washington

The Athens of America will get a chance to bid for the Olympics. The USOC picked Boston on Thursday as its bid city for the 2024 Summer Games. The city will be presented to the International Olympic Committee for a vote in 2017. Rome also is in the bidding, along with Hamburg or Berlin, Germany...

Massachusetts Gov.-elect Charlie Baker is gearing up for a daylong trip to the White House where he's scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama. Baker told The Associated Press on Thursday that he first thought all 50 governors would be invited, but later realized it included only five or six newly elected governors...

Thousands are in Washington, DC for the dedication of a new memorial for disabled veterans. President Obama spoke at Sunday's ceremony, acknowledging that too often America has not lived up to its obligation to care for vets. The 80-million-dollar American Veterans Disabled For Life Memorial was funded by donations from more than a million people...

Authorities have released the identities of two skydivers killed after they crashed into a building during a tandem jump on Cape Cod. Andrew Munson, of Nantucket, and his instructor, Eldon Burrier, of West Lynnwood, Washington, died Sunday while skydiving at the Marstons Mills Airport in Barnstable...

An investigation is underway in Seattle into a news helicopter crash that killed two people near the Space Needle.  Kyle Moore with the Seattle Fire Department says the two bodies found inside the helicopter are still at the crash scene.  ...

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is starkly warning European allies that they must bear more of the burden of modernizing NATO or risk it becoming irrelevant.

Gov. Deval Patrick is heading to Washington to participate in a two-day National Governors Association winter meeting.       On Sunday, Patrick is scheduled to participate in an education and workforce committee, including meeting with U.S. S...

Attorney General Martha Coakley says she's proud of her office's defense before the U.S. Supreme Court of the 35-foot protest-free zone outside Massachusetts abortion clinics. Coakley was in Washington for the arguments Wednesday by two of her assistants...

The mayor of Washington, Ill., estimates that up to 500 homes in his town were either damaged or destroyed by a wave of fierce storms that brought damaging winds and tornadoes to 12 states yesterday.  Mayor Gary Manier says, ``Everybody's without power, but some people are without everything.'' S...

Severe weather erupted through the middle of the country on Sunday. The National Weather Service says at least 60 tornadoes were reported throughout the region, with the most damaging touching down in Illionis. At least three people were reported killed, and in two communities, the storms destroyed 70 homes.  A...