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County sheriffs and the state Department of Correction contract with a private telecom provider for inmate phone service, but the rates are actually paid by those on the receiving end of the phone calls — usually families, who pay an average of about 14 cents a minute.
Editorials

In prison, phone calls home aren’t a frill. They’re as important as food and clothes.

Sheriffs shouldn’t balance their budgets with onerous fees. Lawmakers can right that wrong.

Opinion

The hypocrisy of Samuel Alito

Despite the Supreme Court justice’s sunny claims about women’s lives being improved since Roe v. Wade, he has voted to restrict protections for them time and again.

Virginia O'Brien and Carol Deanow joined the Boston Red Cloaks at the State House on May 7 to advocate for women’s rights. The women are all part of the Bad Old Days Posse — a group of women, some of whom have had illegal abortions, who educate college students about what life was like before Roe v. Wade.
Opinion

Abortion rights are protected in Massachusetts — or so we thought

And then we read Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft.

People pray outside the scene of Saturday's shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., on Sunday. The shooting is the latest example of something that's been part of US history since the beginning: targeted racial violence.
Editorials

Buffalo shooting and the politics of hate

Racist ramblings and ready access to weapons create a perfect storm of violence.

People attend a prayer vigil in Buffalo on Sunday for the victims killed in the Saturday mass shooting.
Opinion

How many white Americans will do anything more than shake their heads about the Buffalo massacre?

You can attribute that to white privilege, but I think it illustrates something sadder — resignation.

People gathered outside of the Tops supermarket on Sunday in Buffalo. The day before, a gunman opened fire at the store, killing 10 people and wounding another three.
Opinion

The politics of white backlash and the endless cycle of racial violence, division, and anger

The 19th-century “Lost Cause” advocates have become the 21st-century defenders of a racial status quo many thought relegated to history’s dustbin in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s election.

A 2017 Globe’s 2017 Spotlight series on race in Boston highlighted a major wealth gap problem in Massachusetts. Here, a laborer passes an advertisement at the Pier 4 project on Northern Ave in the Seaport District on Sept. 27, 2017.
Editorials

The $8 figure that shamed Boston gets an update

Seven years after a Fed study exposed just how wide the region’s wealth gap remains, a welcome follow-up is in the works.

Pro-choice demonstrators outside the house of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in Alexandria, Va., on Monday.
Ideas

Why it’s wrong to protest at a judge’s home

Coming to an official’s house targets them as a person rather than as a professional fulfilling a role — a boundary we should care deeply about.