Tens of thousands of unemployed workers in Massachusetts won’t have to worry about their jobless benefits being cut on Christmas. President Obama yesterday quickly signed into law a massive tax-compromise bill that includes funds to extend …

A quartet of Controversial judicial picks by Gov. Deval Patrick — including the wife of a deep-pocketed State Representative — have escalated infighting on the Governor’s Council as some members say nominees are being rushed thr…

It happened nearly a year ago, but the come-from-nowhere U.S. Senate victory of GOP upstart Scott Brown in January still strikes many Herald readers as the most important news story of the year. “Scott Brown winning the election may have be…

WASHINGTON — With an end-of-year deadline bearing down on them both, President Barack Obama and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell put auld acquaintance behind them on Friday, standing before television cameras together as their sweepi…

ISLAMABAD — The CIA yanked its top spy out of Pakistan after his cover was blown and his life threatened, and 54 suspected Militants were killed in a U.S. drone missile attack Friday in stark new signs of the troubled relationship between mi…

WASHINGTON — Rushing to finish by Christmas, congressional Democrats worked Friday to secure Senate ratification of a new Arms Control treaty and to end the Military’s ban on Openly Gay service members as they neared the end of two tum…

HONOLULU -- Sarah Palin says she’s still "some months" away from a decision about whether to seek the presidency in 2012, and that she won’t be deterred by polls showing that she may not be the Republican Party’s best Candidate t…

Gov. Deval Patrick could announce a new Supreme Judicial Court nominee at any time and next week is scheduled to formally elevate Judge Roderick Ireland to Chief Justice of the state’s highest court. Ireland will become the first African-Am…