Stories
Virtual platforms have become a gathering place for many religious groups in New England during the coronavirus pandemic. Faith leaders are tweaking the experience to bring a sense of human contact or address community needs. Pastor Brent Damrow still leads services every Sunday in the big sanctuary of the First Congregational Church in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.…
Read More‘Stupid or Brave?’ New Hampshire Health Care Workers Face Moral Dilemmas During Pandemic
Health care workers in New Hampshire are at the center of the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Patients rely on them, hospitals scramble to buy gear to protect them, and citizens laud them as heroes in this national crisis. But what is it like be a health care worker right now? NHPR’s Jason Moon…
Read MoreAdvocates Fear Domestic Abuse Survivors Are ‘Trapped With Their Abusers’ During Pandemic
While the state’s social distancing and quarantine measures help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, these same measures have created new challenges for people living in violent households. Domestic violence support groups said they’re trying to adapt to this new reality by finding new ways of connecting with survivors. Read the rest of this story…
Read MoreAbout a month ago, fish plant worker Yamileth Alvarado says she and her team got together at the Tichon Seafood facility in New Bedford to listen to a presentation on how workers can protect themselves from COVID-19. A government employee, through a translator, told them what many of us have been hearing for weeks: Maintain…
Read MoreA trio of churches in Hartford’s North End have teamed up to provide dinner six days a week to anyone in need. The partnership is one way faith communities are working together to meet basic needs in the midst of the coronavirus. Fried chicken and biscuits were hot and ready to go every night at…
Read More‘We’re More Together Now’ – A Navy Veteran Living In Lewiston On Life During The Pandemic
Living with all the troubling effects of the pandemic — social distancing, the toll on health care workers, the anguish for the sick and the economic fallout — retired Navy veteran Robert Bott of Lewiston says there’s no doubt it can test your faith. But Bott, who is Catholic, says he and his wife have…
Read MoreA few months ago, Providence restaurateur James Mark was feeling more comfortable about his business than he ever had before. He’d finished building a bar at his highly regarded restaurant North and successfully launched a second restaurant, Big King. The lucrative Spring graduation season was approaching, and Mark was expecting to see his investments pay…
Read MoreA Limousine Driver Is Idled But Not Defeated By COVID-19
Karl Bright picked me up at home last week in a brand new black Cadillac. Bright is a limousine driver and also the owner of his company, Transportation Initiative of Norwood. But he had not been doing much driving. We were heading to the airport at a time when just about no one else was,…
Read MoreCOVID-19 Screenings Missing Symptom: Lost Sense Of Smell
Nothing about the way she was feeling made her worry until that Monday morning, just over a week ago, when she went downstairs to feed her cat. “I went down to my kitchen and opened a can of cat food and realized I couldn’t smell it.” The woman, who asked that she only be identified…
Read MoreMaine’s Marine Economies Face Rough Waters
There are an estimated 30,000 Mainers who, one way or another, depend on the state’s marine economies, and it seems every one of them is contending with some sort of hit right now, as the COVID-19 pandemic has upset the long-established systems of seasonal seafood supply and demand. Jeff Augur says that when famed Boston…
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