BOSTON (Reuters) – Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts opens a large new contemporary art wing this weekend in what curators say reflects a more forward-looking tilt to the city’s arts scene.

Anchoring the launch is the temporary exhibit, “Ellsworth Kelly: Wood Sculpture,” surveying four decades of works by the famous American minimalist painter and sculptor.

The Linde Family Wing of Contemporary Art, which includes more than 21,000 square feet of gallery space, is housed in the MFA’s 1981 I.M. Pei expansion.

More than 200 pieces from the permanent collection are on show, arranged in seven galleries that range from paintings to decorative arts to video and new media.

“Contemporary collectors in Boston have been fired up for a long time, and they’ve been waiting for this,” said Al Miner, an assistant curator at the MFA.

Economic jitters notwithstanding, interest in buying contemporary art is “through the roof,” Miner said.

Kelly, who attended a pre-opening event on Thursday, has been feted with retrospectives at New York’s Guggenheim Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others, and has worked with wood sporadically over a six-decade career.

, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren took the message that made her unpopular with Wall Street to Massachusetts voters on Wednesday as she began her U.S. Senate campaign vowing to fight for the middle class.

“Washington gives some of the biggest corporations in the world special loopholes and tax breaks, while middle-class families and small businesses struggle,” Warren said.

A Harvard Law School professor who created the Obama administration’s new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Warren hopes to unseat popular Republican Scott Brown in what could be the most closely watched congressional race of 2012.

“Middle class families have been chipped at, hacked at, squeezed and hammered for a generation now, and I don’t think Washington gets it,” Warren said. “I think this is past labels. This is about a core set of values.

Warren, 62, started the day greeting commuters at a train station in South Boston. She later talked to customers at a diner in Framingham, west of Boston, for over an hour — one of at least six campaign stops planned in the next two days.

The candidate was greeted with enthusiasm .

“She is intelligent and has a very good understanding of the special interests in this country. She’s a breath of fresh air,” said Ellen Courchene, a retired guidance counselor from Wayland, Massachusetts.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren hit the campaign trail on Wednesday after officially launching her bid for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts with a vow to fight for the middle class.

“Washington gives some of the biggest corporations in the world special loopholes and tax breaks, while middle-class families and small businesses struggle. This is wrong,” Warren said in an e-mailed statement.

A Harvard Law School professor who created the Obama administration’s new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Warren hopes to unseat popular Republican Scott Brown in what could be the most closely-watched Congressional race of 2012.

“Middle class families have been chipped at, hacked at, squeezed and hammered for a generation now, and I don’t think Washington gets it,” Warren said.

“A big company, like GE, pays nothing in taxes, and we’re asking college students to take on even more debt to get an education? We’re telling seniors they may need to learn to live on less? It isn’t right, and it’s the reason I’m running.”

Warren, 62, met with commuters at a train station in South Boston early Wednesday, and will make at least six campaign stops across the state over the next two days.

A former public school and Methodist Sunday school teacher, Warren has hardscrabble roots. She grew up in Oklahoma where her father was a janitor and her family struggled during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry said on Tuesday Washington lawmakers need the equivalent of a 12-step addiction-fighting program to break their overspending habit.

“Admit you are powerless over your spending addiction and that your budget has become unmanageable. Just admit it,” Perry said in a speech to a conservative public policy group in Boston.

Excess federal spending is “generational theft” that “jeopardizes our children’s futures,” said Perry, calling for “sound fiscal policies that remove the millstone that will sink future generations.”

Perry spoke at the Pioneer Institute’s annual “better government competition” awards dinner — an appearance scheduled months before the Texas governor jumped into the race for the White House in August.

Running on a record of strong jobs creation in Texas and what he calls “common-sense conservative,” Perry has jumped to a lead in polls among Republicans vying to run against President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.

But front-runner status has meant stepped-up attacks on Perry, including a focus in Monday’s CNN/Tea Party debate on his view that the popular Social Security retirement program is the equivalent of an illegal Ponzi scheme.

Perry was unapologetic and said some of his rivals are happy to criticize the program — until pressed.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry said on Tuesday Washington lawmakers need the equivalent of a 12-step addiction-fighting program to break their overspending habit.

“Admit you are powerless over your spending addiction and that your budget has become unmanageable. Just admit it,” Perry said in a speech to a conservative public policy group in Boston.

Excess federal spending is “generational theft” that “jeopardizes our children’s futures,” said Perry, calling for “sound fiscal policies that remove the millstone that will sink future generations.”

Perry spoke at the Pioneer Institute’s annual “better government competition” awards dinner — an appearance scheduled months before the Texas governor jumped into the race for the White House in August.

Running on a record of strong jobs creation in Texas and what he calls “common-sense conservative,” Perry has jumped to a lead in polls among Republicans vying to run against President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.

But front-runner status has meant stepped-up attacks on Perry, including a focus in Monday’s CNN/Tea Party debate on his view that the popular Social Security retirement program is the equivalent of an illegal Ponzi scheme.

Perry was unapologetic and said some of his rivals are happy to criticize the program — until pressed.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry said on Tuesday Washington lawmakers need the equivalent of a 12-step addiction-fighting program to break their overspending habit.

“Admit you are powerless over your spending addiction and that your budget has become unmanageable. Just admit it,” Perry said in a speech to a conservative public policy group in Boston.

Excess federal spending is “generational theft” that “jeopardizes our children’s futures,” said Perry, calling for “sound fiscal policies that remove the millstone that will sink future generations.”

Perry spoke at the Pioneer Institute’s annual “better government competition” awards dinner — an appearance scheduled months before the Texas governor jumped into the race for the White House in August.

Running on a record of strong jobs creation in Texas and what he calls “common-sense conservative,” Perry has jumped to a lead in polls among Republicans vying to run against President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.

But front-runner status has meant stepped-up attacks on Perry, including a focus in Monday’s CNN/Tea Party debate on his view that the popular Social Security retirement program is the equivalent of an illegal Ponzi scheme.

Perry was unapologetic and said some of his rivals are happy to criticize the program — until pressed.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Elizabeth Warren, a prominent consumer advocate and former official in President Barack Obama’s administration, will announce a run for the Senate in Massachusetts on Wednesday, a campaign official confirmed.

“The pressures on middle-class families are worse than ever, but it is the big corporations that get their way in Washington,” Warren said in a statement. “I want to change that. I will work my heart out to earn the trust of the people of Massachusetts.”

Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, will be the highest-profile Democrat to go up against popular Massachusetts Republican incumbent Scott Brown, who in 2010 won the seat held for decades by Edward Kennedy, a liberal icon who died of a brain tumor in August 2009.

Warren locked horns with Wall Street in her work setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and as chairwoman of the congressional panel created to oversee the U.S. banking bailout in 2008.

Opposition from Republicans in Congress was thought to have stopped Obama from nominating Warren to run the consumer agency and she resigned from his administration on August 1.

She formed an exploratory committee for a Senate run in mid-August and has been on a tour of the state talking to potential supporters in small groups. She will kick off her official campaign with several appearances on Wednesday.

Encouraged to run by liberal groups such as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Warren has already received an endorsement from the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which cited her “dedication to the nation’s middle class.”

BOSTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is running a disciplined campaign focused on slamming President Barack Obama and promoting his own skills, but pressure could mount for a more aggressive approach as his poll numbers worsen.

This week a trio of opinion surveys showed Romney trailing Texas Governor Rick Perry, who jumped into the 2012 race less than two weeks ago and generated a blaze of mostly favorable publicity.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist, has been the nominal front-runner among Republicans so far, partly reflecting his name recognition after finishing second to John McCain in his 2008 run.

Romney’s second White House run, launched in June, has been designed around almost daily attacks on Obama. His campaign appearances have been relatively scarce and balanced by a heavy fund-raising schedule.

“We’ve stayed focused on talking to people about why Governor Romney is the best alternative to President Obama on the most important issue facing our country: jobs and the economy. That’s what this race will be about,” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

The Romney campaign issues regular videos on the theme “Obama Isn’t Working,” which highlights high unemployment. It mocked the president’s recent bus trip through the Midwest as a “Magical Misery Tour,” complete with tie-dye T-shirts available for a $30 campaign pledge.

Romney has led most polls among the Republican challengers this year, but with numbers well below levels that create a sense of inevitability.

PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire (Reuters) – White House hopeful Rick Perry has hit New Hampshire hard since kicking off his bid for the Republican nomination, but the tough-talking Texan will struggle to win support in this early-voting state.

So far, Mitt Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, is the easy front-runner in New Hampshire, which holds the country’s first primary election in 2012. He has an 18 point lead over Perry, his closest contender.

And Perry, voicing social views New Hampshire Republicans do not share, will find it hard to narrow that divide.

“There are huge cultural differences between Northeast Republicans and Texas Republicans,” said Andrew Smith, director of the survey center at the University of New Hampshire. “New Hampshire Republicans are moderate to liberal, Northeast Republicans,” he said.

A poll done for the New Hampshire Journal this week showed Romney with 36 percent support, Perry debuting strongly at 18 percent and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann at 13 percent.

Still, Perry’s entry into the race has created a lot of buzz. “This was a dynamic change. You can already see the shift in the polling,” said Jack Kimball, chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party.

Curious onlookers came out to see Perry on Thursday, peppering the governor with questions on topics from AIDS funding in the Third World to how he would increase federal revenue (hint: “raising taxes doesn’t work”).

BEDFORD, New Hampshire (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry on Wednesday called for more transparency from the Federal Reserve to show that the central bank was not engaging in unspecified “improper” actions.

Under Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, the central bank has embarked on one of the most extended periods of cheap money in U.S. history in an effort to right the U.S. economy. The Fed has been criticized by many for opaque decision making on monetary policy.

“They should open their books up. They should be transparent so that the people of the United States know what they are doing,” the Texas governor said at a packed breakfast meeting in Bedford, New Hampshire.

“It would go a long way to showing if there had been activities that had been improper,” Perry said

Without such action, “there will continue to be questions about their activities and what their true goal is for the United States,” he added.

It was a fresh attack on the Fed from Perry, who created a stir on Monday when he said he would consider it “treasonous” if Bernanke “prints more money between now and the election” in November 2012.

But Perry’s tone, in comments made to a non-partisan audience of local business people, was not as harsh on Wednesday. He said he was one of a number of Republicans who have questioned the Fed’s transparency.