Milton Valencia

The Boston Police Department has touted its use of community policing. But what is community policing, exactly, and how do you measure its effectiveness?

Several area police chiefs, facing tough new calls for reform brought on by the national Black Lives Matter movement, have announced plans to retire.

Today, some officers continue to struggle with telling the truth, whether in court or everyday police matters, and the Boston Police Department has no mechanism to monitor officer testimony or truthfulness. Quite often, records show, internal affairs investigators are reluctant to call a lie a lie.

Though all major candidates in the Boston mayoral race have called attention to the city’s affordable housing crisis, Wu is the only one to publicly endorse rent control.

Mayor-elect Michelle Wu said the appointment of a Cabinet chief to oversee the opioid epidemic at Mass. and Cass will be one of her first priorities, and that she will roll up her sleeves to fix Boston Public Schools, as she reflected on her new reality as the city’s chief executive.

Boston faces a difficult question: How to preserve and sustain the existing, dated public housing system, which experts say is a crucial part of any solution to the city’s housing dilemma.

Here are some of the factors at play.

The shift of Boston residents to Brockton and a few other nearby towns underscores the challenges the city of Boston faces in keeping Black and brown residents who were born there and want to stay, but have been priced out of the city’s sizzling real estate market.

State health officials say they are expanding an effort to get former residents of the Mass. and Cass area in Boston off the streets and into permanent housing.

The racist practice played a large part in why so much of the state is segregated along racial lines, with economic disparities that still resonate.