News

Since the coronavirus hit, some 40% of Black businesses have gone under, victims of a strained economy, plummeting demand for professional and retail services and customers wary of venturing out into the COVID climate. Sensing the need to connect customers with companies, regardless of the motivation, social entrepreneur Colette Phillips has launched GK! Market as an outgrowth of her groundbreaking Get Konnected! networking events.

The 1,300-space parking lot is now a site of competing visions for Dorchester as residents struggle over its future. The conflict has exposed neighborhood divisions along racial and class lines and stoked tensions between homeowners and renters.

Lines at food pantries and soup kitchens normally grow around this time of year, but the pandemic has doubled them, relief workers say. With an unprecedented amount of need, relief centers are pooling their resources to make sure everyone is fed, though it may not be enough.

Mayor Martin Walsh announced Tuesday a new community engagement process to reimagine Boston’s businesses. Reimagine Boston Main Streets is meant to strengthen the city’s Main Streets program, assess where the resources are and identify gaps. The first part of this community engagement process began at a Nov. 23 Remo event — a virtual conference where attendees could sit at “tables” and discuss different aspects of Boston business.

In the eight months since states went on lockdown in March, 647 billionaires in the United States have seen their wealth increase by $960 billion, according to a report released last week by the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based progressive think tank. Meanwhile, frontline and low-wage workers have faced dangerous working conditions, furloughs, layoffs and evictions.

Boston Arts Academy Foundation announced that Petrina Martin Cherry, vice president of sales, marketing and community outreach at Boston Medical Center HealthNet Plan and the Boston Medical Center Health System, has joined its 24-member advisory council.

Mayor Martin Walsh has signed two executive orders in the next step of implementing recommended police reforms. Boston Police Reform Task Force Walsh created in July recommended that he institute an Office of Police Accountability and Transparency, which would house an Internal Affairs Oversight Panel and a Civilian Review Board with the power to investigate the Boston Police Department.

Care workers in Massachusetts are contracting COVID-19 in their workplaces, but in the volatile job climate, many have no other employment options and no sick days left. During budget negotiations at the State House, legislators debated putting the Emergency Paid Sick Time Amendment in the FY2021 state budget.

The incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden will invest billions of dollars in public education to close achievement gaps, modernize school buildings and support schools with high concentrations of low-income students, campaign policy director Stef Feldman told the Education Writers Association in an interview last week.

As investors buy up large rental complexes in Mattapan, Hyde Park and other Boston neighborhoods, tenants are organizing to stop sudden rent increases.

Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA), a community development corporation based in Boston’s South End, announced that Maria Vasallo has been elected president of IBA’s board of directors.