BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has cleared the way for two major hospital systems to merge after Beth Israel and Lahey Health agreed to a seven-year cap on price increases.
Healey on Thursday announced the filing of a court settlement that allows the 13-hospital merger to go forward, but with several conditions. One is a guarantee the newly-formed Beth Israel Lahey Health will keep prices below a state benchmark for growth in health care costs — currently set at 3.1 percent — for seven years.
The merged systems also must spend more than $70 million on improved access to health care for low-income communities and make efforts to increase its share of Medicaid patients.
Critics argued the merger would lead to steep price hikes and hurt patients at smaller, community-based hospitals.
BOSTON — The Transportation Security Administration says smoke pouring from a suitcase caused a temporary disruption at Boston’s Logan International Airport over the holiday weekend.
The agency in a statement Wednesday said the checked baggage screening area was evacuated for 49 minutes on Saturday morning to allow authorities, including the state police bomb squad, to investigate.
The cause was determined to be a lithium battery in an e-cigarette that ignited.
The passenger, who was heading to Kansas City International Airport, was contacted by authorities and his flight was delayed until the situation was resolved. His name wasn’t released.
WORCESTER — Massachusetts police are looking for a suspect they say fled a traffic stop, led police on a pursuit, crashed, then carjacked another vehicle.
State police say the string of events began at about midnight Thursday when a pickup truck with three occupants fled a traffic stop in Webster.
The truck got onto Interstate 395 where troopers joined the pursuit. Troopers deployed tire deflation devices and the truck went up the ramp to Interstate 290 and crashed.
Police say a male occupant of the truck, armed with a gun, forced the driver of an SUV out and took off east on the westbound side of I-290.
Police ended the pursuit at about 12:30 a.m. when the chase entered Worcester’s Kelley Square.
WORCESTER — The trial of a man charged with strangling a Massachusetts teacher’s aide has been scheduled.
A Superior Court judge scheduled jury selection on Jose Melendez’s murder trial to start Sept. 5. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Sandra Hehir.
Hehir worked as an instructional assistant in the Worcester school system. The 49-year-old woman was found dead in her apartment in February 2017.
Police say DNA from the scene matched DNA from an unsolved rape case from 2000 in which Melendez was a suspect.
Melendez, who also is known by the names Segura and Alvarado, faces possible deportation.
He has denied any knowledge of Hehir’s death.
A spokesman for the district attorney says there’s uncertainty over Melendez’s true identity.
BROCKTON — Prosecutors say a man shot and killed another man in Massachusetts because he wanted to keep their romantic relationship a secret.
The Enterprise reports that 21-year-old Kian Willis pleaded not guilty to murder during his arraignment Wednesday in connection with the Nov. 12 death of 27-year-old Patrick Sequeira-Ferreira. He was held without bail.
Sequeira-Ferreira was shot in the head in Brockton.
Assistant District Attorney Jessica Kenny says Willis told police after the shooting he was worried others would find out about his relationship with Sequeria-Ferreira.
Kenny says Willis told police he didn’t want to lose his job at the Office of Community Corrections where he met the victim, who was an agency client. That was against agency rules.
Willis’ attorney reserved the right to seek bail in the future.
From Associated Press