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The author as a 24-year-old lieutenant junior grade, serving on the USS Truett. (Courtesy Laura McTaggart)

9 hours ago

Veterans share a strong bond. But this election season showed me its limits

That many of my fellow veterans did not vote for Harris isn’t surprising writes Laura McTaggart. What shocks me is the level of vitriol. And it’s gotten so much worse since Trump won.

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris react during her concession speech for the 2024 presidential election on the campus of Howard University, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)

The way forward runs through the places we call home

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9 hours ago

Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally at Van Andel Arena on November 05, 2024 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

This is who we are now

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Nov 6, 2024

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally in Memorial Hall at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Let us hold fast to the politics of mercy

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Nov 5, 2024

Support the news

This is who we are now

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Let us hold fast to the politics of mercy

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Kamala Harris' closing message: It's his record, stupid

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An American (voter) in Paris

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Please don't vote for a third-party candidate

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Don’t helicopter-parent your kids into college. Let them take the lead

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In Case You Missed It

A view of the Charles River from the Esplanade. (Courtesy Allessandra DiCorato)

'How perfect this is / How lucky we are': Stories from 266 benches along the Esplanade

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Oct 4, 2024

Cars wait at a red light during rush hour at the Las Vegas Strip, in Las Vegas on Thursday, April 22, 2021. (John Locher/AP)

Fossil fuels are as American as apple pie

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Oct 10, 2024

A person attaches a "I Voted" sticker to their shirt on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Chicago. (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)

The math of our democracy

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Nov 3, 2024

The author's sons on a visit to Paraguay in 2011. (Courtesy Marjie Alonso)

I willingly, joyfully adopted my sons from Paraguay. I would never do it again

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Sep 26, 2024

On Air Commentaries

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu plays the piano in her office on September 24, 2024 (Courtesy Mike Mejia/Mayor Wu's office)

This mayor is an artist

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07:49Oct 11, 2024

People walk past "welcome student" signs at New York University (NYU) on August 29, 2021 in New York City. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

My daughter begins college in Paris, while I return to Cambridge. ‘Home’ is changing for us both

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04:16Sep 6, 2024

Silent movie "Nosferatu", directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Max Schreck starring as Nosferatu, Germany 1921 (Photo by ullstein bild via Getty Images)

A case for scary movies

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03:37Oct 27, 2024

If only we felt free to say I don’t know, writes Leah Hager Cohen. If only our culture placed less value on judging and gate-keeping, and instead honored vulnerability. (Getty Images)

The courage to say 'I don't know'

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04:56Nov 8, 2022

Politics

A man, dressed in colours of the US national flag, speaks to a journalist outside the Harry's New York Bar in Paris on November 8, 2016 where a straw vote for US citizens living in France has been organized for the US Presidential elections.
(Philippe Lopez/AFP via Getty Images)

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Nov 5, 2024

An American (voter) in Paris

Laura Hertzfeld is living abroad this election season. She visited Harry's New York Bar, in central Paris, to cast a ballot in that establishment's presidential straw poll, which has been a reasonably accurate predictor of results for the last 100 years. Harris is ahead, so far.

Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, speaks during a campaign rally on the Ellipse on October 29, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

What happens when a woman takes power?

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Nov 4, 2024

Supporters cheer as Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at the PA Farm Show Complex and Expo Center, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Harrisburg, Pa. (Matt Rourke/AP)

'Joy, in fact, is a platform. Every woman knows this'

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Nov 1, 2024

Politicians counting the electoral vote at the U.S. Capitol in 1921. (HUM Images/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

American democracy needs a redesign

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Nov 1, 2024

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, in La Crosse, Wis., Thursday, Oct. 17. (Abbie Parr/AP)

The gendered fault lines defining the 2024 election

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Oct 30, 2024

More From Cog

Caucasian pregnant woman is discussing something during a childbirth class or pregnancy support group. (Getty Images)

The weight of decisions my patients make behind exam room doors

Most pregnant patients will never meet a maternal-fetal medicine physician, but for those that do, the conversations can be fraught, writes Luke P. Burns. Access to abortion procedures is as...

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Nov 4, 2024

Two jack-o-lanterns glow on a driveway as the sun sets (Whitney Saleski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The tradition that brought Halloween back from the dead

Raleigh McCool hates Halloween. And the thing he hates most about it is the costumes. Rather than offer a place to hide, the Halloween costume shines a light on your...

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Oct 31, 2024

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a community rally at the Alan Horwitz "Sixth Man" Center, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in Philadelphia. (Matt Rourke/AP)

Kamala Harris' closing message: It's his record, stupid

Kamala Harris seems to have settled on a closing argument that focuses on Trump’s increasingly menacing rhetoric, writes Steve Almond. It is incumbent upon our free press to remind voters...

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Oct 28, 2024

Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, right, talks with Harvard University professor, author and civil rights activist Cornell West after landing at LaGuardia Airport in New York Monday, Nov. 6, 2000. (Amy E. Conn/AP)

Please don't vote for a third-party candidate

In a presidential election as close as this year's, three left-wing candidates could keep Kamala Harris out of the White House, writes Ed Siegel. If Trump wins, we can expect...

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Oct 28, 2024

A person walks past advertisements for Tim Burton's upcoming film, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice", wrapped on the New York subway 42nd street shuttle, August 15, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)

A handbook for midlife? Try ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’

When I took my kids to the theater I figured we were in for some nostalgia, some laughs and light-hearted scares, writes Sara Shukla. But I myself didn’t expect to...

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Oct 25, 2024

English art and radio critic Frederick Laws (left) and American photographer Lee Miller (1907 - 1977) attend a one-night performance of Pablo Picasso's play 'Desire Caught By The Tail' at the Rudolf Steiner Hall in London, March 1950. The production was presented by the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) along with William Blake's 'An Island in the Moon'. Original Publication : Picture Post - 4988 - Pablo Picasso Playwright - Desire Caught By The Tail - pub. 4th March 1950 (Photo by Haywood Magee/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Lee Miller was more than a muse. Her story continues to inspire me — and Kate Winslet

Lee Miller was a model, photographer and war correspondent, but the word most associated with her is “muse.” I can’t speak for Winslet, writes Whitney Scharer, but I know what...

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Oct 25, 2024

A sign welcomes people to the U.S. from Mexico on June 25, 2018 in Brownsville, Texas. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Trump pits immigrants and working-class Americans against each other. But they both need the same things

Our immigration system is broken, writes Julie Wittes Schlack. But perhaps an even bigger problem lies in this country’s lack of affordable housing.

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Oct 24, 2024

Students walk past Royce Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles, campus in Los Angeles, Thursday, Aug. 15. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)

Don’t helicopter-parent your kids into college. Let them take the lead

Laura Holt is a college admissions counselor. Kids applying to college aren’t just getting to know schools, they’re getting to know themselves, she writes. This is likely the first time...

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Oct 23, 2024

Two of the author's children, Jackson and Adelaide, hold hands in the family's car in 2019. (Megan Allen, Studio 22 Photography/Courtesy Kelly Cervantes)

The choices we made for our family

Miguel and Kelly Cervantes have lost two children — one to a neurodegenerative condition at age 3, one in utero, at 21 weeks. I made the same heart-wrenching decision for...

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Oct 22, 2024

A group of players concentrate on a game of Dungeons & Dragons in 1985. (Bruce Milton Miller/Fairfax Media via Getty Images)

D&D turns 50 this year. Gather round the Dungeon Master's table

Fifty years ago, Dungeons & Dragons was considered Satanic. Today it's embraced by educators and child development experts. Ethan Gilsdorf explains the evolution.

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Oct 18, 2024

Portland Thorns FC players celebrates with the trophy after winning the NWSL championship on Oct. 29, 2022, in Washington. The National Women's Soccer League is expanding by three teams, which will be in Boston, Utah and the San Francisco area. (Nick Wass/AP)

Boston's new pro-women's soccer team needs a do-over

There were many bad things about this week's rollout of Boston's new professional women's soccer team. Perhaps worst of all? It suggested that the team’s all-female ownership group doesn't trust...

Cognoscenti

Oct 17, 2024

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, speaks with Winnie Copeland, 8, of Erie, Pa., left, at a campaign rally at Erie Insurance Arena, in Erie, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Dispatch from a swing state: Going door-to-door in Scranton, Pa.

Steve Almond canvassed for Kamala Harris with his teenage daughter and her two friends in Scranton, Pennsylvania, earlier this month. He left the weekend impressed by Harris' robust ground game,...

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Oct 16, 2024

The Healing Garden at Massachusetts General Hospital, a rooftop garden on the eighth floor of the Cancer Center, overlooking the Charles River. (Courtesy Jade Moran)

The Healing Garden at MGH is beautiful. It’s terrible that I belong here

There are birds and trees and grass and Japanese maple. Benches, breeze. It's lovely, writes Jade Moran. But like a lot of things right now, it contains within it, its...

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Oct 15, 2024

Sen. Robert Kennedy poses with his wife Ethel outside the Senate Chamber on Oct. 13, 1965, in Washington. (Henry Griffin/AP File)

Ethel Skakel Kennedy wasn't afraid to die

Eileen McNamara interviewed Ethel Kennedy in 2016. The interview, scheduled for 30-minutes, stretched on for three-plus hours. There was so much fun in Ethel's stories and so much laughter in...

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Oct 11, 2024

Cropped playful woman in coat walking and playing with maple leaves in the park in autumn. (Getty images)

This autumn, I’m slowing down. I’m watching the leaves fall

When doctors removed a tumor from near T.M. Blanchet’s spine 30 years ago, she thought it was a sign to not let life pass her by. “Every minute after that...

Cognoscenti

Oct 8, 2024

A view of destroyed buildings is shown following Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. (Leo Correa/AP)

Do not numb yourself to the suffering in Gaza

I have asked my Palestinian colleagues how they feel, and they have told me: ignored and left behind, writes Abby Maxman, who leads Oxfam America. The Biden administration has wasted...

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Oct 1, 2024

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a rally on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Kamala Harris is more than vibes. Here's a primer on her policies

The current GOP attack on Kamala Harris -- that she's all vibes no substance -- is being reinforced by the media, writes Steve Almond. America’s publishers and producers could cover...

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Oct 1, 2024