As the income gap rises, Americans will have a new type of segregation to reckon with. Commentator Ed Fouhy looks at the damaging cultural effects of segregation based on income.

Northampton, MASS. — State, local and federal officials are working together to try to find who’s responsible for a string of fires that killed two people in Northampton on Sunday morning.

BOSTON — For the second straight month, Massachusetts’ unemployment rate fell slightly, from 8.9 percent in October to 8.8 percent in November.

BOSTON — State Sen. Scott Brown, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate, faces an uphill battle in the short general election campaign ahead. Massachusetts has not sent a Republican to Congress since 1994.

Evergreen Solar is shifting some of its manufacturing production from Massachusetts to China after posting an $82 million loss in the third quarter.

Longtime Boston community activist Robert Coard, who suffered from heart disease, only officially retired from his post as chief of Action for Boston Community Development on Sunday. He had been with the anti-poverty agency for 45 years.

After being ousted from his post in August, the former head of the embattled MBTA will join the non-partisan think tank MassINC as a senior fellow for public policy.

For the first time since they advanced to the general election, the candidates for Boston mayor faced off in a discussion Thursday night over education, the economy and public safety.

The Massachusetts Association of Realtors and the real estate publisher The Warren Group said the median price for a single family home was between $302,OOO and $315,000 in August — down 3 to 6 percent from 2008.

State officials have ordered the city of Boston to hire an independent expert to recover hundreds of e-mails deleted by a top aide to Mayor Thomas Menino.