Could patient portals be less baffling and more helpful? A cartoon explainer.

Access to electronic health records empowers us, and sometimes scares us, too. Could medical test results be delivered in a more useful way? Josh Neufeld’s cartoon explains the history behind these portals, what patients and doctors think of them, and how they might evolve.

In 1970s Boston, young hustlers made easy money selling term papers to college students

Long before there was generative AI, “Mr. Papers” and other entrepreneurs made a fast buck selling smart essays to students. And Boston has the dubious distinction of being the birthplace of the hot, highly lucrative enterprise. And just like today, the existential panic over cheating grabbed headlines, writes Brad Tuttle.

PERSPECTIVE

A single mom shares why she can’t wait to be an empty-nester

With her youngest about to graduate high school, the Globe Magazine’s Carrie Simonelli writes that she wouldn’t trade the past 20 years of raising kids for anything. But now both her daughters are ready for a world of new experiences — and so is she.

CONNECTIONS

Mount Washington forever

Writer John Dodge first scaled Mount Washington in 1954 at age 4, with his parents and brother. In February, he and his wife, Ann, rode in one of the Auto Road’s “SnowCoaches” to the summit, capping off his lifelong relationship with the New Hampshire mountain.

THE BIG DAY

She was a bridesmaid while he was a groomsman. Four years later, they got married.

It 2021, Juliana Manchester and Glenn LiBassi were in the same wedding party in Cranston, Rhode Island. Each was naturally drawn to the other, they say. Juliana later sent Glenn a picture she had taken of the groomsmen. “Little did I know that that one text message would turn into [a conversation with] someone that I was going to marry one day,” she says

Apply to have your wedding featured in The Big Day. Read other couples’ love stories here.

LOVE LETTERS

The long game 
We’ve been together for five years. My boyfriend is happy to wait five more to get married. Is this something to compromise on? Meredith offers her take.  

Submit your relationship questions. And check out the Love Letters podcast here.

DINNER WITH CUPID

“We talked a lot about her dog, Clementine, a sheepadoodle.” Will these twentysomething daters bond over their love for dogs?

Go on an in-person or virtual blind date. We'll pick up the tab. Fill out an application.

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