Mark Memmott

Before his surprising revelation Wednesday on the website of The New York Times magazine that he is an undocumented immigrant, journalist Jose Antonio Vargas had worked with editors at one of his previous employers, The Washington Post, to tell the story on the Post's p

There were 429,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance filed last week, an increase of 9,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration just reported.

And in further evidence of a weak labor market, it revised up its estimate of first-time claims from that previous week: to 420,000 from the initial estimate of 414,000 for the week ending June 11.

Good morning.

There's great excitement today among Harry Potter fans.

Author J.K. Rowling has gone on the Web to say that in October a website called Pottermore.com is launching — and that it will be a "safe, unique online reading experience built around the Potter books." It will be the place to buy, for the first time, e-book versions of the Potter series.

A man who is about as notorious in Boston as al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden was captured Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif.

James "Whitey" Bulger, a gangster wanted for his alleged role in 19 murders who turned his FBI handlers into informants and is accused of using information he got from them to kill his enemies, had been on the run for 16 years.