Free Republic

Massachusetts lost residents for the second year in a row, new federal Census estimates show, underscoring an accelerating population shift from the Northeast to the South and West that threatens to erode the state's political and economic clout. Only two other states, along with the District of Columbia, lost population from July 1, 2004, to July 1 of this year, according to US Census estimates released yesterday. The Bay State lost about 8,600 residents, or .1 percent of its population, according to the estimates. If the trend continues, specialists say, the state will face serious consequences: fewer seats in Congress,...

BOSTON -- It's a $14.6 billion engineering marvel, a brand-new complex of highway tunnels beneath downtown Boston that allows traffic to whisk through one of the most congested business districts in the nation. There's just one problem. It leaks like a sieve. After more than a decade of monumental traffic jams and constantly shifting detours, construction of the Central Artery and Tunnel Project--known locally as the "Big Dig"--largely came to an end earlier this year, and local officials opened the new downtown tunnel with great fanfare. But in September, water started pouring through a tunnel wall one afternoon, causing lane...