Romney and a revived Obama spar in 2d debate

President Obama and Mitt Romney turned a Town Hall conversation into a combative duel, delivering punches and counterpunches on the economy, foreign policy, and social issues.

Analysis of the debate

Dante Ramos of the Boston Globe gives his analysis of tonight’s debate.

NEWS ANALYSIS

Audience questions underscore nation’s wounds

The self-styled “town hall” debate is likely to be remembered for the pain expressed by so many of the questioners, testimony to the fallout of the Great Recession.

A123 makes advanced battery systems.

Failure of A123 Systems becomes part of fray

The bankruptcy filing of A123 Systems thrusts the Waltham company into the middle of the presidential debate over energy and economic policies.

opinion | scot lehigh

President Obama upped his game

The president showed some passion and did what he needed to do in his second debate with Mitt Romney.

Annie Dookhan contacted Norfolk Assistant District Attorney George Papachristos often and in a familiar way. Her husband tried repeatedly to contact a startled Papachristos.

Chemist often called, wrote to prosecutor

The chemist at the center of the state drug lab scandal carried on an unauthorized correspondence with a prosecutor whose drug evidence she analyzed.

Matthew Spencer still suffers from occasional headaches.

CHERYL SENTER FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Fungal infection poses challenges to patients, officials

With the expanding fungal meningitis outbreak, officials are dealing with a disease that is usually exceedingly difficult to diagnose, and the treatment is risky and arduous.

FDA searches pharmacy amid outbreak investigation

Criminal investigators visited the Framingham facility at the center of the nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak Tuesday and worked into the evening.

Maine earthquake rattles residents around Boston

A 4.0 magnitude quake struck about 30 miles outside of Portland on Tuesday night, officials said, shaking the ground throughout New England.

Globe Insiders

Globe Talk | Oct. 23, 6 p.m.

//c.o0bg.com/rf/image_90x90/Boston/2011-2020/2012/02/17/BostonGlobe.com/Special/Images/508746086[1]--90x90.jpg Revealing ‘The Real Romney’

Join Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, authors of “The Real Romney,” to discuss the Republican presidential candidate’s life and history.

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Arts

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Galleries

John Wilson’s “Mother and Child’’ at Martha Richardson Fine Art.

Aesthetic and social concerns of John Wilson

At a time when much of the art world was enraptured with abstraction, Wilson, like other African-American artists stuck to narrative and figuration. They had stories that had to be told.

Food & dining

Vicki Lee Boyajian brought to California dozens of fragile fondant flowers, multiple layers of frozen cakes, fruit-tart shells, frozen buttercream, and more.

Baker goes the distance for two wedding parties

For an experienced bakery owner like Vicki Lee Boyajian of Vicki Lee’s in Belmont, two weddings at the same time is, well, a piece of cake. Even if both weddings were in California.