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A Quincy man has been charged with obstructing the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings, the U.S. Attorney's Office just announced. Khairullozhon Matanov, 23, is charged in an indictment that was unsealed today, with one count of destroying, altering, and falsifying records, documents, and tangible objects in a federal investigation, specifically information on his computer, and three counts of making materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements in a federal terrorism investigation. Developing ...

When the history of this presidency is written, it will record that bold, progressive reforms dramatically reshaped the face of government, thanks to the vision, creativity, and political will of one man. And that man is Mitt Romney. President Obama already has Gina McCarthy, who designed Romney’s cap-and-trade program in Massachusetts, running the Environmental Protection Agency for him. Coral Davenport reports today that the administration’s new regulations of power plants, due for release Monday, will be designed to expand the structure Romney built: As governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Romney was a key architect of a cap-and-trade program in nine northeastern...

First he said "OMG" to get the kids on his side. Then former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg (Harvard MBA '66) did his Bloomberg thing in a commencement speech today, calling for bipartisanship and civility and all that. "There is an idea floating around college campuses — including here at Harvard — that scholars should be funded only if their work conforms to a particular view of justice," he said. "There's a word for that idea: censorship. And it is just a modern-day form of McCarthyism." An edited version of the speech was then posted, fittingly, on Bloomberg's centrist pet project...

The National September 11 Memorial Museum has pulled its controversial commemorative cheese platter from its shelves after an outcry at the museum’s opening. The USA-shaped platter featured hearts over New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, where the planes crashed on 9/11. The item was first reported by Gothamist a week ago and was met with resounding criticism.

Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell, leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, has joined with the three other bishops in Massachusetts to support a new comprehensive state bill aimed at combating gun violence in the state. The Massachusetts Catholic Conference released a statement on behalf of the four Roman Catholic bishops in the state in reaction to the House’s new bill unveiled Tuesday. The other three leaders who signed the statement are Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston; Rev. Robert J. McManus, bishop of Worcester and Rev. George W. Coleman, bishop of Fall River, according to Mark E. Dupont, spokesman...

...Prosecutor Patrick Haggan said that in the months leading up to the shooting, Hernandez had become increasingly convinced that people “had been testing, trying or otherwise disrespecting him when he frequented nightclubs in the area.” Haggan told the court Hernandez and a friend drove from Connecticut to Boston that night to go to a nightclub called Cure. They were standing at the edge of the dance floor when de Abreu accidentally bumped into Hernandez, smiled at him and did not apologize, according to prosecutors. Haggan said Hernandez became agitated and told his friend that de Abreu had deliberately bumped him,...

Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo today unveiled sweeping legislation he said will give the Bay State the “most effective” gun laws in the country in a long-awaited roll-out spurred by the horrific Newtown school shootings 18 months ago. The bill, called the state’s most comprehensive since 1998 by House leaders, adds the state to a nationwide criminal background database and, for the first time, allows local police chiefs discretion in licensing owners for shotguns and rifles. The legislation also bans the private sale of guns without a licensed gun dealer and requires gun owners to list all the guns...

A Hadley man is hoping this will finally be the year lawmakers require the state to post all government jobs in a statewide employment database. "Something's wrong when qualified people aren't applying for jobs paid for by the taxpayers because they don't know about them," said Thomas McGee, a retired adjunct professor at Bay Path College. McGee is the driving force behind House Bill 1762 and its companion Senate Bill 889. McGee first filed the bills, through his senator and representative, in 1995, after he was dismayed to discover that the state did not list all government jobs at state...

You can't really blame Attorney General Martha Coakley for not knowing how much the state tax on gasoline is. How could she? She hasn't paid it in years, at least since 2006 when she was elected attorney general. Since then, as the state's chief law officer, she has had a state car and a state driver, usually a state cop, driving her around. Consequently, although you might find the 60-year-old Democrat candidate for governor pumping iron to get in shape, you would never catch her pumping gas. Pumping iron, yes. Pumping gas, no. The state limo arrives with a full...

Prosecutors seeking a death penalty conviction of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Wednesday said the FBI at the time of his arrest last year believed he and his brother Tamerlan had been trained by a terrorist group because of the sophistication of their weapons and tradecraft. The Chechen immigrants are alleged to have built the two pressure cooker improvised explosive devices that detonated Monday, April 15, 2013 near the race's finish line, killing three Bostonians and wounding more than 260 other marathon spectators. "These relatively sophisticated devices would have been difficult for the Tsarnaevs to fabricate successfully without...

Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote a note declaring “we Muslims are one body” as he emerged from the boat where he had hidden from investigators, according to a report based on court documents.

Starting tomorrow, it’s no longer illegal to be illegal in Somerville, according to Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, who is slated to sign an executive order Thursday barring his cops from holding undocumented aliens in jail simply for immigration violations — an unprecedented move, even in the Bay State, though other communities may quickly follow suit. “We need to stop villainizing these people and start solving the problem,” Curtatone told the Herald yesterday. “Massachusetts holds itself out as a progressive state. We should lead the way. We hold ourselves out as a progressive community that believes in fairness and doing the...

Like most of the rest of the United States, Massachusetts is fast becoming a banana republic — minus the bananas. Tomorrow, we’ll find out just how far gone the state is, when Judge David Ricciardone in Worcester hands down his sentence on an illegal alien drunken driver from Ecuador charged with murder in the death of a taxpaying American citizen in Milford in 2011. The fact that it took almost three years to get this illegal — I mean, undocumented Democrat — to trial just goes to show the double standard of “justice” in the People’s Republic.

Amherst College, which banned fraternities and sororities in 1984, has now taken this an alarming step further: starting July 1, any students participating in an unofficial fraternity or sorority will be punished, and could be expelled. A college has the right to ban fraternities only in the sense of refusing to recognize gender-biased exclusive social groups as official student organizations. When it seeks to punish students for being members of off-campus groups of any kind, as Amherst is doing, it is violating student rights. I happen to agree with “banning” most fraternities and sororities. Registered student groups should not have...

Massa's wife, Sally Jenkins, tells the Boston Herald her husband realized he wouldn't be allowed in when he saw the security area and was arrested while leaving. She was at the commencement to see her sister graduate. The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office says the 28-year-old Massa has a license to carry firearms for hunting and target practice. He faces a civil penalty for violating the terms of that license

Swamped with a total of nearly $133 million in first-time taxes and fees assessed by the Obama administration to finance the federal health care overhaul, the state’s three largest health insurers Thursday posted steep losses for the three months ending March 31. Insurance companies, like drug and medical device makers, were required to help fund the Affordable Care Act through annual taxes that must be booked in the first quarter for accounting purposes. But the insurers said they will try to recoup much of the added cost through the year by boosting premiums for employers and individuals buying insurance.

CRAZY!… Obama Does Not Mention – Islam, Muslim, Al-Qaeda, Islamists – Not Once in Today’s 9-11 Memorial Speech.. [ full title ] . gave a lengthy speech at the 9/11 Museum dedication. He did not mention – Islam, Muslim, Islamist, Al-Qaeda – not once. It might be too offensive. It’s as if it was a random act of violence. ... Today the Islamists won – again.

Noel Ignatiev, a professor at Massachusetts College of Art, has for years advocated the total elimination of Caucasians. During his final lecture before retirement last Monday, he told his white male students "you don’t deserve to live. You are a cancer, you’re a disease." NOEL IGNATIEV: If you are a white male, you don’t deserve to live. You are a cancer, you’re a disease, white males have never contributed anything positive to the world! They only murder, exploit and oppress non-whites! At least a white woman can have sex with a black man and make a brown baby but what...

Madeline R. Lear Hundreds gather in St. Paul Catholic Church for a holy hour Monday night in response to a planned reenactment of a Satanic black mass. UPDATED: May 12, 2014, at 8:15 p.m. The Harvard Extension School Cultural Studies Club has dropped its sponsorship of a re-enactment of a Satanic “black mass” ritual, which was scheduled to occur Monday evening at Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub. A spokesperson for the Satanic Temple, which was facilitating the black mass, said that the organization no longer plans to hold a black mass this evening.The Harvard Extension School Cultural Studies Club originally...

Atheist parents and students wanted the Pledge of Allegiance banned in schools in Massachusetts because it contains the phrase "under God," but the state's highest court has ruled that reciting it does not violate the commonwealth's constitution or laws. "We hold that the recitation of the pledge, which is entirely voluntary, violates neither the Constitution nor the statute [which prohibits discrimination in Massachusetts public school education] ...," the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said Friday in Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District. "Simply being offended by something does not make it a violation of the Massachusetts Constitution," said Senior Legal Counsel...