It's Thursday. Welcome back!

• Women's representation in the boardroom has shifted at some of the state's largest companies, and work-based learning gaps persist for some college students.

🌧️ Today's weather: Slight chance of showers, with a high of 52 and a low of 40.

Situational awareness: Brigham nurses resume their indefinite strike today at 7am, per CBS Boston.

Today’s newsletter is 1,086 words — a 4-minute read.

Women are losing ground in executive-level representation for the first time in 15 years, a report released Thursday suggests.

The big picture: Fewer women are filling out the boardrooms of Massachusetts' largest publicly traded companies, per the annual census from The Boston Club, an organization that advocates for more women in corporate leadership.

• Those roles not only come with high pay and benefits, but also access to decision makers on Beacon Hill, Congress and beyond.

Driving the news: The share of women in board seats across these companies fell by one half of a percentage point, from 33.1% in 2025 to 32.6% this year.

• What's unclear at this point is whether this year's results are an inflection point or a blip, as it was in 2011, researchers say.

What they're saying: "We got to see that progress after that stall," said Alia Crocker, an associate professor at Babson College and co-author of the report.

• At the time, one in nine women were on boards. Now it's roughly one in three, she added, during a panel previewing the findings Tuesday.
• "Hopefully, it's just a pause."

Caveat: A growing number of companies are declining to disclose data on their board's gender, racial or ethnic makeup, making it virtually impossible to paint a complete picture of women's representation.

• 54 Mass.-based companies chose not disclose this year, up from 42 in 2025 and eight in 2024.

Context: Two factors contribute to the plummeting transparency.

• There's a 2024 federal ruling striking down Nasdaq's board diversity disclosure rules, as the report notes, and the Trump administration's targeting of law firms and other companies that promoted DEI-related initiatives.
• There may also be concerns about actions taken by activists, shareholders and others, says Trish Foster, the Boston Club's executive director.

Zoom in: Women's share of board seats overall have fallen from half to one-quarter in the past two years, but they have still made some gains, per the census.

• There are 10 women CEOs, two more than last year.
• Six boards had achieved gender parity, compared to three last year.
• 12 other boards had at least one woman, up from eight. But the number of boards in the middle, reporting three or more women, fell from 68 to 65 this year.

Keep reading: Tapping the same candidates

⚡️ The Kraft Group and United Global Packaging Group, another group affiliated with Patriots owner Bob Kraft, proposed a 900-megawatt data center in Sutton. (CBS Boston)

• The town manager says the $16 billion plan would reduce taxes: The project would bring in $27.8 million in tax revenue (the town's entire 2027 tax levy was $32 million).

Police are searching for a man who sliced a man's forehead and hand with a knife at the Downtown Crossing station yesterday. (Universal Hub)

ICYMI: A jury found former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell guilty of killing Sandra Birchmore and her unborn child in 2021 and staging it as a suicide. (WBUR)

• Farwell, who first met Birchmore when he taught at a police youth program, was charged with killing Birchmore to prevent her from exposing that he had sexually abused her when she was 15 and he was 27.

Massachusetts community college students get more career coaching than those seeking bachelor's degrees, but lag far behind on paid internships and other work-based learning opportunities, a new report states.

Why it matters: The less work experience students have under their belt, the less competitive these students are as they enter an increasingly challenging workforce in a high-cost state.

• These hurdles persist in a state with free community college, though college completion rates remain higher than much of the country, per the report by the Indiana-based nonprofit Strada Education Foundation.

Driving the news: Massachusetts community college students have gotten more career coaching than students in other states, and more than bachelor's students here, per Strada's 2026 State Opportunity Index.

• But it hasn't translated to higher levels of work experience, per the 2026 State of Opportunity Index released Tuesday.

By the numbers: 47% of Mass. students seeking an associate's degree reported getting personalized career coaching.

• That's higher than the national average for two-year college students and nearly twice as high as the share of four-year college students, per the report's survey of nearly 110,000 college U.S. students in 2025 and 2026.

Yes, but: In Massachusetts, just 12% of associate students surveyed had participated in a paid internship or relevant job.

• The national average was 14%.
• Meanwhile, 40% of bachelor's students here and 43% of bachelor's students nationwide surveyed had gotten relevant work experience.

What they're saying: "There are just a lot of higher opportunity costs and more prevalent barriers for two-year students," said Michael Thomas, president and CEO of the New England Board of Higher Education.

• "Many of them are already working one or two jobs. It's difficult to then weave in another job, particularly if it's unpaid."
• Employers might also lean toward taking on an intern from a four-year college who has more schooling, says Nichole Torpey-Saboe, vice president of research at Strada and the report's co-author.

Go deeper

U.S. veteran homelessness declined more than 50% over the past 15 years, according to the latest federal housing data.

• Massachusetts saw a 56.6% drop.
• The sharpest declines occurred in New York (-78%), North Dakota (-77%), Louisiana (-75%) and Georgia (-72%).

Steph here. A Charlestown bar is trying to incentivize afternoon foot traffic with a "progressive happy hour."

State of plate: The bar offers a free appetizer when you buy a drink, but only between 4-4:15pm Monday through Thursday.

• There's a 75% discount on an appetizer from 4:15-4:30pm, then a 50% discount from 4:30-5pm and 25% off from 5-6pm.

What I got: A small plate of bourbon glazed ribs and some pigs in a blanket in the last hour, alongside a couple of $15 espresso martinis.

• With the discount, they cost $12 and $10.50, respectively.

Deehan like to remind everyone that Thanksgiving is inexplicably somehow only 14 days away.

Steph is slowly making their way through "Ortiz's War." It's fascinating.

This newsletter was edited by Jeff Weiner.