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Ahead of the holidays and amid a historic surge in COVID cases, Boston area residents eager to purchase over-the-counter rapid tests regularly found homemade signs pasted to the front doors of pharmacies announcing that they had no tests left. (Photos by Hanna Krueger and handout)

Nearly 200 people lined up before dawn outside a Norwell CVS in search of one thing: a rapid antigen test

Mass. reports 9,042 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the highest total reported in a single day

Here’s a look at the latest coronavirus numbers in Massachusetts, including case numbers, deaths, demographics, and more.

Mass. public schools see COVID cases spike ahead of break; state reports 8,576 new cases among students, 1,544 among staff

Pedestrians stood in line at COVID-19 mobile testing site at Columbus Circle in New York.

How to know if those are Omicron symptoms, or maybe just the common cold

With winter underway and cases of Omicron surging nationwide, you may be wondering if that runny nose or aching throat is a dreaded case of COVID-19 or merely a symptom of the common cold.

COVID-19: THE LATEST

Boston is almost out of free rapid COVID tests, officials say, but a few remain available Thursday night

Town-by-town COVID-19 data in Massachusetts

Northeastern announces it will remain open for in-person learning in January amid rising COVID cases

Kim Potter guilty of manslaughter in Daunte Wright’s death

Jurors on Thursday convicted a former suburban Minneapolis police officer of two manslaughter charges in the killing of Daunte Wright, a Black motorist she shot during a traffic stop after she said she confused her gun for her Taser.

Former Boston College student pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the suicide of her boyfriend

Inyoung You admitted in Suffolk Superior Court that she sent tens of thousands of texts in what prosecutors called months of emotional and psychological abuse in the weeks leading up to the death of her boyfriend, Alexander Urtula.

Gary Lee Sampson, convicted of brutally murdering three men, dies in federal custody at 62

Admitted serial killer Gary Lee Sampson, an Abington native twice sentenced to death after murdering three men in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 2001, died Tuesday at the age of 62 in federal custody while his most recent appeal of his sentence was pending, records show.

How Michelle Wu plans to transform the arts in Boston

The new mayor, a classically trained pianist, believes everyone in Boston, regardless of income, should have direct access to the arts.

A challenge for church leaders: How to deliver a holiday message of hope in trying times

Religious leaders are grappling with their holiday messages as congregants fill church pews — or Zoom video windows — seeking solace in another pandemic winter.

Boston could see a white Christmas. Yes, really!

St. Regis Residences is getting a Seaport address

A Beautiful Resistance | Jeneé Osterheldt

From bell hooks to Virgil Abloh to your local creatives, the arts contribute to radical change

Activism requires organizers, policy, and protest. But first, there is imagination.

The Questions, featuring Derecka Purnell Follow @abeautifulresistance on Instagram See more from A Beautiful Resistance

Big Lux's Beautiful Resistance: A Veteran's Violin Sings Black Lives Matter

Created and produced by Jeneé Osterheldt/Globe Staff, Directed and edited by Daymian Mejia, Supervising Producer Caitlin Healy/Globe Staff, Illustrations by Paula Champagne, Photo by Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff

Opinion

It was Dec. 17, and I still had no tree.

Mary Ann D'Urso

This year, Christmas at my house got canceled

Omicron is spreading in record numbers across the country. They were anxious about leaving home and we decided staying put was the way to go. I totally got it.

LETTERS

2021, in Globe readers’ own words

NASA technicians lift the James Webb Space Telescope inside a clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in 2017.

EDITORIAL

Peering into the darkness of the past to see a brighter future

Kerry Higdon gives her son Kol, 10, a math lesson in their home in Edinburg, Va., in September.

IDEAS | AMY CRAWFORD

Do-it-yourself education is on the rise

"I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t know how I’d pull it off." The author runs along a dilapidated street in Maracaibo.

IDEAS | ANTONIO MATHEUS

The lunacy of the long distance runner

Patriots

Will Patriots quarterback Mac Jones again be able to move past adversity, as he has done during his rookie season?

Jones knows there are ebbs and flows to every season, be it college or pro.

A Boston woman posted to TikTok offering to swap homes with a stranger like the movie ‘The Holiday.’ She leaves for England next week

“Anyone in England want to switch places for the holiday?” Grace Gagnon, a 25-year-old Boston woman, wrote in a now-viral video posted to her TikTok account. “I have a studio [apartment] on Boston’s waterfront.”

Dinner with Cupid

Blind date: ‘He and his friends had planned their own questions to ask when getting to know someone’

What will she think of this engineer’s pre-planned questions?

Fall River police justified in fatal shooting of Anthony Harden, DA says

A Fall River police officer was justified in using deadly force last month against Anthony Harden who was shot twice while trying to stab a second officer with a steak knife as police were moving to arrest the Fall River man for beating his girlfriend, Bristol District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III concluded.

Danvers officials, shifting course, say they will still inform the community about hateful graffiti

On Monday, Danvers officials said the town would stop informing the public about incidents of hateful graffiti in the community.

Where to find the best whoopie pies around New England

Here’s a look at some worth-every-sugar-gram whoopies.

Joan Didion, peerless prose stylist, dies at 87

Joan Didion, the revered author and essayist whose precise social and personal commentary in such classics as “The White Album” and “The Year of Magical Thinking” made her a uniquely clear-eyed critic of turbulent times, has died. She was 87.

MOVIE REVIEW | ★★★

In Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Licorice Pizza,’ a non-romance romance unfolds in early 1970s LA

Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim star — with cameos from Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper, and waterbeds.

Movie review: All those boogie nights have become a boogie morning after in 'Red Rocket'

Ben Volin I On football

Ranking the 13 teams still alive in a wide-open AFC playoff race

This season marks the first since 2002 that no AFC team has clinched a playoff spot entering Week 16.

Five takeaways from the ‘Hard Knocks’ episode featuring the Colts preparing to face the Patriots

Globe Santa

It takes a lot of elves to help Globe Santa

Like an elaborate stage performance, the Globe Santa operation involves lots of dedicated and creative individuals with different skills.

LEARN MORE ABOUT GLOBE SANTA

Read the latest stories Make a donation. Make a difference.

Best of the holidays

People under the holiday lights on Boston Common.

9 places around Boston where you can get into the holiday spirit (for free)

Every holiday season comes with a gamut of things to do and gifts to buy, and it can take a toll on the old wallet. That got us thinking about some activities in and around the city where you can revel in the holiday spirit for free.

Boston is dressed in its wintery best. Here’s where to see Christmas trees, menorahs, and other decorations 20 family-friendly events to put you in the holiday spirit

After years of doubts, hopes grow that nuclear fusion is finally for real and could help address climate change

After breakthroughs this year at MIT and elsewhere, scientists — and a growing number of deep-pocketed investors — insist that fusion is for real and could start sending power to electricity grids in about a decade.

Michael Mina can’t stop talking about the need for rapid COVID tests. The country may finally be listening. But is it too late?

“I feel we’ve learned so little despite so much pain,” said the former Brigham and Women’s epidemiologist.

YVONNE ABRAHAM

Even at a dark time, there’s plenty to give us hope

I reached out to some of my favorite thinkers, some of them inveterate optimists, to ask what gives them hope. They offered plenty of good cheer, some finding it in the unlikeliest of places.

PCR or rapid antigen? Here’s how to use COVID tests to gather safely for the holidays

PCR tests detect the genetic material from the virus, while rapid antigen tests detect specific proteins from the coronavirus. Here is the best time to use each, and how to use them to gather safely with friends and family.

video

Culture & Lifestyle

Ellis Paul closes out the year with a run of full-band shows at Club Passim.

THE TICKET

Things to do around Boston this weekend and beyond

Boston Ballet dancer Chyrstyn Fentroy (center) performs in the company's "Bach Cello Suites," at Jacob's Pillow in Becket in 2019.

‘Crying happy tears’: Chyrstyn Fentroy promoted to principal dancer at Boston Ballet

Pages from "Woody Guthrie: Songs and Art * Words and Wisdom," a new book curated by his daughter, Nora Guthrie

In a new book about Woody Guthrie, his daughter tells his story through what he left behind

Billy Conway died at age 65 after battling cancer for several years.

APPRECIATION

It didn’t take a lot for drummer Billy Conway to make a big impression

Special Projects

An older lobsterman passed by Tanner Lazaro as he hauled up his traps in his boat, Used N Abused, on Aug. 24. During the summer Tanner hauled his own traps on whatever days his mentor Frankie Thompson or another lobsterman didn't need his help.

The lobster trap

The plentiful catch that brought wealth to fishing families is at risk, as climate change warms the Gulf of Maine. A way of life is on the line, but lobstermen can't, or won't, imagine another.

The 2021 Top Places to Work in Massachusetts

Is your employer among the 150 companies to make the list?

Jeneé Osterheldt

A Beautiful Resistance

Black joy, Black lives, as celebrated by culture columnist Jeneé Osterheldt.

‘On the Street’: The changing face of Greater Boston neighborhoods

The changing face of Greater Boston neighborhoods.

FROM OUR PARTNERS

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Opinion, ideas, and commentary

Joan Vennochi

A gift that touches the heart

EDITORIAL

Health care for formerly incarcerated people helps everyone

Bottles of abortion pills at a clinic in Des Moines, Iowa. Earlier this month the Food and Drug Administration loosened some restrictions on the pill mifepristone.

IDEAS | RACHEL REBOUCHÉ, GREER DONLEY, AND DAVID S. COHEN

Progress in the bid to make abortion pills more widely available

Joe Manchin updates reporters at the Capitol, in Washington, on Sept. 30, 2021.

EDITORIAL

Debunking Manchin’s anti-Build Back Better myths

California Governor Gavin Newsom has broached a gun-control initiative that borrows strategy from Texas' recent controversial abortion ban.

Laurence H. Tribe, Jonathan M. Metzl, and David Hogg

Democrats should apply Supreme Court’s abortion decision to firearms

IDEAS | ABDALLAH FAYYAD

Editing the Constitution

Metro

For relatives of the incarcerated, holidays are marked by grief and loss

Thousands of families across the state with incarcerated relatives grapple with the acknowledgment of their loved ones’ mistakes and wrongdoings but nonetheless long to be with them.

Charts: Who has been vaccinated in Massachusetts, and how many doses has the state received?

The charts break down vaccination recipients by age, vaccination date, location, and race/ethnicity, while also outlining vaccination brand and administration site type.

Coronavirus Live Updates

Boston is almost out of free rapid COVID tests, officials say, but a few remain available Thursday night

The latest news and guidance on the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in New England and beyond.

In the spirit of the season, Tewksbury police dole out gift cards in place of traffic citations

Officers gave out $25 gift cards to 16 motorists pulled over this month for minor driving violations. Wal-Mart donated $100 worth of cards, while a police union contribute $300 for the effort, Tewksbury police said Thursday.

Sports

Danvers police and school officials concealed for more than 16 months alleged violent racist, homophobic, and antisemitic misconduct by members of the 2019-20 high school boys’ hockey team.

Danvers officials, shifting course, say they will still inform the community about hateful graffiti

On Monday, Danvers officials said the town would stop informing the public about incidents of hateful graffiti in the community.

Coach DJ Pinkham started the season with just 14 players on his hockey roster at the Cambridge Matignon School, but it is a win to have the storied program back on its own fielding a team.

JIM CLARK | BOYS' HOCKEY NOTEBOOK

Looking to seize upon its past glory, Matignon ends its co-op experiment to prop up its own program

Said Matignon athletic director Mike Lahiff, “For us to not have boys’ hockey on our own, was tough for our school’s reputation and image.”

BRUINS

Zach Senyshyn joins 2015 first-round draftmates and requests trade from Bruins

The third of Boston’s first-round picks in 2015 cited backlash from the media about his high selection and a lack of usage in declaring "it’s better for them to get some return and for me to get a fresh start.”

NFL notebook

Saints quarterbacks Taysom Hill and Trevor Siemian test positive for COVID-19

live updates

COVID-19 sports updates: Enes Kanter Freedom becomes eighth Celtic in protocol

Patriots

Will Patriots quarterback Mac Jones again be able to move past adversity, as he has done during his rookie season?

Business

Sales of new homes were up nationwide in November

Stories you may have missed from the world of business

FDA tells drugmakers to test for benzene contamination

US health officials warned pharmaceutical companies that certain ingredients used in drug manufacturing may risk contaminating medications with the carcinogen benzene.

Tesla to halt games on infotainment screens in moving cars

St. Regis Residences is getting a Seaport address

STAT

Listen to our "First Opinion" podcast

Listen to our "Readout LOUD" podcast

Subscribe to STAT Plus

‘Health equity tourists’: How white scholars are colonizing research on health disparities

A STAT investigation shows that researchers with little or no background or training in health equity research are rushing in to scoop up grants and publish papers.

Winter is coming, again: What to expect from Covid-19 as the season looms

STAT spoke with infectious disease experts and others about what to expect from Covid-19 as the seasons change.

DISTANCED: Pandemic stories of Black life in the rural South

Photographer Bethany Mollenkof spent six months documenting the impact of Covid-19 on residents of rural Black communities in the South.

Groundbreaking arm amputation surgery makes a ‘phantom’ hand seem real

The procedure aims to restore proprioception, the ability to sense where our limbs are in space and how fast and forcefully they’re moving.

magazine

2021

Meet this year's Bostonians of the Year

PERSPECTIVE

Devin McCourty and Tito SantosSilva on ending gang violence now

MISS CONDUCT

I'm heading to QAnon country for Christmas. How do I stay cool?

Cooking

Coronavirus

Nearly 200 people lined up before dawn outside a Norwell CVS in search of one thing: a rapid antigen test

Mass. reports 9,042 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the highest total reported in a single day

How to know if those are Omicron symptoms, or maybe just the common cold

Town-by-town COVID-19 data in Massachusetts

Northeastern announces it will remain open for in-person learning in January amid rising COVID cases

Kim Potter guilty of manslaughter in Daunte Wright’s death

Former Boston College student pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the suicide of her boyfriend

Gary Lee Sampson, convicted of brutally murdering three men, dies in federal custody at 62

How Michelle Wu plans to transform the arts in Boston The new mayor, a classically trained pianist, believes everyone in Boston, regardless of income, should have direct access to the arts.

A challenge for church leaders: How to deliver a holiday message of hope in trying times Religious leaders are grappling with their holiday messages as congregants fill church pews — or Zoom video windows — seeking solace in another pandemic winter.

Boston could see a white Christmas. Yes, really!

St. Regis Residences is getting a Seaport address

Mass. coronavirus at a glance

Vaccinations

Cases and deaths

Other resources:

From bell hooks to Virgil Abloh to your local creatives, the arts contribute to radical change

This year, Christmas at my house got canceled

2021, in Globe readers’ own words

Peering into the darkness of the past to see a brighter future

Do-it-yourself education is on the rise

The lunacy of the long distance runner

Will Patriots quarterback Mac Jones again be able to move past adversity, as he has done during his rookie season?

A Boston woman posted to TikTok offering to swap homes with a stranger like the movie ‘The Holiday.’ She leaves for England next week

Blind date: ‘He and his friends had planned their own questions to ask when getting to know someone’

More recent stories

Fall River police justified in fatal shooting of Anthony Harden, DA says

Danvers officials, shifting course, say they will still inform the community about hateful graffiti On Monday, Danvers officials said the town would stop informing the public about incidents of hateful graffiti in the community.

Where to find the best whoopie pies around New England Here’s a look at some worth-every-sugar-gram whoopies.

Joan Didion, peerless prose stylist, dies at 87 Joan Didion, the revered author and essayist whose precise social and personal commentary in such classics as “The White Album” and “The Year of Magical Thinking” made her a uniquely clear-eyed critic of turbulent times, has died. She was 87.

MOVIE REVIEW | ★★★ In Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Licorice Pizza,’ a non-romance romance unfolds in early 1970s LA Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim star — with cameos from Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper, and waterbeds.

Ben Volin I On football Ranking the 13 teams still alive in a wide-open AFC playoff race This season marks the first since 2002 that no AFC team has clinched a playoff spot entering Week 16.

It takes a lot of elves to help Globe Santa

LEARN MORE ABOUT GLOBE SANTA

Best of the holidays

9 places around Boston where you can get into the holiday spirit (for free)

Recommended reads

After years of doubts, hopes grow that nuclear fusion is finally for real and could help address climate change

Michael Mina can’t stop talking about the need for rapid COVID tests. The country may finally be listening. But is it too late? “I feel we’ve learned so little despite so much pain,” said the former Brigham and Women’s epidemiologist.

YVONNE ABRAHAM Even at a dark time, there’s plenty to give us hope I reached out to some of my favorite thinkers, some of them inveterate optimists, to ask what gives them hope. They offered plenty of good cheer, some finding it in the unlikeliest of places.

video

Culture & Lifestyle

Things to do around Boston this weekend and beyond

‘Crying happy tears’: Chyrstyn Fentroy promoted to principal dancer at Boston Ballet

In a new book about Woody Guthrie, his daughter tells his story through what he left behind

It didn’t take a lot for drummer Billy Conway to make a big impression

Special Projects

The lobster trap

The 2021 Top Places to Work in Massachusetts

A Beautiful Resistance

‘On the Street’: The changing face of Greater Boston neighborhoods

FROM OUR PARTNERS

Opinion, ideas, and commentary

A gift that touches the heart

Health care for formerly incarcerated people helps everyone

Progress in the bid to make abortion pills more widely available

Debunking Manchin’s anti-Build Back Better myths

Democrats should apply Supreme Court’s abortion decision to firearms

Editing the Constitution

Metro

For relatives of the incarcerated, holidays are marked by grief and loss

Charts: Who has been vaccinated in Massachusetts, and how many doses has the state received?

Boston is almost out of free rapid COVID tests, officials say, but a few remain available Thursday night

In the spirit of the season, Tewksbury police dole out gift cards in place of traffic citations

Sports

Danvers officials, shifting course, say they will still inform the community about hateful graffiti

Looking to seize upon its past glory, Matignon ends its co-op experiment to prop up its own program

Zach Senyshyn joins 2015 first-round draftmates and requests trade from Bruins

Saints quarterbacks Taysom Hill and Trevor Siemian test positive for COVID-19

COVID-19 sports updates: Enes Kanter Freedom becomes eighth Celtic in protocol

Will Patriots quarterback Mac Jones again be able to move past adversity, as he has done during his rookie season?

Business

Sales of new homes were up nationwide in November

FDA tells drugmakers to test for benzene contamination

Tesla to halt games on infotainment screens in moving cars

St. Regis Residences is getting a Seaport address

STAT

‘Health equity tourists’: How white scholars are colonizing research on health disparities A STAT investigation shows that researchers with little or no background or training in health equity research are rushing in to scoop up grants and publish papers.

Winter is coming, again: What to expect from Covid-19 as the season looms STAT spoke with infectious disease experts and others about what to expect from Covid-19 as the seasons change.

How Michelle Wu plans to transform the arts in Boston

The new mayor, a classically trained pianist, believes everyone in Boston, regardless of income, should have direct access to the arts.

A challenge for church leaders: How to deliver a holiday message of hope in trying times

Religious leaders are grappling with their holiday messages as congregants fill church pews — or Zoom video windows — seeking solace in another pandemic winter.

Danvers officials, shifting course, say they will still inform the community about hateful graffiti

On Monday, Danvers officials said the town would stop informing the public about incidents of hateful graffiti in the community.

Where to find the best whoopie pies around New England

Here’s a look at some worth-every-sugar-gram whoopies.

Joan Didion, peerless prose stylist, dies at 87

Joan Didion, the revered author and essayist whose precise social and personal commentary in such classics as “The White Album” and “The Year of Magical Thinking” made her a uniquely clear-eyed critic of turbulent times, has died. She was 87.

MOVIE REVIEW | ★★★

In Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Licorice Pizza,’ a non-romance romance unfolds in early 1970s LA

Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim star — with cameos from Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper, and waterbeds.

Ben Volin I On football

Ranking the 13 teams still alive in a wide-open AFC playoff race

This season marks the first since 2002 that no AFC team has clinched a playoff spot entering Week 16.

Michael Mina can’t stop talking about the need for rapid COVID tests. The country may finally be listening. But is it too late?

“I feel we’ve learned so little despite so much pain,” said the former Brigham and Women’s epidemiologist.

YVONNE ABRAHAM

Even at a dark time, there’s plenty to give us hope

I reached out to some of my favorite thinkers, some of them inveterate optimists, to ask what gives them hope. They offered plenty of good cheer, some finding it in the unlikeliest of places.

‘Health equity tourists’: How white scholars are colonizing research on health disparities

A STAT investigation shows that researchers with little or no background or training in health equity research are rushing in to scoop up grants and publish papers.

Winter is coming, again: What to expect from Covid-19 as the season looms

STAT spoke with infectious disease experts and others about what to expect from Covid-19 as the seasons change.

DISTANCED: Pandemic stories of Black life in the rural South

Photographer Bethany Mollenkof spent six months documenting the impact of Covid-19 on residents of rural Black communities in the South.

Groundbreaking arm amputation surgery makes a ‘phantom’ hand seem real

The procedure aims to restore proprioception, the ability to sense where our limbs are in space and how fast and forcefully they’re moving.