Saturday, October 24, 2009
SPRINGFIELD - On a cold Friday morning, a table of candles flickered outside the house where a young mother was struck by bullets Sunday, becoming Springfield's 17th murder victim and third in a five-day spate of fatal violence. On Wilmont Street, the flowers and message were for this victim's family - to ease their loss. But Springfield's crime isn't the city's problem alone, area law enforcement officials say. While violent crime seems to stay contained within pockets in the Springfield community, the drugs, the guns, the gangs, the crime and people on the lam find their way up Interstate Route 91 to Hampshire County.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
SPRINGFIELD - If 70,000 Massachusetts residents are not counted in the coming census, the Bay State risks losing one of its 10 congressional seats in 2010. And it could happen. Census takers in 2000, the last time the constitutionally mandated count was conducted, missed about 50,000 people in Massachusetts, according to U.S. Rep. John W. Olver, D-Amherst.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Although public education in the Valley didn't suffer the brunt of $277 million in statewide spending cuts Gov. Deval L. Patrick announced this week, it didn't come out unscathed.
