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As Littleton gun vendors seek new home, towns erect barriers
The conflicts reflect tensions between a small but growing contingency of Second Amendment enthusiasts and those who favor strict gun control.

Boston has few dog parks. It’s led to a pitched battle over public space.
The city was one of the last in the area to allow dogs to roam the streets freely. But the landscape has changed and tensions have ratcheted up since.

Pentagon watchdog finds lax oversight and screening of military recruits with extremist ties

Screening lapses can have dire consequences. A recent Globe investigation revealed that at least 82 current and former military service members with far-right, antigovernment, or neo-Nazi views were arrested in the last five years.

‘The single biggest threat to the security of the country’: Extremism in the military is alarming experts

In the last five years, at least 82 current and former military service members have been arrested and exposed as harboring far-right, antigovernment, or neo-Nazi ideologies, according to a Globe analysis of court documents, media reports, and studies compiled by independent researchers.

‘Are you guys going to shoot me?’ Police encounters with mentally ill people increasingly turn deadly.

A Globe review shows that most people shot by police in Massachusetts are suicidal, mentally ill, or having a breakdown.

More Globe investigations

Governor Healey vows to make MBTA managers work and live near the transit system they oversee

Legislators, transportation experts, and others expressed outrage over reports that some senior MBTA managers were working remotely in a time of crisis at the agency.

A distant crisis: Top MBTA managers live hundreds — or thousands — of miles from the troubled system they’re trying to fix

Chicago and South Florida are among the places T executives call home.

The Marathon bombing’s 12-hour suspect

For 12 long hours, amateur sleuths, social media users, and some in the media wrongly proclaimed Sunil Tripathi a suspect.

New report finds former Methuen police chief should face criminal charges in a ‘textbook case of public corruption’

The report found that Joseph Solomon relied on “humiliation, fear, intimidation and retaliation” in his drive to boost his salary, becoming one of the highest paid law enforcement officials in the United States.

Head of Mass. Commission for the Blind steps down following Globe report of turmoil within the agency

The report detailed allegations of verbal abuse, questionable spending, and subpar services.

Inside the state commission for the blind: alleged verbal abuse, shrinking services, questionable spending

Last week, the state’s largest advocacy group for blind and visually impaired people wrote to Governor Maura Healey’s office saying that the commissioner needed to go.
Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting

Blind Spot

An 11-month Globe investigation found that people nationwide are dying in crashes caused by drivers who should have had their licenses suspended. One in 10 US drivers has at least one offense — from speeding to vehicular homicide — that isn’t reflected on their driving record.
Documentary Short: Blind Spot
A deep look into the bureaucratic negligence that has allowed drivers with menacing traffic records to keep their licenses. (Produced by Caitlin Healy, Brendan McCarthy & Anush Elbakyan. Shot & Edited by Caitlin Healy)

Spotlight

Fate and the fallen star

Scientist David Sabatini is hoping for a comeback after he was ousted amid sexual harassment allegations. The case raises hard questions: Is there room for lesser penalties in such complex cases? Did Sabatini deserve a second chance?

A broken bond, a shaken citadel of science

Kristin Knouse and David Sabatini, both biologists, had an intimate relationship that bridged boundaries — she is young in her career, he is globally renowned — and broke the rules at Cambridge’s Whitehead Institute. After Knouse alleged harassment and other complaints emerged, an investigation rocked Whitehead, forced out Sabatini and damaged all involved. Did it have to end this way?

A celebrated surgeon, a trail of secrets and death

Dr. Yvon Baribeau set a record for malpractice settlements, and many colleagues tried desperately to stop him. But hospital executives let him go on and on.

Timeline: What the public didn’t know about Dr. Yvon Baribeau

Catholic Medical Center executives promoted Dr. Yvon Baribeau as a top cardiac surgeon. In reality, they knew for years that the doctor had a troubled work history.

Unfinished Justice

The state’s high court in 2017 struck down a murder law that had condemned men who never killed to die behind bars. But what about those already facing that dire penalty? They are waiting.

How Brigham Health helped create a Chinese hospital for elites — and almost nobody came

In a deal worth millions with Chinese developer Evergrande, a Harvard teaching hospital risked its reputation on what would become a near-empty shell.

The taking of Cell 15

A look at secrecy, assaults, and accountability inside Massachusetts’ maximum-security prison.

Failure of command: The inside story of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home outbreak

Governor Charlie Baker and a top deputy played key roles in events leading up to the devastating COVID-19 outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, but publicly faulted others. A Globe investigation examines the decisions that left the home all but leaderless when the coronavirus stormed in.

Boston’s hospital chiefs moonlight on corporate boards at rates far beyond the national level

Hospital chiefs and trustees defend this as boosting public-private partnerships, but critics say these board positions — some paying millions of dollars — raise troubling issues of conflict of interest and hospital priorities.

Last Words: Is death the great equalizer?

Quite the contrary, a Spotlight investigation shows. Death exposes in high relief the layers of inequities, in race and income, care and opportunity, that shape life down to its final hours. It is a truth the pandemic has only underscored — one hard to see, because it is so much easier to look away.

Seeing Red: A Globe Spotlight report on Boston’s crippling traffic

We endure some of the nation’s worst rush hour traffic. Our aging transit system is maddeningly unreliable. It is a crisis — a very slow moving crisis — that puts our region’s economic prosperity at risk. Who is to blame? Can anything be done? The Globe Spotlight Team investigates.

Inside the secret courts of Massachusetts

The Spotlight Team delves into the darkest corner of the Massachusetts criminal justice system, where the quality of justice can depend on where you live and who you know.

Gladiator

How can a Super Bowl starting lineman become a convicted murderer in only a few years? In a new investigation, The Boston Globe's Spotlight Team looks hard at the crisis facing football through the lens of Aaron Hernandez's life and terrible crimes.

Boston. Racism. Image. Reality.

In a series that can only scratch the surface of this complex topic, we tried to answer a question so critical to the city's identity and future: Does Boston still deserve its reputation as a place unwelcoming to Black people? If so, why — and how — can the situation be improved?

See more Spotlight projects ⟶