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Second in a series of profiles of the gubernatorial candidates In this January 2014 photo, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley addresses a breakfast meeting of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. Coakley, a Democrat, is seeking the governor’s office in the 2014 election. (Steven Senne/AP) PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Martha Coakley, the state attorney general and Democratic candidate for governor, met me at a coffee shop on the main street of this western Massachusetts city, where she was born 61 years ago. She grew up some 20 miles north in another factory town: North Adams. Continue reading >>>

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And the Rents Came Tumbling Down (Sort Of)We called a luxury apartment glut a while ago and it looks like it's here. Newer developments are starting to offer mad-crazy incentives to lure tenants (two free months?!) and others are taking their sweet time leasing up. Add to this surplus of supply a greater number of vacancies in general and you've got the seeds of gradually lower rents, particularly at the higher-end. We think this fall will mark the end, at least for a while, of $3,000-a-month studios. It was a helluva run. Mass. Rolls the Dice on Everett or Revere Mark your calendars: Friday, Continue reading >>>

Mayor Martin J. Walsh is expected to throw his backing today behind attorney general candidate Warren Tolman, as the hotly contested race inches toward the primary.Walsh is set to make the endorsement — his first in a statewide race — at a campaign stop today with Tolman, who has largely polled neck-and-neck with his opponent, Maura Healey, but has pulled union support thanks in large part to his brother, Steve Tolman, who heads the state’s AFL-CIO.“Which mayor was it again? I’ve heard of him,” Warren Tolman said coyly to a question of getting Walsh’s backing. “I love Marty Walsh. Continue reading >>>

PHILADELPHIA — Severe thunderstorms across the Northeast on Sunday slowed operations at airports, wreaked havoc at outdoor sporting and musical events in New York and Philadelphia and sent people scurrying from a beach after three men were struck by lightning. The men were injured at Orchard Beach on Pelham Bay in the Bronx on Sunday evening as bad storms rolled through the area, the Fire Department of New York said. The men were being treated at a hospital, and the extent of their injuries was unknown. Continue reading below The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings for Worcester Continue reading >>>

The next Massachusetts governor will make choices that will define the state’s economic destiny. Greater Boston may seem relatively secure in the good graces of the knowledge economy, but the next governor must have policies on taxes, transportation, energy, health care, and housing that provide incentives to convince promising startups to stay here and expand. Outside the Boston area, the choices only get harder. Can the state’s gateway cities rebuild their crumbling downtowns and faltering school systems to attract the manufacturers who are starting to bring jobs back from overseas? What Continue reading >>>

1. COAKLEY COMEBACK? Some Democrats have never forgiven Martha Coakley for her stunning loss to Republican Scott Brown in a 2010 special election to fill the seat of the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy. The defeat ended the Democrats' supermajority in the Senate and was a severe blow to the party not only in Massachusetts but nationally, coming at a time when President Barack Obama was trying to shepherd his health care overhaul through Congress. Yet opinion polls suggest Coakley, the state's attorney general, remains popular among voters as she bids to succeed Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick and Continue reading >>>

Foreign students are flocking to — and spending cash — at Greater Boston colleges and universities at one of the highest rates in the country, helping pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy in the process, according to a new report.Greater Boston schools boast the third-most foreign students in the nation, and the $1.77 billion they spent here on tuition between 2008 and 2012 trails only New York nationally, according to the report released yesterday by the Washington think tank, the Brookings Institution, and JP Morgan Chase Co.International students, in turn, also spent Continue reading >>>