Opinion

Gov. Sarah Palina s decision to resign from office later this month is a good decision for the state of Alaska.

I walked the length of the westbound Lake Shore Limited as it left Albany last Sunday, six crowded coaches, and counted three Twitterers and a couple of phone texters, six laptoppers , four video gamers, and 27 people reading books.

In Congress, July 4, 1776, the unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.

Yesterday the MBTA announced it would test some new collision-avoidance technology on a two-mile-long Green Line branch in the wake of two crashes in the past year.

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the winner of its annual Sitting Duck Award, a tongue-in-cheek honor that pokes fun at the most ridiculed newsmakers in the United States.

The Indiana General Assembly passed a $27.8 billion, two-year budget Tuesday night, with the support of both Republicans and Democrats, putting an end to the special session.

This is probably not the best week to air any reservations about the American passion for independence.

Independence Day weekend is a good time not only for hot dogs and fireworks, but to reflect for a moment on what makes this country unique, the qualities that enabled it to become in some ways the most successful country in history, and to contemplate the extent to which those qualities still animate Americans.

The Supreme Court's ruling on the Ricci case - that white firemen suffered illegal discrimination when a promotional test on which they did well was thrown out because not enough blacks did well - will have no effect on Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court.

The greatest tourist attraction in Central America has always been politics. Diplomats stop by every few years, take a couple of snapshots of what's going on at the presidential palace, and then profoundly declare their opinions, devoid of context or history.

Dear Robin: Here it is wedding season again, and I have a question about RSVP etiquette.

Sometimes, death is a blind-side hit. When it comes at the end of a long life, as it did last week for 86-year-old Ed McMahon, you are saddened by it but not particularly surprised.

As one who is critical of racial preferences, I'm surprised to find myself disappointed in the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, a case involving a group of mostly white firefighters in New Haven, Conn.

Schenectady County lawmakers may have had their hearts in the right place last year when they passed a law banning text-messaging while driving, but their brains appear to have been another matter.

Now that Bernard Madoff seems destined to die in prison, what should we think about the rampant Ponzimonium going on all over the world? It seems there are a few lessons to be learned - lessons for regulators, investors and the scam artists themselves.

Finally the election for Minnesota's contested U.S. Senate race has been decided.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter's free-press legacy may well center more on what he said off the bench than on his role in significant decisions in cases ranging from confidential sources to sidewalk news racks.

The future of a nation is in the hands of Iraqi's leaders and its people. As American troops completed their withdrawal from Iraqi towns and cities on Tuesday, congregating mostly in forward operating bases where they can be called upon when needed, the Iraqi people expressed jubilation tempered with caution and doubt about whether their security ...

Although New Haven's firefighters deservedly won in the Supreme Court, it is deeply depressing that they won narrowly - 5-4. The egregious behavior by that city's government, in a context of racial rabble-rousing, did not seem legally suspect to even one of the court's four liberals, whose harmony seemed to reflect result-oriented rather than ...

We are the world, we are the children, We are the ones to make a brighter day So let's start giving.