Credit: Hannah Goeke
Braille libraries offer community. What happens when funding cuts close them?
July 31, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET|BOSTON
Marci Carpenter reconnected with her love of reading through her fingertips. When her vision became more limited, learning braille gave her a new way to experience the world. She still remembers how the words of Robert Frost’s poems came alive again through soft bumps embossed on thick paper.
But it was the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library in Seattle that gave her a place to connect. (...)
Room for a dorm? How a Boston neighborhood and college cope with a housing crisis.
Aug. 26, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET|BOSTON
Inside the Dewitt Center at Madison Park Village, residents of Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood gather for a game of bingo. As the cages spin, workers pass around slices of pizza and sip on Del’s frozen lemonade brought in from a heat break event across the street. The players, mostly older women, watch as Northeastern University students and staff break a sweat to hand out cool-down resources. On this hot summer day, the distance between campus and community feels shorter. (...)
Credit: Melanie Stetson Freeman
Credit: Alfredo Sosa
How a hippo and an octopus brought joy to this Boston neighborhood
Sept. 03, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET|BOSTON
A gigantic octopus sits on the dock of the Boston Harbor in Charlestown. Children crawl all over it. They scale its arms, and playfully duck under its belly. A forgotten school bag dangles from
one of its bronze tentacles.
Nearby, a rabbitwoman and a hippo sip on coffee by an anchor. Ten members of the animal kingdom dine down the road under the Tobin Bridge.
These sculptures are the newest residents of Charlestown – part of the “Bridge of Joy” exhibit – and they've already become mini celebrities.(...)