Government

If hypocrisy had a face, a look, a certain familiar strut, it would be that of old favorite Curt Schilling as he pushed his way through a swirling collection of reporters and photographers in Providence this week with absolutely nothing of consequence to say. Curt Schilling, mute, the one time he actually owed an explanation. Perfect. But that's a minor point, really. There's a larger hypocrisy in his failing video game venture, the one that Rhode Island state officials giddily backed to the tune of $75 million in loan guarantees, which seems to be a fancy financial term for...

Figures on government spending and debt (last six digits are eliminated). The government's fiscal year runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30. Total public debt subject to limit May 24 15,670,038 Statutory debt limit 16,394,000 Total public debt outstanding May 24 15,712,446 Operating balance May 24 71,897 Interest fiscal year 2012 through April 145,702 Interest same period 2011 139,241 Deficit fiscal year 2012 through April 719,859 Deficit same period 2011...

Last Monday, leaders from Partners HealthCare System Inc. gathered in the dark-paneled office of Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo to lay out their objections to his expansive 278-page plan to tame health care costs. The House proposal, unveiled 10 days earlier, called in part for closer oversight of the prices and operations of hospitals and their physicians groups, especially more costly ones like those owned by Partners, and influential board chairman Jack Connors requested a meeting.

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Thousands of people in speeding trucks or pulling carts piled high with clothes and furniture fled a region north of Mogadishu Thursday amid the sounds of gunfire and explosions as government troops and their allies tried to take more ground from Islamist insurgents. The Afgoye corridor has been a shelter for hundreds of thousands of people seeking relief from violence that has plagued Mogadishu the last several years. African Union and Somali forces pushed al-Shabab militants out of Mogadishu last August and are now trying to seize...

Repairs to the aging Sagamore Bridge during the spring have slowed traffic leaving Cape Cod to a crawl most nights and backed it up for miles on Sundays, culminating in a Mother's Day morass when the stalled line of cars stretched past multiple exits on Route 6 and triggered all-day gridlock on nearby Route 6A. "Whoever conceived of this plan should be fired," said Anne Kilguss, a Boston social worker and psychotherapist with a second home in...

Basic standards of fairness require immigration cases involving married gay couples to be treated the same as heterosexual couples. But so far, the Defense of Marriage Act prevents the federal government from recognizing such marriages. As a result, legally married same-sex couples can't petition for a green card for their foreign spouses. Sometimes, those spouses are deported. Since the Obama administration announced in 2011 that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, same-sex couples in this situation have been in limbo.

The burgeoning movement to put more college classes online, which attracted the support of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology earlier this month, is getting another endorsement that may have an even greater impact: rigorous evidence that the computer can be as effective as the classroom. A new study compared two versions of an introductory statistics course, one taught face to face by professors and one mostly taught online with only an hour a week of face time.

Tim Thomas separated himself from his Bruins' teammates yesterday afternoon when he refused to join them at the White House, a day meant to celebrate their 2011 Stanley Cup championship. The two-time Vezina Trophy winner later in the day issued a statement, released by NHL.com and on Thomas's Facebook page just after 6 p.m., noting his disillusionment with the United States government and offering that as his reason not to stand with his team. "I believe the federal government has grown out of control," he stated, "threatening the rights, liberties, and...

In the end, they probably just can't resist. Former Red Sox star Curt Schilling's digital-game firm is far from the first young company to gain government backing, only to run into financial problems that put taxpayers' money at risk. But political leaders keep making these bets, despite high-profile flops such as alternative energy firms Solyndra LLC in California and Evergreen Solar in Massachusetts, both of which received millions of dollars in government support and ended up bankrupt.

Don't try to friend MaLi Arwood on Facebook. You won't find her there. You won't find Thomas Chin, either. Or Kariann Goldschmitt. Or Jake Edelstein. More than 900 million people worldwide check their Facebook accounts at least once a month, but millions more are Facebook holdouts. They say they don't want Facebook. They insist they don't need Facebook. They say they're living life just fine without the long-forgotten acquaintances that the world's largest social network sometimes resurrects.

An official says a court in central Vietnam has sentenced three political activists to up to three and a half years in prison for distributing anti-government leaflets. Presiding Judge Vi Van Chat said that the three were convicted of "spreading propaganda against the state" at Thursday's half-day trial in Nghe An province. He says they were also ordered to serve up to 18 months under house arrest, adding that the fourth defendant was given a two-year suspended sentence.

The Syrian regime and an increasingly organized rebel force are carrying out illegal killings and torturing their opponents, but government forces are still responsible for most of the violence stemming from the country's uprising, a U.N. panel said Thursday. The findings were released in Geneva by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, which said the conflict has become "increasingly militarized. " The report was based on hundreds of interviews since March with victims and witnesses who fled the country.

Nepal's government wants the repeatedly extended Constituent Assembly to get yet another three months to finish writing the Himalayan nation's constitution, and even members of the ruling parties are crying foul. The assembly was elected in 2008 and was supposed to finish the job in two years, but its deadline has been pushed back repeatedly. The current deadline expires Sunday. Law Minister Krishna Sitaula said a proposal to extend the assembly's tenure was registered at the assembly Tuesday night after an emergency meeting of the...

The government has announced a settlement requiring BP North America Inc. to spend more than $400 million to reduce pollution at an Indiana refinery. The agreement is designed to reduce harmful air pollution by more than 4,000 tons annually at the facility in Whiting, which is a half-hour drive southeast of Chicago. The government alleged violations of Clean Air Act requirements regarding construction and expansion of the refinery. BP will install equipment that will limit the amount of gas sent to flaring devices used to burn off waste gases.

New Zealand's government says it is introducing new rules to address workplace problems aboard foreign-owned fishing vessels. Academic and media reports in recent years have detailed appalling conditions and abusive labor practices aboard some foreign-flagged fishing vessels operating in New Zealand waters. Those reports prompted the government last year to launch an inquiry. On Tuesday, the government announced that by 2016, it will require all foreign-owned fishing vessels to "reflag" in New Zealand, making them subject to stricter local rules governing...

In the end, they probably just can't resist. Former Red Sox star Curt Schilling's digital-game firm is far from the first young company to gain government backing, only to run into financial problems that put taxpayers' money at risk. But political leaders keep making these bets, despite high-profile flops such as alternative energy firms Solyndra LLC in California and Evergreen Solar in Massachusetts, both of which received millions of dollars in government support and ended up bankrupt.

Ten years ago, Susan McWhinney-Morse had no desire to leave her longtime Beacon Hill home and neighborhood just because she and her husband were retired and growing older. The expectation then, as it is now, was that retired people sold their homes, then moved to Florida or some other retirement-like community where they would be surrounded by other senior residents. "But my little slogan was ‘No, no, I won't go!' " said McWhinney-Morse. "I love where I live, and I felt strongly about a society that takes the elderly and warehouses them.

JIEGU, China — Tibetan monks in crimson robes dug through earthquake rubble alongside government rescue workers yesterday, a startling image for a Chinese region long strained by suspicion and unrest. The central government has poured in troops and equipment to this remote western region, but it is the influential Buddhist monks residents trust with their lives — and with their dead. As the death toll climbed to at least 1,144, there was tension and some distrust over the government relief effort, with survivors scuffling over limited aid. “They have a relaxed attitude,’’...

Bankia, the nationalized Spanish bank which had to reassure savers last week to fend off a reported run on its deposits, needs to strengthen its capital defenses by as much as (EURO)7.5 billion ($9.56 billion), the country's economy minister said Monday. The minister, Luis de Guindos, said Bankia needed to find around (EURO)7 billion to (EURO)7.5 billion to meet the Spanish government's new provisioning requirements designed to strengthen the country's banking industry against further economic shocks.

Jeff Jacoby's May 16 op-ed column is headlined " On health care, state doesn't know best . " The private sector doesn't know best either. Jacoby cites ancient Roman history to buttress his objections to recent proposals from the Legislature to cut health care costs. He would have done better to have reviewed what we in the health sector have tried for decades, and what has created a fragmented, wasteful, mediocre, and, at times, harmful health care non-system. There has been a lot of earnest, hard work done over these years, and we didn't get it done.