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TRENDING:

‘It’s all hands on deck’: Hospitals scramble to staff the front lines as surge continues

Many facilities, struggling with worker absences, are already at or near capacity with critically sick patients.

Mass. hospitals will begin reporting primary vs. incidental COVID-19 admissions on Monday, DPH says

Starting Jan. 10, hospitals in Massachusetts will start reporting to the state how many patients are being admitted primarily due to COVID-19 versus those who are admitted for other reasons and happen to test positive for COVID-19. The data will likely become public the following week.
THE LATEST COVID-19 NEWS

White House, USPS finalizing plans to begin shipping coronavirus test kits to US households

Members of Congress and staffers participated in a prayer vigil at the US Capitol on Thursday.
A day of truth in a divided nation
President Biden and other Democrats sought to use the searing memories of Jan. 6 to beat back Donald Trump’s lies about what happened a year ago.

Republicans’ reactions to Jan. 6 anniversary ranged from somber to flippant. Here’s a look
Harmony Montgomery was reportedly last seen two years ago.
KEVIN CULLEN

The silent screams of invisible children

Seven-year-old Harmony Montgomery is the latest child to tragically fall through the cracks of a system unable to keep pace with drug-accelerated familial dysfunction.
Woman linked to missing N.H. girl arrested for allegedly collecting welfare benefits for child
William and Carol Stewart were married for 44 years. The couple passed away, within seconds of each other, family says, after battling COVID-19.

‘True definition of soul mates’: A New Hampshire couple died of COVID-19 just seconds apart, holding hands as they took their last breaths

Bill and Carol Stewart were together for more than four decades. On the day they died, their hospital beds were wheeled into the same room so they could spend their final moments together.
Kevin Hayden, chair of the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board, spoke with Jim Braude, host of GBH News’ Greater Boston on Jan. 11, 2016 at the GBH Studios in Brighton, Mass.

Baker picks Kevin R. Hayden as Suffolk DA, with Rachael Rollins poised to become US attorney

Governor Charlie Baker has appointed Kevin Hayden to serve as Suffolk district attorney for the remainder of the term vacated by Rachael Rollins, who’ll be sworn in as US attorney for Massachusetts on Monday.
Opinion
IDEAS | DAVID SCHARFENBERG

Can Mayor Wu really make the T free?

Sizing up the biggest idea in Massachusetts politics.
Alex Beam

Omicron gives new meaning to calculated risk
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
RENÉE GRAHAM

Confusion is also a COVID-19 variant. The CDC is spreading it.
Health care workers put in a dialysis line in a patient in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester on Dec. 2.
Kevin Tabb, Kate Walsh, Anne Klibanski, and Michael Dandorph

Hospitals are doing their part on COVID-19; we ask the public to do theirs
President Joe Biden speaks in Statuary Hall at the Capitol in Washington on Thursday, marking one year since the deadly assault on the Capitol. President Biden denounced former president Donald Trump for promoting lies and tearing down American democracy because he could not stand the fact that he lost an election, accusing his predecessor of putting his own interests ahead of the country’s.
SCOT LEHIGH

Biden’s powerful warning about democracy
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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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
Special Project

UNDER THE WHEEL

This is the story of Anthony Pledger and his mother, of Anthony’s lives and deaths, of Anthony and me.

More recent stories

Wild 3, Bruins 2
David Pastrnak was hauled down in the first period, leading to a five-on-three power play for the Bruins and an early 1-0 lead.
Bruins lose a wild one to visiting Minnesota
Boston’s modest three-game winning streak was halted.

Knicks 108, Celtics 105
Knicks guard RJ Barrett made the winning 3-pointer against Celtics star Jayson Tatum at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Knicks’ RJ Barrett hits buzzer-beater as Celtics collapse in second half
Former Celtic Evan Fournier scored 41 points for New York. Jayson Tatum led the Celtics with 36.

Ben Affleck, left, in "The Tender Bar."
Ben Affleck talks about ‘The Tender Bar,’ sobriety, and what it’s like being ‘the guy from Boston’
With “The Tender Bar” starting to stream on Amazon Prime Jan. 7 — it opened in theaters last month — we asked the Cambridge native if he had a few minutes to chat. He said sure.

DA Rollins launches investigation into former Boston police detective

The Integrity Review Bureau is examining two murder cases from the 1990s in which former detective John Brazil testified, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins’s office said Thursday.
THE FINE PRINT

You can return an ugly sweater. What about a gift card you don’t want?

Tens of billions of dollars’ worth of gift cards got handed out during the holidays. Here’s everything you need to know.

Canadian passengers stranded after party flight to Mexico
Passengers who filmed themselves partying without masks aboard a chartered flight from Montreal to Mexico face being stranded after three airlines refused to fly them home to Canada.

THE GREAT DIVIDE ⟶

See the latest from our education team focused on race, class, and opportunity in schools.

RHODE ISLAND ⟶

See the latest from Globe Rhode Island.

NEWTON ⟶

See the Globe’s expanded Newton coverage in partnership with Boston University.

Recommended reads

The Massachusetts National Guard was deployed early in the pandemic to help overwhelmed nursing homes test staff and residents. Now nursing homes are urging the Baker administration to call in the Guard again.

Nursing homes at a tipping point: Many are forced to freeze admissions, stranding patients in hospitals for weeks

Nursing home leaders are calling on the Baker administration to provide help from the National Guard.

This chart may tell us more about the Mass. COVID surge than any other. Here’s why
Waste water — or sewage — surveillance data may provide the clearest picture of just how widely COVID-19 is circulating in the population right now. The staggering numbers are raising alarms about where the state, and the nation, might be headed.

State Senator Diana DiZoglio is sponsoring a bill to outlaw "stealthing" in Massachusetts. The act of nonconsensual condom removal is common, but most states' laws are silent on it.
Massachusetts lawmakers look to outlaw ‘stealthing,’ or nonconsensual condom removal
The practice of nonconsensual condom removal is common, but most states’ laws are silent on it. Now, some Beacon Hill lawmakers are pushing a bill that would make Massachusetts the first state to create both civil and criminal penalties for “stealthing.”

City residents waited in a line extending around the block to receive free at-home rapid COVID-19 test kits in Philadelphia on Dec. 20.
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.

video

Culture & Lifestyle

Khao soi (center), tonkotsu ramen (right), and pho tai at the Soup Shack in Jamaica Plain.
FOOD

January is National Soup Month. Here are 16 must-stop spots for soup in the Boston area
Maurice Emmanuel Parent with "Mr. Parent" director Megan Sandberg-Zakian.

The team that put ‘Mr. Parent’ in a class, by himself
Lowell's St. Jean Baptiste Church could one day house the Jack Kerouac Museum and Performance Center.

Newly formed Jack Kerouac Foundation aims to build a museum and performance center in Lowell
SubSpace's 2022 winter and spring "headliner" Taraji P. Henson.

Actress and advocate Taraji P. Henson is part of the Museum of Science’s upcoming programming

Special Projects

Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, then president of Brigham Health, brought a Boston delegation in April 2018 to celebrate the opening of the Boao Evergrande International Hospital in China, constructed in a new medical tourism hub.
Spotlight team report

How Brigham Health helped create a Chinese hospital for elites — and almost nobody came

In a deal worth millions with Chinese developer Evergrande, a Harvard teaching hospital risked its reputation on what would become a near-empty shell.
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.
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

Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, in Board Game Art Park across from Philadelphia City Hall, was one of few members of the GOP to publicly disavow the lie that President Donald Trump won the last election. As a result, Schmidt has been attacked and targeted by the base of the party such that he had to move his children away from home with a constant security detail.
EDITORIAL

Threats against election officials must be stopped
Former president Donald Trump, along with his enablers in the White House, Congress, and beyond, tried to subvert democracy in order to stay in power. There must be a reckoning for them as perpetrators of the lie that instigated the Jan. 6 insurrection.
EDITORIAL

A year later, waiting for justice
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnel's long game may be to delegitimize Trump, via the findings of the Jan. 6 committee, to the point where the former president can retain his base of loyalists but not expand it enough to run again for president in 2024.
Joan Vennochi

For once, what’s good for Mitch McConnell could also be good for the country
Members of the military band rehearse in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
IDEAS | STEPHEN KINZER

China gives us a taste of our own medicine
A statue of John Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland.
IDEAS | KATHRYN TANNER

The Protestant work ethic doesn’t demand devotion to your job
IDEAS | WENDY SYFRET

Try upbeat nihilism in 2022

Metro

COLUMN | DAN McGOWAN

It’s time for Rhode Island College to get the respect it deserves

With president Frank Sanchez set to depart at the end of the school year after six years on the job, state leaders should consider a makeover for Rhode Island's most affordable four-year college.
RI HEALTH

COVID-fighting pills have arrived in R.I.

The pills are easier to use than monoclonal antibody treatments, which require transfusions, infrastructure, and staff. If they work as hoped, people can take them at home when they’re infected with COVID-19 and then they can stay there, instead of going to the hospital.

First snow storm of season underway, with Boston, southeastern Mass. expected to be hardest hit

The flakes began falling across Massachusetts before dawn Friday morning, marking the first snow storm of the season, as schools throughout the state announced closures and residents were strongly urged to remain off the roads due to the hazardous conditions.

See what schools in Mass. have announced closures

With Southern New England expecting its first significant snowfall of the season, a number of schools in Massachusetts have announced closures for Friday.

Sports

Dracut's Cameron Watkins (left) plays hands-on defense against Andover's Mariissa Kobelski (right) in Thursday night's matchup of ranked Merrimack Valley Conference girls' basketball teams.
Thursday's schools roundup

Anna Foley helps Andover girls’ basketball ‘visualize success’ vs. Dracut

The impact junior led the third-ranked Warriors (4-0) to a 56-43 victory over No. 3 Dracut (4-1) with 20 points, 10 rebounds, 5 steals, 2 assists and 2 blocked shots.
Patrick Cantlay played the final six holes in 6 under, highlighted by 35-foot eagle putt on the par-5 15th hole.
PGA Sentry Tournament of Champions

Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm don’t miss a beat with good starts in Hawaii

Cantlay overcame a bogey start with flawless play for a 7-under-par 66 and Rahm had a 67 despite failing to capitalize on two of the par 5s.
Flyers goaltender Carter Hart denied the Penguins' Jake Guentzel here, but Guentzel scored two goals.
NHL: Penguins 6, Flyers 2

Penguins belt depleted Flyers for 10th straight victory

The Penguins won the second game of a back-to-back and haven’t lost since Dec. 1.
Knicks 108, Celtics 105

Knicks’ RJ Barrett hits buzzer-beater as Celtics collapse in second half
Wild 3, Bruins 2

Bruins lose a wild one to visiting Minnesota

Clinton Portis sentenced to six months in prison for role in defrauding NFL health-care fund

Business

Lancaster promoted to CEO of Stavis Seafoods

Stories you may have missed from the world of business.

France fines Google, Facebook millions over tracking consent

Google and Facebook were fined the sum equivalent of over $200 million by French data investigators, who cited alleged failures to make refusing data tracking easier for platform users.

Corporate PACs bet on GOP takeover, hand cash to election deniers

US jobless claims rise by 7,000, but still low at 207,000

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
Local history

The roller-skating heroes who fought racism in Boston
PERSPECTIVE

What reformed extremists taught me about preventing another Capitol insurrection
This week's daters: Carol and Ed.
Dinner with Cupid

Blind date: ‘The lobster was still in the shell. Not a very good choice for a first date’
MISS CONDUCT

My friend billed me after I attended her birthday party

metro

People waited in line for a COVID-19 test as medical assistant Leslie Powers, foreground, distributed test results at a testing site in Long Beach, Calif., on Jan. 6, 2022.

White House, USPS finalizing plans to begin shipping coronavirus test kits to US households

Providence Councilors push McKee to have R.I. provide masks, testing resources in schools

‘It’s all hands on deck’: Hospitals scramble to staff the front lines as surge continues

sports

Captain Steve Stricker and the US won the Ryder Cup in September.

Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker recovering from heart inflammation

Should Celtics’ big men be used more as playmakers? Jaylen Brown says yes

Novak Djokovic’s family, Serbian president slam Australia for COVID-19 deportation stance

business

People pass a sign that reads "Face Mask Required" in a mall as COVID-19 cases surge in the city on Dec. 21, 2021, in Washington, DC.

One in three NYC small businesses have vaccination requirements

More than 1,700 flights canceled Thursday after two weeks of disruption

You can return an ugly sweater. What about a gift card you don’t want?

politics

President Biden spoke from Statuary Hall at the US Capitol to mark the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by supporters loyal to then-president Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2022, in Washington.

A year later, Jan. 6 becomes just another wedge in a divided nation

A day of truth in a divided nation

‘I will defend this nation.’ Biden denounces Trump’s ‘web of lies’ as he remembers Jan. 6 insurrection

Nation

This image provided by Pfizer in October 2021 shows the company's COVID-19 Paxlovid pills. Newly infected COVID-19 patients have two new treatment options that can be taken at home. But that convenience comes with a catch: The pills have to be taken as soon as possible once symptoms appear.

COVID-fighting pills have arrived in R.I.

Men convicted in Ahmaud Arbery killing face life sentences

White House, USPS finalizing plans to begin shipping coronavirus test kits to US households

World

A line of cars stretching several blocks waited to pull into an appointment-only COVID-19 testing center on Jan. 6, 2022, in Seattle.

World surpasses 300 million known virus cases

Pope scolds couples who choose pets over kids

Russian troops intervene in protest-roiled Kazakhstan, where security forces have killed dozens of demonstrators

opinion

An illuminated clock on the Palace of Stardust installation at Hampton Court Palace in London. New research indicates that changes in the hour number make people perceive periods of time to be longer than ones of identical duration.

Social Studies: Money anxiety; the decline of rationality; illusions about time

China gives us a taste of our own medicine

Members of Congress, take note — Raytheon is watching closely

lifestyle

Green tea and mango ice creams at Toscanini's.

The scoop on Main Street: Toscanini’s returns

McGuirk’s Folly pops up at Middlesex Lounge; Salt + Stone comes to Somerville

January is National Soup Month. Here are 16 must-stop spots for soup in the Boston area

food & dining

Green tea and mango ice creams at Toscanini's.

The scoop on Main Street: Toscanini’s returns

McGuirk’s Folly pops up at Middlesex Lounge; Salt + Stone comes to Somerville

January is National Soup Month. Here are 16 must-stop spots for soup in the Boston area

travel

Seth Sikes at Fire Island Pines, N.Y.

Seth Sikes on beach massages, Judy and Liza, and his upcoming show at Club Café

Orbitz switched her Aruba vacation — but not her hotel in Tahiti

AutoCamp lands in Joshua Tree, Skyspace debuts in South America, and a new lodge opens in Stowe

Arts

Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868–1940), "Landscapes and Interiors: Through the Fields, 1899." Lithograph on paper.

‘Hue & Cry’ at the Clark explores controversy of color printmaking in 19th-century France

Mass. and Cass, cast in bronze and on canvas

Actress and advocate Taraji P. Henson is part of the Museum of Science’s upcoming programming

Books

Kathryn Schulz’s memoir traces life’s gifts and sorrows

Martín Espada: stacks of books, from poetry to photography

Hanya Yanagihara’s new novel ponders freedom and loneliness

Movies

Sly Stone performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, featured in the documentary "Summer of Soul."

A list of 20 movies, TV shows, and documentaries to stream during the snow storm

Ben Affleck talks about ‘The Tender Bar,’ sobriety, and what it’s like being ‘the guy from Boston’

Looking for intimations of immortality

Television

Sly Stone performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, featured in the documentary "Summer of Soul."

A list of 20 movies, TV shows, and documentaries to stream during the snow storm

Calm down: ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ has returned

50 years ago, ‘Zoom’ took over TV with Ubbi Dubbi, that ZIP code song, and 10,000 letters a week

music

GBH recording engineer Antonio Oliart Ros, who has been behind the console for dozens of virtual events throughout the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

Antonio Oliart Ros brings artistry to sound recording at GBH and beyond

With every note, Ranky Tanky honors an ancestry

6 standouts in classical music on the changes they hope to see, and make, in the new year

Theater/Dance

Maurice Emmanuel Parent with "Mr. Parent" director Megan Sandberg-Zakian.

The team that put ‘Mr. Parent’ in a class, by himself

Rather than try to explain Lord Buckley, he becomes him onstage

Comedian Valerie Tosi knows her way around a joke — and Salisbury Beach’s Broadway Loop

globe local

Auto shop instructor Louis Beckwith talks about brakes with students during an adult education class at the Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School in Danvers.

Vocational schools offer adults a blueprint for success, with classes funded by the state

A runaway goat is apprehended in Norfolk

Jan. 6 arrests included 11 from New England. A look at who they are

Obituaries

Jim Corsi, left, pitched for the Red Sox from 1997 to 1999.

Jim Corsi, Newton native who pitched for the Red Sox, dies at 60

Mary Richardson, pioneering female anchor and ‘Chronicle’ cohost, dies at 76

Former NFL head coach Dan Reeves dies at 77