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TRENDING:

The COVID-19 pandemic will end, but at what cost?

Even if the virus is defanged, it will no doubt still pose potentially grave threats to the elderly and medically vulnerable. Still, large institutions and government agencies have quietly begun to grapple with the question of how the country learns to live with COVID-19.

Donna Gadoua, a caregiver for Home Instead, assisted client Ellen Hajema in her home in Hudson.
Omicron whips through the workforce, pushing overstretched staffs to the brink
Restaurants are shutting down. Construction jobs are being delayed. Retailers are limiting hours. And some small business owners are at the breaking point.

THE LATEST COVID-19 NEWS

COVID test makers struggle to cope with whiplash from Omicron

Long COVID testing lines at the Mercantile Center in Worcester.
What if you catch the flu and COVID-19 at the same time? Here’s what we know about ‘flurona?’
Recent reports of coinfections of COVID-19 and the flu, known as "flurona," have people searching for answers.

Conceptual rendering of the proposed Longwood Place on Brookline Avenue and Pilgrim Road in Boston.

Developer proposes massive lab and housing complex where Simmons dorms now stand

Developer Skanska USA submitted detailed plans to the city this week to redevelop Simmons University’s residential campus on Brookline Avenue into a massive life-science-oriented project.
Law enforcement activity was reported Saturday at the former home of Harmony Montgomery on Gilford Street in Manchester, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General's office.

Law enforcement activity underway at former home of missing 7-year-old N.H. girl

Officials looking for a missing 7-year-old girl said that law enforcement agencies will be at the child’s Manchester home Saturday as part of their continued investigation, according to a statement.
Family and friends departed following a funeral service for Jucelena Gomes Ramos at Second Church in Dorchester on Saturday. She was shot and killed in Codman Square on Jan. 2.

Mourners bid farewell to 16-year-old Jucelena ‘Jocy’ Gomes Ramos, Boston’s first homicide victim of 2022

“She’s living through you now. She’s journeying through you,” the Rev. Dr. Victor Price of Dorchester’s Second Church told mourners. “Her 16 years are not over because as long as you live and you pass on what she has passed onto you to another, you have perpetuated her existence. She’s not gone. She lives through you. She lives through me.”
Opinion
Anna Soto (left) watches her son Lyancer, 8, joke with Joseph Chaparro, 8, before receiving a COVID-19 vaccine during a Thanksgiving party at La Colaborativa, in Chelsea, on Nov. 23.
EDITORIAL

Vaccination rates for Massachusetts children, ages 5-11, are a ‘tale of two states’

Economics alone does not explain the disparities.
More than two dozen countries make voting a civic duty akin to jury duty.
IDEAS | Miles Rapoport and Alex Keyssar

How to boost voter turnout to nearly 100 percent
Activists attend a "Defend Democracy" vigil near the US Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6.
LETTERS

A still-smoldering injustice at the Capitol
Alex Beam

Omicron gives new meaning to calculated risk
IDEAS | DAVID SCHARFENBERG

Can Mayor Wu really make the T free?
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

US details costs of a Russian invasion of Ukraine

The Biden administration and its allies are assembling a punishing set of financial, technology and military sanctions against Russia that they say would go into effect within hours of an invasion of Ukraine, hoping to make clear to President Vladimir Putin the high cost he would pay if he sends troops across the border.

Alec Baldwin says he is complying with cellphone search warrant

Following reports that actor Alec Baldwin’s cellphone had not yet been turned over to officials investigating the fatal shooting on the “Rust” film set — weeks after a search warrant was granted — Baldwin said Saturday that any suggestion that he was not complying with law enforcement was a “lie.”

Haymarket station closed through Monday for demolition of nearby garage

The station, which services the MBTA’s green and orange lines as well as a number of bus routes, closed at the end of service Friday night, the agency wrote in a tweet. Trains will bypass the station, which is typically situated between North Station and Government Center.

Snow in Newton, Jan. 7, 2022.
Here’s a look at snowfall totals from the storm
Find town-by-town snowfall totals from across Massachusetts over the last 48 hours.

Attorney Anthony Cotton, left, puts his arm around client Dominick Black after Black testified at the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, at Kenosha Circuit Court, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021, in Kenosha, Wis. Rittenhouse, an aspiring police officer, shot two people to death and wounded a third during a night of anti-racism protests in Kenosha in 2020.
Man charged with buying gun for Rittenhouse takes plea deal
The man who bought Kyle Rittenhouse an assault-style rifle when he was only 17 has agreed to plead no contest to contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a non-criminal citation, and avoid convictions on the two felonies he’d been facing.

The Great Divide
Schools across Massachusetts are receiving KN95 masks from the state for all employees to wear to protect them against the state's Omicron-driven surge of COVID infections.
‘Turned out to be a fiasco’: Mask controversy erodes Mass. educators’ faith in state
It’s not clear how many of the masks distributed were the less protective version labeled “non-medical,” or how many districts received them.

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

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.

Hassan Addulle got his first COVID-19 test from nurse Christian Ernst at the Whittier Street Health Center on Jan. 5, 2022.
From skiing to shopping to testing, here’s what you need to know to stay safe during Omicron
Information is proliferating almost as fast as the virus itself, and it can be hard to keep up. So we asked questions and experts offered advice.

Sidney Poitier appeared with Lilia Skala in a scene from the 1963 classic, "Lillies of the Field."
Oscar winner and groundbreaking star Sidney Poitier dies
He was the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw.

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.

video

Culture & Lifestyle

Steve Aoki (pictured in July 2021 at Lollapalooza in Chicago) performs Jan. 8 at Big Night Live and Jan. 9 at Mémoire.
THE TICKET

Things to do around Boston this weekend and beyond
Aaron LaVigne (left) as Jesus and Tommy Sherlock as Pilate in "Jesus Christ Superstar."
STAGE REVIEW

A ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ with swagger, but imbued with sorrow
Mohammed Al-Kinani's story is included in a new book of Maine immigrant experiences. (Lilit Danielyan)
NEW ENGLAND LITERARY NEWS

A poet’s funny, poignant memories and a new book of Maine immigrant experiences
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

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

Victoria Long, spiritual care coordinator at Suncoast Hospice, talks with a hospice resident in St. Petersburg, Fla.
IDEAS | ROSE CARMEN GOLDBERG

No one should die alone
Kevin Hayden, speaking with Jim Braude, host of GBH News’ "Greater Boston," in 2016 at the GBH Studios in Brighton.
MARCELA GARCÍA

Kevin Hayden must carry forward the mandate for progressive reform in Suffolk DA’s office
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.
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
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
IDEAS | DAVID SCHARFENBERG

Can Mayor Wu really make the T free?

Metro

Coronavirus Live Updates

COVID test makers struggle to cope with whiplash from Omicron

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

Mourners bid farewell to 16-year-old Jucelena ‘Jocy’ Gomes Ramos, Boston’s first homicide victim of 2022

“She’s living through you now. She’s journeying through you,” the Rev. Dr. Victor Price of Dorchester’s Second Church told mourners. “Her 16 years are not over because as long as you live and you pass on what she has passed onto you to another, you have perpetuated her existence. She’s not gone. She lives through you. She lives through me.”

‘A towering figure’ in American law, Harvard professor Lani Guinier dies at 71

Ms. Guinier advocated for more inclusive approaches to electing public officials and admitting students to universities.

With its ski resort open again, everyone is rooting for Rangeley

The story of the turnaround at Saddleback Mountain sounds too good to be true. So far, it is.

Sports

North Dakota State head coach Matt Entz became the third NDSU coach with multiple championships in their title run after his Bison defeated Montana State, 38-10, in Saturday's FCS national championship game in Frisco, Texas.
FCS CHAMPIONSHIP

North Dakota State continues FCS dominance with ninth national title in 11 seasons

The Bison (14-1) have never lost when making the trip from Fargo to Frisco for the final Football Championship Subdivision game.
In his first two meets of the season, Westford Academy senior Trevor King King made sectional cuts in the 200-yard freestyle, 100 butterfly, and 500 freestyle.
HIGH SCHOOL SWIMMING NOTEBOOK

Westford Academy senior Trevor King finds his perfect home in the pool

The Grey Ghosts captain, who is on the autism spectrum, has persevered in the sport and already has qualified for North sectionals in three events.
Alabama's Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Bryce Young has thrown for 4,503 yards, 46 touchdowns, and just five interceptions while completing nearly 68 percent of his passes in leading his team back to the College Football Playoff national championship game.
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

Two very different roads have delivered Bryce Young and Stetson Bennett to national championship game

While Bryce Young seemed destined to become a Heisman Trophy winner since middle school, Stetson Bennett appeared better suited for the Sun Belt than the Southeastern Conference.
Tennis

Court documents show Novak Djokovic had COVID-19 last month
Patriots notebook

Patriots linebacker Dont’a Hightower ruled out for Sunday’s game against Dolphins
Bruins notebook

Tuukka Rask may not get a minor league tuneup before playing for Bruins

Business

Omicron whips through the workforce, pushing overstretched staffs to the brink

Restaurants are shutting down. Construction jobs are being delayed. Retailers are limiting hours. And some small business owners are at the breaking point.

Webb space telescope opens its mirror as it meets its last milestone

NASA’s new space telescope opened its huge, gold-plated, flower-shaped mirror Saturday, the final step in the observatory’s dramatic unfurling.

VW gives US plant workers 10 percent pay bump amid Omicron pressure

Fourth vaccine dose could be needed in fall, Moderna CEO says

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
It's been 50 years since the groundbreaking kids' show "Zoom" debuted on WGBH.
Television

In 1972, the kids took over TV on the first "Zoom" to enter our homes
Local history

The roller-skating heroes who fought racism in Boston
Love Letters

My fiance thinks my dress is too short for our courthouse wedding
Peruvian Quinoa and Corn Chowder (Chupe de Quinoa)
Cooking

Recipes: Keep that resolution to eat better with 3 quinoa dishes

metro

Jason Ortiz looked out during the snowstorm from his makeshift housing at New Market Square in Boston Jan 7. Earlier outreach workers from the Boston Public Health Commission and the Pine Street Inn had had made a wellness check on Ortiz and his girlfriend.

At Mass. and Cass, word of a cleanup, housing, has begun to spread

Law enforcement activity underway at former home of missing 7-year-old N.H. girl

Haymarket station closed through Monday for demolition of nearby garage

sports

Brandon Bolden has taken on much of the third-down back role formerly filled by James White, one of his closest friends, in addition to being one of the Patriots' top special teams performers.

In an exclusive conversation, Brandon Bolden of the Patriots discusses scary 2018 skin cancer diagnosis and surgery

Olympic hopefuls have two challenges — making the team, and not catching COVID-19

ESPN connects with its new ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ team but whiffs badly on A-Rod

business

Sun shines outside of the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg

Three IPOs on Friday, and more deals in Boston biotech

Treasury broadens COVID relief uses for states, localities

Developer proposes massive lab and housing complex where Simmons dorms now stand

politics

Freshman midshipmen, known as plebes, climbed ropes on an obstacle course during Sea Trials, a day of physical and mental challenges that caps off the freshman year at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., in 2014.

Navy expands boot camp to sharpen focus on character issues

South Dakota Senator John Thune announces he’ll seek 4th term

President Biden surveys Colorado wildfire damage, comforts victims

Nation

Brendan Halpin (left) and Naheem Sterlin (both cq) prepare test kits for shipment. Halpin works with Neighborhood Villages, while Sterlin is a 5th grade math teacher at the school.

COVID test makers struggle to cope with whiplash from Omicron

California’s governor proposes $2.7 billion COVID budget package

Man charged with buying gun for Rittenhouse takes plea deal

World

In this image taken from video released by Kazakhstan's Presidential Press Service, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev addressed the nation on Friday.

Amid crisis, Kazakhstan’s leader chose his path: Embrace Russia

Moderna gives Mexico 2.7 million shots as deaths top 300,000

At an Australian hotel, Djokovic is not the only cause of controversy

opinion

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.

Biden’s powerful warning about democracy

Confusion is also a COVID-19 variant. The CDC is spreading it.

The shot heard around the world

lifestyle

Love Letters

My girlfriend left after I lost custody of my kids

Oscar winner and groundbreaking star Sidney Poitier dies

The best places to go sledding in Boston and beyond

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 ‘Lost & Found’ traces life’s gifts and sorrows

Martín Espada: stacks of books, from poetry to photography

Hanya Yanagihara’s new novel ‘To Paradise’ 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 snowstorm

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

Looking for intimations of immortality

Television

On Sunday, when the Golden Globe winners are named, there will be no red carpet, no celebrities, and no way to tune in.

Not really missing the Golden Globes ceremony

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

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

music

Music director Andris Nelsons and violinist Hilary Hahn with the BSO on Jan. 7, 2022 at Symphony Hall.

At BSO, the year’s first notes are new

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

With every note, Ranky Tanky honors an ancestry

Theater/Dance

Aaron LaVigne (left) as Jesus and Tommy Sherlock as Pilate in "Jesus Christ Superstar."

A ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ with swagger, but imbued with sorrow

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

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

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

Harvard Law School professor Lani Guinier is shown in her office in Cambridge in 2002.

‘A towering figure’ in American law, Harvard professor Lani Guinier dies at 71

Lani Guinier, civil rights champion and Harvard law professor, dies at 71

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