Category: Editorial

  • Issue:

    Reviews of local police offer first step to reform

    Let’s start by stressing that the vast majority of police officers in our region and elsewhere are good people doing work that can be difficult and dangerous. Most of the time, they’re doing exactly what the public asks of them: They show up when we call for help, and they do their best to navigate read more

    Reviews of local police offer first step to reform
  • Issue:

    After the campaign: It’s the virus, stupid

    As this issue heads to press on the eve of Election Day, we don’t know yet whether the coming year will bring a change in presidential administration or control of Congress. But it’s becoming clear that no matter who’s in charge in Washington, the next stage of the coronavirus crisis is upon us. We’re facing read more

    After the campaign: It’s the virus, stupid
  • Issue:

    In ranked-choice voting, a cure for what ails

    As this issue of the paper goes to press, our ears are still ringing from an event that was billed as the first presidential debate of the campaign season. It was, of course, neither presidential nor debate, and the term harassment seemed more apt as the president repeatedly interrupted and heckled both his opponent and read more

    In ranked-choice voting, a cure for what ails
  • Issue:

    Will pandemic’s crisis help heal democracy?

    Over the past six months, the Covid-19 pandemic has killed nearly 200,000 Americans, sickened millions more, and driven unemployment to Depression-era levels. But as the Nov. 3 election approaches, there are at least some hopeful signs that the pandemic might be helping to make our democracy healthier – if ineptitude and malign actors don’t manage read more

    Will pandemic’s crisis help heal democracy?
  • Issue:

    Weighing the risks of schools reopening

    As this issue heads to press at the end of July, our region has become one of the best in the nation for steering clear of the coronavirus. In the counties where Massachusetts, New York and Vermont meet, new cases of Covid-19 have dwindled to no more than a handful on most days. Local public read more

    Weighing the risks of schools reopening
  • Issue:

    Sun Belt’s Covid surge raises questions here

    The month of June has seen our region slowly venturing forward after so many weeks of coronavirus-related shutdowns. Restaurants that had been limited to selling takeout meals since March have begun to offer outdoor table service – and in Massachusetts and Vermont, limited indoor seating. Museums and galleries are preparing to reopen. Retail stores, hair read more

    Sun Belt’s Covid surge raises questions here
  • Issue:

    Cases highlight need for policing reforms

    Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray, and so many more: The past decade seems a blur of names of unarmed black men, and occasionally women, dying at the hands of police. The cases, from cities all around the nation, spark outrage and protests, and then fade from the news until the next case explodes into read more

    Cases highlight need for policing reforms
  • Issue:

    First battle was lost in failure to test

    As we prepare this issue for press at the end of March, the Covid-19 pandemic has shut down much of the Northeast and is threatening to hit New York City and its suburbs with catastrophic force over the next few weeks. For now, the focus of the nation and our region is appropriately on how read more

    First battle was lost in failure to test
  • Issue:

    New York’s first steps toward election reform

    It was the late Abner Mikva, a longtime federal appeals court judge, who told a famous story of youthful idealism meeting cold, hard politics. In 1948, as Mikva recounted it, he walked into a local ward office of the Democratic Party in Chicago and offered to volunteer for Adlai Stevenson’s gubernatorial campaign, only to be read more

    New York’s first steps toward election reform
  • Issue:

    In impeachment role, Stefanik hears no evil

    U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik has often cast herself in the role of a Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe, the current and former Republican senators from Maine, who over the course of many years built reputations as bipartisan pragmatists. But any pretense of bipartisan moderation was pretty much shattered last month by Stefanik’s new role in read more

    In impeachment role, Stefanik hears no evil