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Coronavirus

Mass. reports 10,040 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.
COVID-19: THE LATEST

More than 3,500 Christmas Eve and Christmas Day flights are canceled as Omicron spreads

What to do if you test positive for COVID

As the Omicron variant continues to rapidly spread across the United States, many Americans, including those who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, are bound to test positive for the disease at some point.

Mass. offers cash incentive to nursing homes to increase staff booster shots

What if returning to the office doesn’t involve an ‘office’?

Companies are working from anywhere, including former restaurants, apartments, design studios, and even auto body shops.

Weather forecast | dave epstein
A winter weather advisory is in effect from 1 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Christmas Day.
Travel will be icy on Christmas Day in Massachusetts, and a winter weather advisory will be in effect
Freezing rain is expected in the Boston area on Christmas morning, making travel on the roadways and walking possibly slippery and dangerous.

Mass. coronavirus at a glance
Vaccinations
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Trend:
1+ dose received:
Fully vaccinated:
Cases and deaths
Total cases:
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Total deaths:
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Other resources:
Last updated: . NOTE: Mass DPH releases data Monday-Friday starting July 2021. Mass. population of 6,892,503 is used to calculate vaccination percentages. SOURCE: Mass. Dept. of Public Health
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
Respiratory Therapist Angelika MacClellan (left) talks with nurse Natasha Cacciatore through a patients door in the Special Pathogens Unit ICU at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, on April 27, 2020.
EDITORIAL

The best tribute to health care workers? Follow the guidelines for staying healthy.

This year, the holiday spirit means respecting the burden on those who treat the sick and wounded.
A nurse from Brigham and Women's Hospital watches as demonstrators gather outside the Massachusetts State House in September to protest COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates
Jeffrey L. Schnipper

Pandemic Christmas at the Brigham
Alex Beam

No, no, nocebo!
A utility crew places a toxic lead water pipe onto the road after extracting it from an apartment building and under the street in Newark, N.J., on Oct. 21. Newark city officials say crews have removed more than 22,000 lead pipes from private residential properties over the last few years and replaced them with new copper pipes.
Katherine Clark

Cleaning up America’s lead water pipes
It was Dec. 17, and I still had no tree.
Mary Ann D'Urso

This year, Christmas at my house got canceled
A 22 Wing member is seen showing how they track Santa on his sleigh on Christmas evening during a media preview at the Canadian Forces Base in North Bay on Dec. 9, 2021.

Live Santa tracker 2021: Use Norad and other sources to follow path

Rest assured, kids of all ages: Santa’s coming this Christmas Eve, and a second holiday with COVID-19 won’t stop him.
Thank you letters with children's art sent to Globe Santa.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a THANK YOU!

Thousands have made the decision to help Globe Santa, and the campaign is profoundly grateful.
Grace Gagnon and her dog.

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.”

More recent stories

Man who tried to kidnap student from Roxbury elementary school held without bail

Charles Marriro, 58, allegedly approached three students at the David A. Ellis Elementary School on Dec. 15 and grabbed one by the arm in an attempt to pull the child away from their classmates, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins said in a statement. Marriro asked another student to “come play basketball with him,” the statement said.

One dead in Hopkinton crash; icy roads cause accidents across state

The man, whose identity was not released, was alone, driving his 2004 Ford F250 southbound at around 8:30 a.m., when the pickup left the road and slammed into the Fruit Street overpass on the right side of the highway, State Police said in a statement.

Elderly couple pulled from flaming Nahant home

Firefighters responded to the single-family home around midnight and found the front half of the structure engulfed in heavy flames, officials said.

Manchin told White House he would support version of tax on billionaires

Despite its endorsement from the most conservative Democrat, the tax on billionaires still faces long odds to approval as part of the final legislation, as it has been greeted skeptically by other Democratic lawmakers in both the House and Senate.

LOVE LETTERS
Love Letters
My new relationship is upsetting my twin
"She feels left out and replaced."

Alana Haim (with Cooper Hoffman) in a scene from "Licorice Pizza."
Alana Haim on ‘Licorice Pizza,’ working with Bradley Cooper, and a role made just for her
The singer credits writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson with identifying and supporting the actor inside of her.

Globe Santa

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a THANK YOU!

Thousands have made the decision to help Globe Santa, and the campaign is profoundly grateful.

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

Recommended reads

Tom Romano and his son, Robert, before Robert was deported and Tom severed his spinal cord in a fall.
KEVIN CULLEN

The best Christmas present ever

The last few Christmases have not been so merry and bright for the Romanos.

Dr. Michael Mina.
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.

Harvard scientist Charles Lieber leaves the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse midday, after a morning of jury selection in his trial. He is accused of lying to federal investigators about his ties to a Chinese talent program.
Harvard professor’s conviction brings scrutiny of China Initiative
After Harvard Professor Charles Lieber became the first academic convicted at trial under the Justice Department’s China Initiative, the former prosecutor who brought the case said the government should stop targeting researchers and focus on cases involving espionage and the theft of trade secrets.

Rapid tests are a good way to get an immediate answer so you can start quarantining to protect others if you do test positive, said Dr. Brian Hollenbeck, chief of infectious disease at New England Baptist Hospital, but they should be followed up with a PCR test if you have symptoms or have been exposed.
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.

Opinion, ideas, and commentary

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
"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
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
LETTERS

2021, in Globe readers’ own words
Joan Vennochi

A gift that touches the heart
IDEAS | ABDALLAH FAYYAD

Editing the Constitution

Metro

RI NEWS

Just in time for Christmas, a special homecoming

Yarielis Paulino-Pepin was born into the pandemic with a heart defect and a rare genetic disorder. Now, for the first time in her life, the 17-month-old girl is leaving the hospital to live at home.

Mashpee Wampanoag reservation regains legal status; Taunton casino project’s future unclear

The reservation’s status had been in limbo since March 2020 when the Interior Department, then under Donald Trump’s administration, ordered the land to be taken out of trust.
Coronavirus Live Updates

More than 3,500 Christmas Eve and Christmas Day flights are canceled as Omicron spreads

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

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a THANK YOU!

Thousands have made the decision to help Globe Santa, and the campaign is profoundly grateful.

Sports

The IIHF announced that under-18 women's world championship scheduled to begin in January have been canceled because of the rapid spread of the omicron variant.
SPORTS LOG

IIHF cancels U18 women’s championship over COVID-19 concerns for second consecutive year

News of the cancellation of the U18 women's championship came two days before the men’s junior hockey championship was set to begin in Canada.
Boston College forward Taylor Soule, a nominee to the Cheryl Miller Award, which recognizes the nation’s top small forward, is averaging a team-leading and career-high 16.8 points per game this season.
women's college basketball notebook

Taylor Soule has been `The Mayor’ on and off the court at Boston College

A 5-foot-11-inch forward on the BC women’s basketball team, Taylor Soule is one of the top on-court performers in the highly-competitive Atlantic Coast Conference.
Patriots wide receivers Kendrick Bourne (left) and Nelson Agholor both might miss Sunday's game against the Bills.
Patriots notebook

Patriots to be without Rhamondre Stevenson and Nelson Agholor

Kendrick Bourne (reserve/COVID-19 list) still has a chance to play if he produces two negative tests 24 hours apart.
NFL notebook

Washington’s Deshazor Everett involved in fatal car wreck

High school basketball

Why five-star forward Taylor Bowen could be New England’s next great basketball star
HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS

Boston Public Schools put sports activities on pause because of latest pandemic surge

Business

What if returning to the office doesn’t involve an ‘office’?

Companies are working from anywhere, including former restaurants, apartments, design studios, and even auto body shops.

Bosses have a new headache: How long should sick workers isolate?

Omicron has intensified staffing shortages across industries, and the spike in cases has disrupted travel during the holidays, stranding thousands of customers and underscoring the economic toll of employees needing to isolate.

More than 3,500 Christmas Eve and Christmas Day flights are canceled as Omicron spreads

Explainer: What next as high court wades into COVID mandate?

STAT

Dr. Monica McLemore, Associate Professor in the Family Health Care Nursing Department at UCSF, stands for a portrait at the Frank H. Ogawa Plaza on Friday, September 10th, 2021 in Oakland, Calif.
‘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.

Covid winter illustration
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.

Funeral goers sing during a service for Daisy Pace at New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in January 2021.
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.

Boston, MA -- 05/12/21 -- Dr. Matthew Carty examines patient Jerry Majethic at Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital on May 12, 2021, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Kayana Szymczak for STAT)
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
Immunlologist Kizzmekia Corbett and Boston's new mayor, Michelle Wu, on the cover of the Globe Magazine's 2021 Bostonians of the Year issue.
2021

Meet this year's Bostonians of the Year
Devin McCourty and Ruben DaSilva.
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?

Salted Peanut and Caramel Tart.
Cooking

3 holiday tarts made with dough that doesn't need to be rolled

metro

Mass. reports 10,040 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the highest total reported in a single day

Why five-star forward Taylor Bowen could be New England’s next great basketball star

Mass. offers cash incentive to nursing homes to increase staff booster shots

sports

Senior Sam Papadopoulos was one of seven Natick wrestlers to capture a championship at the Sons of Italy Tournament in Wilmington, taking the 145-pound title.

Natick wrestling’s culture, history to be put to the test as Redhawks take on Division 1

A close look at Mac Jones’s season reveals an eerie resemblance to Tom Brady, circa 2001

Five things to know about the Bills ahead of their rematch with the Patriots

business

A vial of the drug Remdesivir

Remdesivir could help high-risk COVID patients outside the hospital, study finds

Omicron is latest blow to pandemic-weary front-line workers

Israel plan to push ahead with fourth COVID jab may be scuttled

politics

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks on Covid-19 and the omicron variant in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021.

Explainer: How will Biden’s COVID-19 test giveaway work?

$2.5b headed to tribes for longstanding water settlements

Trump asks Supreme Court to block release of Jan. 6 records

Nation

Delta Air Lines airplanes at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021.

More than 3,500 Christmas Eve and Christmas Day flights are canceled as Omicron spreads

Explainer: How will Biden’s COVID-19 test giveaway work?

Mass. reports 10,040 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the highest total reported in a single day

World

People wait in the reception area of a Testaro Covid-19 testing site in Cape Town on Dec. 2, 2021.

South Africa ends quarantines and contact tracing, and authorizes booster shots

South Korea to pardon ex-president Park Geun-hye, imprisoned for corruption

COVID-19 spike worsens Africa’s severe poverty, hunger woes

opinion

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

Democrats should apply Supreme Court’s abortion decision to firearms

This year, Christmas at my house got canceled

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

lifestyle

A 22 Wing member is seen showing how they track Santa on his sleigh on Christmas evening during a media preview at the Canadian Forces Base in North Bay on Dec. 9, 2021.

Live Santa tracker 2021: Use Norad and other sources to follow path

My new relationship is upsetting my twin

Alana Haim on ‘Licorice Pizza,’ working with Bradley Cooper, and a role made just for her

food & dining

Bartender Lillian Ferranti pouring a Manhattan inside Hyde, a new speakeasy in Providence, Rhode Island.

Top places to ring in the New Year in Rhode Island

Where to find the best whoopie pies around New England

Wusong Road softly opens in Harvard Square; Vermont’s Spruce Peak serves comfort food, slope-side

travel

.

New Year’s at the Mystic museum, curling at the Liberty Hotel, and a test lab in the palm of your hand

Jenna Rubaii seeks out parks and the unexpected when traveling

It’s OK to vacation like an adult

Arts

Visitors at "Imagine Van Gogh" at the SoWa Power Station.

‘Imagine Van Gogh’ doesn’t leave much to the imagination

Adria Arch, known for airborne sculptures, grounds herself with ‘The Visitors’

Italy obscura: Photographer Abelardo Morell opens the mind’s eye

Books

Away in a manger in ‘The First Christmas’

She reads about politics — and everything else

Examining truth and consequences in ‘Trust’

Movies

Just another night in 1973, from "Licorice Pizza."

Movies set in the ’70s: Getting beyond disco and double knits

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

Doc Talk: Slavery today, the tragic end of a rap legend

Television

From left: Ken Bolden, Sandra Oh, and Mark Philip Stevenson in a scene from "The Chair."

‘The Chair’ got academia right, romance wrong

Natasha Rothwell is ready to be the lead of her own rom-com

‘Summer of Soul,’ ‘Drive My Car’ make Oscars shortlist

music

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

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

A Far Cry makes space for complex grief with ‘Flames to Ashes’

On Christmas Eve, Eric Jackson plans a cool Yule while Oedipus unwraps some radio rarities

Theater/Dance

"The Christmas Revels" canceled its six remaining post-Christmas shows at the Sanders Theatre in Cambridge.

Enter, stage left: Omicron

On Boston stages, these three supporting players are showstoppers

‘Fiddler on the Roof’ still strikes a powerful chord

globe local

South Boston12/22/21 A long line formed early Wednesday morning at the South Boston branch of the Boston Public Library as antigen rapid test kits for COVID-19 were handed out free. The tests give results in15 minutes and four for household were given out. Each kit performs two tests. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff (metro)

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

She dances for the two of them, with grace and love

Should Massachusetts require eligible voters to cast ballots in November elections?

Obituaries

Author Joan Didion in her New York apartment in 2005. Didion has died at age 87, her publisher announced.

Joan Didion, peerless prose stylist, dies at 87

Chuck Hunt, the state’s first ‘first husband,’ remembered for his ‘kindness toward the least powerful’

Anne Emerman, champion of disability rights, dies at 84