he's "open" to doing battle in the lion's den of conservative talk radio as he struggles for traction in his re-election bid - and the Hub's hottest hosts say they're ready to rumble. Patrick has long refused to enter the studios of right-wing talkers who mercilessly mock him to the delight of their listeners.

Adding a new chapter to its storied history of vanquished British seamen and Barbary pirates, Old Ironsides has emerged victorious once again - this time vs. snooty neighbors seeking to silence the frigate's cannons.

WASHINGTON — Small defense companies, energy firms, and other technology start-ups throughout New England could lose tens of millions of dollars a year because of a decision by House Democrats yesterday to abruptly halt budget earmarks for companies.

In just two years, spending on MRIs, mammograms, and other imaging tests climbed by at least $214 million in Massachusetts, helping to fuel a dramatic rise in the cost of outpatient hospital care.

A bill that would ban the sale of sugary drinks and junk food in school vending machines and school stores is gaining momentum in the Legislature, as Massachusetts combats a troubling rise in childhood obesity rates.

A Suffolk Superior Court judge has taken the unusual step of overruling a jury that awarded a black teacher from Boston Latin School more than $300,000 after he complained that the school's administrators had discriminated against him.

Governor Deval Patrick yesterday took some of his most pointed shots yet at Republican gubernatorial rival Charles D. Baker Jr., accusing the former chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of doing nothing to stop dramatic increases in health care costs that he said are crushing small businesses and families.