DID YOU THINK the battle over the 2020 election was over? Think again. This week, US Rep. Liz Cheney lost her position in Republican House leadership for rejecting former president Donald Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 presidential election – a position GOP leaders apparently agree with. Closer to home, former 5th Congressional District […]
News Analysis
Posted inPolitics
Could pandemic population shifts help Democrats?
THE PANDEMIC COULD end up being bad news for big coastal cities like Boston, which have enjoyed a decades-long boom as centers of the knowledge economy but whose future now seems less certain given their extraordinarily high cost of living and surge of interest in suburban living. Harvard economist Ed Glaeser unspooled some of that […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Holmes says residents surrounding Franklin Park deserve respect — and quiet
AT WEDNESDAY’S virtual community meeting about the plague of dirt bikes and all-night parties overtaking parts of Franklin Park in Boston, ideas for what to do about it ranged from speed bumps to a set-aside area for motor bikers to ride in the park. City Councilor Julia Mejia called for bringing those riding the dirt […]
Posted inHealth Care
Are liberals ‘addicted’ to the pandemic?
IN THE FACE of a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 people in the US and more than 3 million worldwide, one group seems to be letting politics get in the way of science as it defies the recommendations of experts who are trained to understand the ways of dangerous airborne pathogens. Conspiracy-minded […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Stark differences make many Mass. communities neighbors in name only
IN 1847, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ordered that a line be drawn from the mouth of the Shawsheen River, down along its eastern bank, and “thence in a straight line westerly, to a marked stone in the wall … by Jacob Barnard’s house.” This formed the first two legs of the boundary of the new […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Cracks in the thin blue line
IT WAS A day of national focus on policing, a moment when people at least began to allow for the possibility that there might be change in a seemingly never-ending story in which law enforcement officers are rarely held accountable for wrongdoing involving black Americans. It was more a collective sigh of relief than unbridled […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Defund the police, or defang the gangs?
The “defund the police” slogan, born out of anguish and anger over police killing of unarmed black men, has existed uneasily alongside another painful reality: the predominantly black neighborhoods that advocates say are too often the scenes of unwarranted police brutality are also home to much of the urban gun violence that terrorizes whole communities. […]
Posted inEducation
Boston exam schools face court test
HERE WE GO again. More than two decades after federal lawsuits forced Boston to ditch admission policies that set aside seats for black and Latino students at the city’s selective-entry 7-12 grade public schools, the issue of how students are admitted to the three schools is back in court. An organization representing Asian American and […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Why tax forecasts during COVID have been so wrong
ONE OF THE GREAT PUZZLES of the past year is that the world was devastated by a plague and Massachusetts tax revenues were…pretty much OK. Month after month, the state is collecting far more money than expected, dissolving initial fears of a multi-billion dollar deficit and leading to a new realization that state finances are relatively […]
Posted inPolitics
Janey already scoring from her potent perch
For more than three years, Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu — who was way out in front on the issue — has been hammering away at the idea of making the MBTA free for riders. With one week on the job, Acting Mayor Kim Janey made it happen. OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. […]