Top 11 Mass. cities and towns for home values

Despite the odds, these communities had higher single-family home values in 2011 than they did before the recession.

NStar planning overnight outage in Prudential Tunnel

NStar has scheduled a power outage at midnight in the Prudential Tunnel to bring it back to permanent power following last week’s transformer fire in the Back Bay.

Romney targets Obama over gasoline prices

Speaking on Sunday morning television, Mitt Romney blamed high gasoline prices on President Obama and three of his officials.

http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_90x90/Boston/2011-2020/2012/03/17/BostonGlobe.com/National/Images/bender_18distrust1_nat.jpg In Afghanistan, trust among allies erodes

Trust has frayed between Afghan allies and US and NATO troops after recent violent incidents.

London getting up to speed for Olympics

With the Games expected to cost British taxpayers $15 billion to $17 billion, no detail is too small for scrutiny.

Yvonne Abraham

http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_90x90/Boston/2011-2020/2012/03/18/BostonGlobe.com/Metro/Images/abraham-1465.jpg The road to wisdom

There are 6,000 Boston cab drivers. It’s a pretty good bet none of them has been around as long, or seen as much, as Mellis Franks.

Still driving his cab at 86 years old

Mellis Franks has seen many changes in Boston in his more than 40 years as a cab driver.

Participants in Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade included characters from “Star Wars.”

Boston turns out for St. Patrick’s Day parade

On a day when the weather was perfect for outdoor festivities, thousands of people were in South Boston for the yearly St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray poked fun at himself by appearing at Sunday’s breakfast roast in the guise of a race car driver, calling to mind the car crash in which he was involved last fall.

In South Boston, breakfast roast is on the menu

The annual breakfast was a chance for politicos to poke fun at rivals and themselves, and to try out their comedic timing.

“I don’t think it should be a cakewalk because of the name, of course. But I think he is going places and I would like a photo of him.”

Charlie Shapiro,  on Joseph P. Kennedy III’s race for Congress

Globe Insiders

To Grammar’s House

http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_90x90/Boston/2011-2020/2012/03/16/BostonGlobe.com/Special/Images/SPRINGCLEANING2.jpg Spring cleaning for grammar rules

Grammar’s House can get a bit cluttered sometimes, often with rules that are capricious, spurious, or flat-out erroneous.

Inside The Boston Globe

While the team’s president/CEO may not have officially signed a new deal, Larry Lucchino said, “I’ve reached an understanding on it, for the most part. I’ll just leave it at that.”

Sunday baseball notes

Red Sox CEO Lucchino sees long-term role with team

At Fort Point studios, artists feel betrayed

Once a model, state medical board lags badly

For the Kennedy clan, he is Generation Next
Josh Crary (left) will run one leg of the Marathon with guide Doug Trudel.

Runners in it for the long haul

Travel | New York

The arts of crafts in Williamsburg
Egypt protests

The Internationalist

The lost dream of Egyptian pluralism

Quincy Nang (right) waited to enter the Apple Store in Boston today to purchase the new Apple iPad.

In Boston, Apple fans line up for new iPad

St. Patrick’s Day holds mixed emotions for some

Movies

Fans hope ‘The Hunger Games’ will deliver

Guarding the Fort in Gloucester
Stone tools were found at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania that could be 15,000 to 17,000 years old..

Did the Solutreans settle America first?

Metro

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Tutor Annie Query talked with Malia Cajuste at the Match Community Day Charter School in Jamaica Plain.

Charter school focuses on teaching youngsters English

The mission of the Match Community Day Charter School in Jamaica Plain is to help youngsters overcome language barriers.

Business

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CNC machinist Computer numerical control machinists like Dustin Kellogg of Tell Tool make $50,000 to $100,000 a year depending on skill level and amount of overtime worked.

Manufacturers seek skilled workers

As manufacturing rebounds and becomes more technical in Massachusetts, skilled workers are now in high demand.

Columnists

Yvonne Abraham

The road to wisdom

INNOVATION ECONOMY

Not all was lost when Apple bought Quattro

Jeff Jacoby

On mandate, Romney plays both sides

Gareth Cook

Why do nations fail?

Joan Vennochi | Whitey Bulger: Living large?

DiMasi should be so lucky

Joanna Weiss | Whitey Bulger: Living large?

Zest up the memoir

Christopher L. Gasper

Throwing a net around the Bruins’ problems

Love Letters

Should they get engaged before the move-in?

Lawrence Harmon

A start-up center for Roxbury?

Adrian Walker

Cooking as rehabilitation

opinion | RENÉE LOTH

Mass. assets aren’t rosy for everyone

Brian McGrory

The powerful and the powerless

Nation & World

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An image taken off official Syrian television on Sunday shows damaged vehicles following a car bomb in Syria's second largest city of Aleppo, a day after two lethal blasts in Damascus.

Bomb explodes in Syrian city

A bomb exploded Sunday in the Syrian city of Aleppo, and in Damascus the government cracked down on rallies marking the one-year anniversary of the uprising.

Politics

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK

Put end to oil industry tax breaks, Obama says

President Obama said that Congress should kill tax breaks for the oil and gas industry and help develop alternative sources of energy.

Sports

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NFL notebook

Former St. Louis Rams wide receiver Brandon Lloyd had made no secret of the fact that he wanted to play for the Patriots.

Lloyd, Patriots agree to terms

The Patriots came to terms with receiver Brandon Lloyd, and also signed defensive end/outside linebacker Trevor Scott and receiver Anthony Gonzalez.

Travel

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Glasgow chefs put fresh accents on Scottish fare

Glaswegian chefs have taken creative liberties with fusty standards, swapped fried for fresh and, in the process, exchanged the title “cook’’ for “chef.”

Books

Book review

'Coral Glynn' by Peter Cameron

Characters follow twisting trajectories in this Gothic romantic comedy.

Arts

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Jen Chia and her disco-mirror shark

The former MIT student and model found her way through life, with the help of a mirror-covered shark.

Magazine

The cover for the March 18 2012 issue

Grover Norquist: Emperor of no
The cover for the March 11 2012 issue

Stoughton’s Lori McKenna is writing her heart out
The cover for the March 4 2012 issue

Putting college degrees to work
The cover for the February 26 2012 issue

24 hours in Kendall Square

Opinion

“They say all things must end, but the wrangling over Mitt Romney’s support for an individual health insurance mandate persists without letup.”

Jeff Jacoby 

Ideas

“If the Solutrean hypothesis becomes widely accepted, it would mean that the sea played a central part in human expansion. And in the matter of ‘who came first,’ it would mean that all the Americas have a new origin story to contend with.”

Gareth Cook