ONLY A sliver of Brookline residents smoke. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the town's adult smoking rate is a paltry 6.8 percent — far below the statewide rate of 13.7 percent.

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Nikki Haley provoked a backlash when she told Fox News that if she becomes president, she wants to make it illegal to post anonymously on social media.

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HE WAS A Massachusetts liberal of the old school, a patriot who joined the Army after graduating from Melrose High School in 1947 and a believer in individual freedom who protested against racial segregation in the 1950s. He put himself through law school, then gradually built up a legal practice. In those early decades, when he was representing clients in personal injury or family law disputes, it surely never occurred to him that he would play a key role in the history of First Amendment jurisprudence.

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BENEATH THE golden dome of the State House on Beacon Hill, the authority wielded by House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka is close to absolute. Within their respective chambers, they invariably get what they want. No proposal comes up for consideration unless they want it to. No bill comes to a vote without their say-so. No budget is finalized until they assent. They and they alone decide who will chair each committee. And they see to it that nearly every important decision affecting the people's business is decided unilaterally or behind closed doors, without public debate or dissent.

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WHAT COMES after the war in Gaza?

Already there has been much discussion of the postwar arrangements. President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, embracing conventional wisdom with both arms, are pushing for a takeover of Gaza by Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority. Far more realistic, however, is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call for Gaza to be "demilitarized, deradicalized, and rebuilt."

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