Kerrys lean and hungry look

Summer is here, and Democrats in Washington are smiling again. In the bleak days of late winter and early spring, many a dispirited Dem felt overwhelmed by an unexpectedly nimble […]

Pittsfield is often considered the farthest-flung outpost from Boston in the state, but the Berkshire County seat has nothing on its tiny neighbor to the west. Indeed, the only way […]

With nearly half the bridges in the Commonwealth rated as deficient and 42 percent of roads poor or mediocre, it’s not just Massachusetts drivers that make motoring here a challenge. […]

All is well in the Commonwealth–or so the state’s political leaders would have everyone believe. Certainly there is a lot to crow about compared to five years ago, when CommonWealth […]

Over its five years of publication, CommonWealth has displayed a consistent interest in city living–specifically, how cities from Boston to Pittsfield can stay or become safe, vibrant, satisfying places for […]

Sen. Glodis writes that he considers learning English a right of English-language learners–a right they are entitled to have redeemed as quickly and effectively as possible. I fully endorse and […]

I have filed legislation that will reform bilingual education in Massachusetts because statistic after statistic, fact after fact, clearly demonstrates the inability of our current system to meet the needs […]

Picture this: You’re a member of a health care advocacy group and you need to know the status of a new bill on health care reform‹now. So you boot your […]

When the state House of Representatives voted in January to scrap the eight-year limit on the Speaker’s position, lawmakers came under blistering attack for summarily jettisoning the one true check […]

Backed by an arsenal of data and degrees in medicine and public health, Dr. Howard Koh, the state’s public health commissioner, considers needle-exchange programs a proven way to keep intravenous […]

The American labor movement, facing a falloff in clout as fewer workers wear the union label, is hoping for a shot in the arm from an unlikely source of vigor: […]

A 1996 law aimed at cracking down on serious juvenile lawbreakers has developed a crack of its own. The state Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that juvenile court judges do […]

When Demetri and Linda Theofilou flew east from Chicago in the spring of 1997 to look for a house in the Boston suburbs, they knew they’d have to act quickly. […]

In publishing, like politics, five years can be an eternity. Since 1996, a number of political publications have come and gone. Locally, the liberal opinion journal Otherwise and the state […]

Despite a long economic recovery that has driven unemployment rates to new lows, many Massachusetts residents have not achieved the income level they enjoyed prior to the recession of the […]

Tip O’Neill and the Democratic CenturyBy John A. FarrellLittle, Brown and Co., New York, 776 pagesBack in the Watergate summer of 1974, the syndicated columnist Mary McGrory was waxing eloquent […]

It was a few days before the November election, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was determined to prevent the White House from falling into Republican hands. So he stormed onto […]

HOLLAND–It is a quaint, wooded town of 2,300, nestled between Sturbridge and Brimfield on the banks of the pristine Hamilton Reservoir. A white, steepled church, a school, the town hall […]

In the North End, community grows by itself–but for how long? Five years ago, when I first told my Cambridge friends I was moving to Boston’s North End, they said […]

Robert Moses became a legend of the Civil Rights Movement dodging bullets and taking beatings as he organized voter registration drives in Mississippi. Today, he is battling ignorance of a […]

Massachusetts is basking in the economic glow of a record low unemployment rate, which dipped to just over 2 percent last fall. But not all parts of the state share […]