State sends its health plan to US agency

Massachusetts has formally submitted its plan for nearly universal health insurance coverage to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that will decide whether the measure will reduce the number of uninsured enough for the state to keep receiving $385 million in federal Medicaid money each year. State Health and Human Services Secretary Timothy Murphy said members of his staff are heading to Washington today to discuss the plan.

Outbound lanes of the Casey Overpass in Jamaica Plain will be closed tonight while the Department of Conservation and Recreation repairs the bridge deck. The lanes of the overpass, heading toward Franklin Park, will be closed from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m., and from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday and Friday, officials said.

Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor Deborah Goldberg announced yesterday the donation of $1 million of her own money to her election campaign, adding to the $501,617 she's raised. Goldberg's family founded the Massachusetts-based Stop & Shop Supermarket Co., although they no longer run it. She served on Brookline's Board of Selectmen from 1998 to 2004, chairing the panel from 2002 to 2004, and is one of four candidates vying for inclusion on the Democratic gubernatorial ticket, which will be decided at June's Democratic convention and September's primary election.

CONCORD, N.H.

Prosecutors said yesterday that they will not file charges against a Barrington police officer who fired six shots at a fleeing suspect from Massachusetts whose car was pinned between two police cruisers. In August, Sergeant William Neenan shot Richard Fowler, 30, of Haverhill, Mass., as Fowler revved the engine of his vehicle, wedged between the two Barrington police cruisers, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said in a statement. The state would not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Neenan's belief of imminent danger was ''objectively unreasonable," Ayotte wrote in a report. However, the attorney general's office encourages the Barrington Police Department to determine whether Neenan's actions complied with department policies. (AP)

STAMFORD, Conn.

Lawyers for Michael Skakel, the Kennedy cousin convicted of killing a Greenwich neighbor when he was a teenager in 1975, identified two men yesterday they say are implicated in the killing. Skakel is seeking a new trial based on a statement by Gitano ''Tony" Bryant, a cousin of basketball star Kobe Bryant, that two of his friends killed Martha Moxley, 15. Skakel's lawyers identified the two men in court papers as Adolf Hasbrouck of Bridgeport and Burt Tinsley of Portland, Ore. A phone message left for Tinsley was not immediately returned. Hasbrouck's phone number was out of service. Both denied any involvement in the killing when interviewed by The Hartford Courant in 2003. (AP)

MASSACHUSETTS

Massachusetts set a record for April tax collections, and with two months left in the fiscal year, receipts are running $837 million above the benchmarks used to build this year's budget.The Department of Revenue reported yesterday that tax collections in April totaled $2.215 billion, up $198 million or 9.8 percent over April 2005. At a press conference on another matter, Governor Mitt Romney said the new numbers should make it easier for the state to embrace an income tax cut and increases in education and local aid. (State House News Service)

CAMBRIDGE

With its affiliation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology expiring, a library of rare books on the history of science and technology is moving to California. The 67,000-volume Burndy Library, founded by inventor Bern Dibner, will move in the fall to the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif. The Huntington Library is expected to announce its acquisition today. The books come with $11.6 million in support for the collection and related research activities. Some of the money will endow a curatorial position; some will be used for operating expenses.