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The Boston Globe

Mass. investigators saw a suicide. Feds saw a murder. Sandra Birchmore’s friends and family made sure no one looked away.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged a former Stoughton police detective with killing Sandra Birchmore and then staging the scene to make her death look like a suicide.

Boston University resident assistants strike as thousands move in

After 15 negotiation sessions, the university and the union have yet to agree on a contract.

THE FINE PRINT

Why does Massachusetts still put Social Security numbers on death certificates?
The practice gives fraudsters easy access to a key piece of personal information they can use in their scams, officials say.

Forecast | Dave Epstein

It’s a gorgeous Labor Day with plenty of sunshine, low humidity

The air will feel more like fall as we head into the work week.

What’s open and closed on Labor Day in Mass. 10 movies about work to stream this Labor Day weekend

Boston hotel workers go on strike, call for better wages in face of high cost of living
Nearly 900 workers across four hotels in Boston went on strike on Sunday morning demanding relief from “arduous workloads” and higher pay.

An early morning fire in Groton destroyed a 19th century carriage house.

‘Heavy fire’ destroys 19th century carriage house in Groton, officials say

Police say 4 people fatally shot on Chicago-area subway train

Rare donkey dies at Franklin Park Zoo weeks after giving birth

Ukraine’s children return to school as Russia launches drones and ballistic missiles at Kyiv

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, speak in the overflow room during a campaign event at Prince George's Community College in Largo, Md., on Aug. 15, 2024.

Harris set to oppose sale of US Steel to a Japanese firm during joint Pennsylvania event with Biden

The pair will attend Pittsburgh's Labor Day parade and offer some remarks, the first time the two have shared a speaking slot on the political stage together since the surprising election shakeup.

Follow live presidential campaign updates In an appearance on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation,’ Healey evaded questions about possibly being Harris’s AG pick

Most jobs don’t have mandatory retirement ages. Maybe more should.

After the June presidential debate, I began to wonder: Do we need to be told when to call it quits?

Titanic expedition yields lost bronze statue, high-resolution photos and other discoveries
The findings from this summer's trip “showcase a bittersweet mix of preservation and loss,” RMS Titanic said in a statement.

Ruth Bradley and Gary Oldman in "Slow Horses."

This week’s TV: Gary Oldman brings big trouble as ‘Slow Horses’ returns for a new season

Plus: Nicole Kidman gets involved with family-trauma drama in Netflix's Nantucket-set “The Perfect Couple.”

‘It felt like we brought golf back to the Northeast’: Enthusiasm is high following LPGA’s return to Boston.
A more favorable schedule could lead to more star power next summer, when the FM Championship will hold a return engagement at TPC Boston.

Tara Sullivan: Megan Khang didn’t win the FM Championship, but she helped secure victory for women’s golf in Mass.

Red Sox righthander Brayan Bello pitched eight innings against the Blue Jays in his last start to notch his 12th win of the season.

red sox at mets | 7:10 p.m. (NESN)

Game 138: Red Sox at Mets lineups and notes

After dropping a weekend series in Detroit, the Red Sox face another playoff contender in New York beginning Monday

Globe reporters Aaron Pressman and Sabrina Shankman drove a Rivian SUV and a Tesla Cybertruck around New England to assess the state of EV chargers (and try some top-ranked ice cream). Here they are at Sundae School Ice Cream in Dennis Port.

How much has EV charging improved in New England? We hit the road to find out (and try the best ice cream shops).

The goal was to log a full day on the road in a Tesla Cybertruck and a Rivian SUV — but no road trip is complete without some sugary pit stops.

More than 100 people attended a vigil in Newton center following the killing of Israeli American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

More than 100 gather in Newton to mourn killing of Israeli American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin

Hamas killed Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old man with local family ties, and the other hostages in a tunnel in the city of Rafah as Israeli forces battled militants nearby.

General strike in Israel over hostages leads to uneven closures, reflecting political divisions

Opinion

The author's father, Edward Shanahan, in Detroit, where he was a general assignment reporter at the Free Press, writing feature stories from around the state.

IDEAS | MARK SHANAHAN

Writing my father’s obituary with him revealed a man I never knew

Not all of the details he shared about his life will make it into print after he’s gone, but what I learned about him made me feel even closer to both of my parents.

Dustin Tingley and Ana Martinez

To grow local support, Washington must share renewable energy revenues

A lift for New England skiers

Mary Ann D'Urso

From the Garden State to the Granite State

Michelle Obama wasn’t slinging mud in Chicago, she was speaking truth

Best of the Best

Beacon Hill Books & Cafe on the left and the Fenway Victory Garden at right.

We put together a list of the best things to do in Boston. Readers had their own ideas.

Cambridge, MA. 11/15/22 - Pepperoni pizza at Si Cara restaurant in Central Square. (Lane Turner/Globe Staff) Reporter: (Kara Baskin) Topic:(20qb)

Regina, Si Cara, and 6 more places to find Boston’s best pizza

James Hook

The six best lobster rolls served around Boston

best of best social share image

➔ More from The Boston Globe's Best of the Best

More recent News

Britain says it is suspending some arms exports to Israel over risk of breaking international law
Officials said Monday there is a “clear risk” some items could be used to “commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

A suicide bomber detonates in Afghan capital, killing at least 6 people and injuring 13
The blast took place in the southwestern Qala Bakhtiar neighborhood in Kabul, a spokesman for the Kabul police chief said.

Three Massachusetts rowers capture silver medals at Paris Paralympics
Ben Washburne, a Williams alumnus; Emelie Eldracher, an MIT graduate student from Andover; and Alex Flynn, a Tufts junior from Wilmington were bart of the US boat that finished behind Great Britain.

LOVE LETTERS

I cheated. He won’t forgive me.
But we’re still spending time together.

N.H. man sentenced for conspiracy to harass and intimidate two NHPR journalists

The 2022 conspiracy included the vandalism of the homes of the reporters and one reporter's parents with bricks, large rocks, and red spray paint on five separate occasions.

A Kenyan man wanted in Massachusetts for allegedly killing his girlfriend has been extradited
Kevin Adam Kinyanjui Kangethe is set to face murder charges at Suffolk Superior Court in Boston on Tuesday, officials said.

Recommended reads

A woman pushed her belongings along Gardner Street in Allston as a dump truck squeezed behind her between two moving trucks on Aug. 31, 2023.

Rents are high, vacancies are low. Yep, it’s another September in Boston.

Already one of the country’s priciest rental markets, Boston is seeing rents keep climbing even as other cities cool off.

On the front lines of Boston’s Sept. 1 weekend moving chaos

College leaders, faculty try to emphasize dialogue ahead of expected protests this fall
As colleges across New England prepare for the return of students in the coming days, the raucous student protests over the Israel-Hamas war seem likely to resume at full volume.

Kamala Harris holds her family up as quintessentially middle class. It’s a significant shift.
As she fights to win over voters struggling with stubbornly high prices, Harris has been drawing on her own life story to paint herself as a champion of the middle class.

shirley leung

Are MGM Springfield and Encore Boston casinos up for sale? Don’t bet the house on it.
As online sports betting shakes up the gambling landscape, speculation has swirled about the fate of the two resort casinos.

Culture & Lifestyle

Audiences enjoy a performance at the 2023 Live Music on the Lawn concert at Christian Science Plaza.

Free events in Boston this week: Boston Arts Festival returns, free concert, Seaport movie night

Tony Shalhoub earlier this year.

Tony Shalhoub’s journey from stage to screen and back again

A sampling of hairstyles that make the cut: From left, Keegan Vieira, 14, and Warren Yuen, 17, shown in Boston, and a blowout with taper by barber Jahsief Tucker at Springfield's Final Touch Barber Shop.

From fades to flows, what are the best hairstyles for guys this fall? We asked the experts: barbers and teenage boys.

Bradley Whitford and Cheryl Hines.

In this corner, Bradley Whitford; in that corner, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Special Projects

Illustration of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Derrick White along with other NBA greats for the 2024 Finals preview.

Where do the 2023-24 Celtics stand among the greatest teams in NBA history?

Data show that these Celtics are truly extraordinary, a team of uncommon prowess on both ends of the court

Lauren Friel (left) owner of Rebel Rebel, chatted with customers while working at her wine bar in Bow Market in Somerville. The restrictive Boston liquor license system has pushed throngs of innovative chefs to neighborhood towns with laxer laws, including Brookline, Somerville, and Cambridge.

Priced out: How Boston’s broken liquor license system drives chefs from the city

A stubbornly high price tag for serving alcohol hurts thousands of hospitality workers, aspiring restaurateurs, and the city itself.

Interactive map

Pothole season is upon us. See which neighborhoods have the most reports

Boston’s 311 data provides a day-by-day look at the condition of the city’s streets and sidewalks, which neighborhoods are hit hardest, and just how fast repairs are made.

stuart landing page illustration

Nightmare in Mission Hill

The story of how a murder in Mission Hill — the Carol Stuart shooting — terrorized and wounded a community of innocent people.

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Opinion, ideas, and commentary

James Garner in 2009.

(Almost) everything I know about life, I learned from ‘The Rockford Files’

A man jumped over a subway turnstile in the Bronx, New York City, in 2022.

The high cost of letting people evade transit fares

Flowers were laid at the site of a June fatal accident at the intersection of Hampshire Street and Portland Street in Cambridge.

A Cambridge peace deal between cyclists and drivers

People held Palestinian flags during a protest outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 21.

IDEAS | Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib

The Palestinian story I wish I could have told at the Democratic convention

Market Basket customer Bobbi Dixon, from Rochester, N.H., participated in a rally outside of the Tewksbury store on Aug. 16, 2014.

Thomas A. Kochan

Lessons from Market Basket’s summer of 2014 shape the future of work

Heather Hopp-Bruce/Globe staff; Adobe

Blueprints for a new downtown Boston

Metro

Forecast | Dave Epstein

It’s a gorgeous Labor Day with plenty of sunshine, low humidity

The air will feel more like fall as we head into the work week.

Creating portraits made of pizza is ‘a pretty unique art form,’ says Rhode Island baker

For Eric Palmieri of D. Palmieri’s Bakery in Johnston R.I., the business of pizza art is a way to experiment with ingredients and add his own touch to his family’s legacy.

Fail to stop for a school bus this fall? In R.I., you might be on camera.

Buses in Providence and Cumberland are getting tech up-grades to catch drivers who drift past – and violators can face hundreds of dollars in fines.

Linda Deutsch, AP trial writer who had front row to courtroom history, dies

Linda Deutsch, a special correspondent for The Associated Press who for nearly 50 years wrote glittering first drafts of history for many of the nation’s most significant criminal and civil trials died Sunday.

Sports

While the course wasn't packed, the FM Championship brought out enough local fans to encourage both the sponsor and the LPGA.

LPGA FM CHAMPIONSHIP

‘It felt like we brought golf back to the Northeast’: Enthusiasm is high following LPGA’s return to Boston.

A more favorable schedule could lead to more star power next summer, when the FM Championship will hold a return engagement at TPC Boston.

Red Sox righthander Brayan Bello pitched eight innings against the Blue Jays in his last start to notch his 12th win of the season.

red sox at mets | 7:10 p.m. (NESN)

Game 138: Red Sox at Mets lineups and notes

After dropping a weekend series in Detroit, the Red Sox face another playoff contender in New York beginning Monday

Trevor Story, shown prior to a Red Sox game in July, was injured in April.

Trevor Story goes 2 for 4 for Worcester Red Sox in first game since shoulder injury in April

After batting second as the designated hitter, Story is expected to play shortstop for Worcester on Monday in Rochester.

BOSTON COLLEGE FOOTBALL

The Bill O’Brien era of Boston College football kicks off Monday. Here are the storylines to watch this season.

FRANK DELL'APA | ON SOCCER

Racing uphill for a playoff berth, Revolution can’t afford to revert the way they did at Real Salt Lake

Defending champion Coco Gauff bounced from US Open in fourth round by Emma Navarro

Business

Brazil Supreme Court panel unanimously upholds judge’s decision to block X nationwide

X will remain blocked until it complies with the panel's orders and pays outstanding fines that as of last week exceeded $3 million, according to the decision.

Why does Massachusetts still put Social Security numbers on death certificates?

The practice gives fraudsters easy access to a key piece of personal information they can use in their scams, officials say.

AI may not steal many jobs after all. It may just make workers more efficient.

Federal workers around nation’s capital worry over Trump’s plans to send some of them elsewhere

magazine

Beacon Hill Books & Cafe on the left and the Fenway Victory Garden at right.

Best of the Best

We put together a list of the best things to do in Boston. Readers had their own ideas.

From coffee milk to cheese-less pizza, why are Rhode Island’s iconic foods so weird?

The Kancamagus Highway in peak foliage season.

Your guide to navigating the Kancamagus Highway during peak foliage season

STOW, MA - 9/5/2020 - Conrad Gees (cq) with his bag of Akane applesat Honey Pot Hill Orchards, Apple picking . Pick-your-own apple orchards are a great destination for families. during the Pandemic. (Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff)

10 of the best orchards for apple picking in New England this fall

metro

Last week, BU graduate student workers marched past Boston University's new Center for Computing and Data Sciences during bargaining for their first union contract.

Boston University resident assistants strike as thousands move in

N.H. man sentenced for conspiracy to harass and intimidate two NHPR journalists

When should you get your flu shot? Soon.

sports

Chase Briscoe was stoked to reach the NASCAR Cup playoffs.

Chase Briscoe holds off Kyle Busch to win Southern 500 and qualify for NASCAR Cup playoffs

Three Massachusetts rowers capture silver medals at Paris Paralympics

Allisen Corpuz kept her cool but fell short of playoff at FM Championship

business

Acadia Healthcare’s Park Royal Hospital in Fort Myers, Fla.

How a leading chain of psychiatric hospitals traps patients

Strikes start at top hotel chains as housekeepers seek higher wages and daily room cleaning work

Are MGM Springfield and Encore Boston casinos up for sale? Don’t bet the house on it.

politics

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, speak in the overflow room during a campaign event at Prince George's Community College in Largo, Md., on Aug. 15, 2024.

Harris set to oppose sale of US Steel to a Japanese firm during joint Pennsylvania event with Biden

Follow live presidential campaign updates

Federal workers around nation’s capital worry over Trump’s plans to send some of them elsewhere

Nation

This image released on Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, shows the bow of the Titanic with a large section of the deck railing now missing photographed this summer by a company with salvage rights to the wreck site on its first expedition there in many years. (RMS Titanic Inc. via AP)

Titanic expedition yields lost bronze statue, high-resolution photos, and other discoveries

Trump issues statement from Gold Star families defending Arlington Cemetery visit and ripping Harris

Hard drugs illegal again in Oregon as first-in-nation experiment ends

World

Israeli police officers face protesters during an anti-government rally calling for the release of Israeli-held hostage by Palestinian militants in Gaza since October, on a highway in Tel Aviv on September 1, 2024.

Rare strike disrupts Israel while Biden says Netanyahu isn’t doing enough to reach Gaza deal

Britain says it is suspending some arms exports to Israel over risk of breaking international law

Ukraine’s children return to school as Russia launches drones and ballistic missiles at Kyiv

opinion

A man jumped over a subway turnstile in the Bronx, New York City, in 2022.

The high cost of letting people evade transit fares

‘Third places’: oases of community in our midst

Schools see dips in enrollment, but there’s an outlier: charters

lifestyle

Audiences enjoy a performance at the 2023 Live Music on the Lawn concert at Christian Science Plaza.

Free events in Boston this week: Boston Arts Festival returns, free concert, Seaport movie night

I cheated. He won’t forgive me.

An interior designer shares her tips for scouring Allston Christmas

food & dining

A pallet of beer from Worcester's Wormtown Brewery, which was recently acquired by Jack's Abby in Framingham, on Aug. 22.

In Massachusetts, the once-thriving beer biz is losing its fizz

Chip City Cookies comes to Harvard Square and Newbury Street, plus a Greater Boston Food Bank fund-raiser draws big-name chefs

Fast, fresh, and inviting food at Eat Greek Gyros in Somerville

travel

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is hard to miss in Cleveland — and you shouldn’t miss it.

Checking out one of Cleveland’s greatest hits: The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Traveling over Labor Day weekend? Have a back-up plan for cancellations and delays, and be patient.

We picked a Florida vacation spot we’d never heard of. Turned out to be the ideal choice.

Arts

Steve Locke, "Emmett Till Memorial Sign with bullet holes," 2018. Alexander Gray Associates, New York.

At Mass MoCA, Steve Locke’s ‘the fire next time’ chills to the bone

New mural in Providence honors lost Chinatown and historic drag queen

If wind could talk: Dorchester artist’s drawing machine sparks conversation about climate change

Books

Garth Greenwell has said that the narrator of “Small Rain” is identical with the narrators of his previous novels.

Garth Greenwell’s ‘Small Rain’ examines life in a state of sickness

Salem Lit Fest, Renee Gladman Symposium, and local NEH grants

In ‘A House Restored,’ Lee McColgan used old tools to revive an ancient colonial home

Movies

Gary Cole and Ron Livingston in "Office Space."

10 movies about work to stream this Labor Day weekend

When the R is optional: Which actors aced the Boston accent? And who failed?

‘Reagan’ the movie: Just say no

Television

Ruth Bradley and Gary Oldman in "Slow Horses."

This week’s TV: Gary Oldman brings big trouble as ‘Slow Horses’ returns for a new season

Tony Shalhoub’s journey from stage to screen and back again

In this corner, Bradley Whitford; in that corner, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

music

Josh Freese and Dave Grohl of The Foo Fighters perform on stage at London Stadium on June 20, 2024 in London, England.

From Foo Fighters to Beyoncé: These artists have objected to Trump’s use of their music

New England’s jam band legacy is in good hands with Goose

‘Bob’s Burgers’ star H. Jon Benjamin shows off his jazzy side with a devilish new record

Theater/Dance

Rudy Pankow, as Romeo, and Emilia Suárez, as Juliet, in rehearsal for the ART production of "Romeo and Juliet."

Still star-cross’d

The way Romeo and Juliet move

When masks reveal as well as conceal

Health

Lifespan signed a purchase agreement to take over Morton Hospital in Taunton.

Why is Lifespan buying hospitals in Massachusetts instead of saving two in Rhode Island?

R.I. Life Science Hub still in negotiations to develop lab incubator space: ‘In the business world... things moved a lot faster’

What happens when AI picks your medical coverage

Obituaries

Associated Press special correspondent Linda Deutsch holds a copy of her book, "Verdict, The Chronicle of the O.J. Simpson Trial," at her home in Los Angeles, Dec. 11, 2014.

Linda Deutsch, AP trial writer who had front row to courtroom history, dies

Simon Verity, world-renowned stone carver, dies at 79

Claes Dohlman, who restored sight with artificial cornea, dies at 101