Boston's airfares rising sharply
It's getting more expensive to fly all over the country, thanks to rising fuel costs, but because of other factors as well, the cost of flying into and out of Boston is soaring higher than almost anywhere else. So far this year, domestic airfares at Logan International Airport have risen twice as fast as the national average.

Tragedy. Audacity. Trouble.
MADAWASKA, Maine - He overcame a farm accident that crushed his legs at a young age and forced him to use a wheelchair. He escaped the nagging poverty of this most northern reach of Maine, where his father and grandfather had scratched out livings as potato farmers. He did not settle for the life provided by a government disability check ...

Obama's paid staff dwarfing McCain's
Behind the headlines about the unprecedented success of Democrat Barack Obama's fund-raising machine lies a more prosaic truth - his campaign will need every penny of its $300 million goal to bankroll an unprecedented 50-state general election campaign with a massive army on the ground.

Monet? Gauguin? Using art to make better doctors
Dr. Joel Katz's class of Harvard Medical School students meets on Friday afternoons at the Museum of Fine Arts, where they discuss the Seated Bodhisattva, a towering figure carved in ancient China, Joseph Mallord William Turner's Slave Ship, and other artworks Katz believes will make them better doctors.

Treasurer wants limit to designs for schools
State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, trying to head off what he calls "Taj Mahal" high schools, said yesterday that he wants cities and towns to begin using off-the-shelf building designs that could cut school-project costs by 30 percent.

Cahill calls for turnpike overhaul
State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill continued to clash publicly with officials of Governor Deval Patrick's administration yesterday over the administration's proposal to throw the troubled Massachusetts Turnpike Authority a financial lifeline by guaranteeing the authority's debt.

Big Dig's red ink engulfs state
Massachusetts residents got a shock when state officials, at the peak of construction on the Big Dig project, disclosed that the price tag had ballooned to nearly $15 billion. But that, it turns out, was just the beginning.

Inequity's end means new start for 31
Jean Janvier spent 17 months locked up for selling about 2 grams of crack cocaine in Dorchester.

Restoring a centerpiece
HANOVER - Ten years after it was last painted and nearly 150 years after it was constructed, the white steeple that defines Hanover's First Congregational Church and dominates the town center's skyline was due for another coat this year.

LNG company to pursue offshore berth
The company hoping to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in Fall River is focusing on an alternative plan for an offshore berth in Mount Hope Bay to receive tanker deliveries. Weaver's Cove Energy announced its new plans yesterday.