Telegram & Gazette
TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Sunday, April 12, the 102nd day of 2026. There are 263 days left in the year. On this date in: 1633: Catholic Cardinal and chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculani da Firenzuola and the church accused Galileo Galilei of heresy for...
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The high cost of U.S. health care
In announcing its “Great Healthcare Plan” in January, the Trump administration became the latest in a long history of efforts by the U.S. government to rein in the soaring cost of health care. h As a physician and professor studying the intersection of...
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Nuts to the nut
WESTBOROUGH — A proposal to replace downtown’s longtime rotary at West Main, East Main, Milk, Brigham and South streets with a “peanutshaped” roundabout hasn’t been sitting well with the town’s peanut gallery and business owners. With an estimated...
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TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Thursday, April 9, the 99th day of 2026. There are 266 days left in the year. On this date in: 1682: Explorer and fur trader René-Robert Cavelier reached the Gulf of Mexico (which was renamed by the American government as the Gulf of America...
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A day in their life
STURBRIDGE – Deb Knight likes to say she gets to and from work by gas-powered time machine. In 21st century speak, that means car. h Knight is a longtime employee of Old Sturbridge Village, the outdoor history museum that mimics the look and feel of an...
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Artemis II photos show views before lunar flyby
More breathtaking images released over the weekend from NASA’s Artemis II mission showed both the moon and Earth in all their cosmic glory as four astronauts headed toward our celestial neighbor. The three Americans and one Canadian have captured some...
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Prosecutor hints at cover-up in death of state police recruit
WORCESTER – Minutes after Enrique Delgado-Garcia was knocked unconscious in the state police academy boxing match that preceded his death, then-Sgt. Jennifer Penton learned he had complained of concussive symptoms before the match to a fellow trainee,...
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SIGNALING ANXIETY
WORCESTER – Heather Morillo has quit her job. Only six months after Morillo began working at Maxwell Luciano’s restaurant inside Union Station, she handed in her two-week notice, citing safety concerns. “I enjoy it. Working the events was fun, but I...
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Trump funding cuts axed nutrition program
If the government had found a way to save $10 for every dollar it spent helping low-income people get healthier, wouldn’t it make sense for it to keep doing that? Well, that’s exactly what the U.S. government did when it piloted the SNAPEd program in...
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‘A new language’
WORCESTER – It’s been about a month since Edward M. Augustus Jr. took over as chief executive officer at locally based UniBank, time that to him has been like having to learn a new language. Leading a bank with $3 billion in assets and more than a...
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Worcester students are national STEM champs
WORCESTER – What if Worcester had an inventor who came up with a solar panel that doesn’t run on electricity and could be scaled up to help millions of people living off the electrical grid? Or another inventor who developed a robot that looked like a...
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Baby steps
TOP: Penelope Dolan, 12, of Shrewsbury shows Edie Ostrowski, 3, of Westborough a movement as she teaches a Creative Movement: Children’s Ballet class for preschoolers at Shrewsbury Public Library on March 27. Children ages 3 to 5 learn beginner ballet...
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One-two punch
WORCESTER – Several thousand people gave their presence and voices to two separate “No Kings” rallies against the Trump administration held Saturday, March 28, at Worcester Common behind City Hall downtown and a little later at Institute Park. They...
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SURE SIGNS OF SPRING
In a good riddance to winter, the baseball season at Polar Park opened over the weekend, with the Worcester Red Sox kicking off their schedule with games against the Syracuse Mets. This marks the team’s sixth season in Worcester since moving from...
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Oasis or mirage?
WORCESTER – Laura Lenis looked like any patient who gets an infusion of fluids through an intravenous injection as a clear bag that contained yellow-colored fluid flowed through a tube into a vein in her left arm. But this wasn’t your traditional IV,...
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‘TRUMP SLUMP’ HIT U.S. TOURISM IN 2025
With an upcoming FIFA World Cup being staged across the nation, 2026 was supposed to be a bumper year for tourism to the United States, driven in part by hordes of arriving soccer fans. And yet, the U.S. tourism industry is worried. While the rest of...
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‘READY TO ROLL’
WORCESTER — As Chad Tracy sipped his third cup of coffee and settled into Polar Park Tuesday morning, the Worcester Red Sox manager was eager to be back in the Canal District with his baseball team’s season opener just three days away. “It’s one of...
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Union: TSA ‘desperate’ for an end to government shutdown
DENVER – Day after day, flight after flight: Cancun. Orlando. Honolulu. Happy families and college students heading off on spring break vacations are being helped every day by 61,000 unpaid Transportation Security Administration workers. The screeners...
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DA: Suspect threatened officers with knife before fatal shooting
WESTMINSTER – A man was shot to death by police who arrived at a South Ashburnham Road house with an arrest warrant the afternoon of Monday, March 23. The suspect allegedly threatened officers with a large knife, at one point moving toward them,...
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A gas station’s legacy
SSUTTON tephen Bek has always been a believer in a great work ethic. h A great work ethic was how his father Stephen Bek Sr. took over and grew a full-service gas station on Main Street since the early 1950s and it’s how Bek himself continued that...
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A friend in need, indeed
WORCESTER - Inside Worcester Public Schools, fourlegged friends are waiting for students and staff who may be having a hard time in school that day. Over the two years, South High Community School and Doherty Memorial High School have had some new...
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Reinvented for life
WORCESTER – The only aspect of the Worcester Fire Department that has remained constant in the last five years is the blue dress uniforms worn on ceremonial occasions. Everything else has undergone a metamorphosis that speaks to the department’s...
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‘City of 7(?) Hills’
WORCESTER – Worcester is known as the “City of Seven Hills.” The nickname has been around for some time, and while many locals are familiar with the phrase and have some idea of what it’s all about, others aren’t quite sure what to make of it. Matt...
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DPW’s mission: Destroy potholes
WORCESTER – People of Worcester: Don’t get too attached to those potholes that plague unsuspecting motorists and have taken residence on our city streets, for a team of crews is working hard to fill the unsightly craters and potential tire...
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Bound for NCAA tourney
The Holy Cross women’s basketball team was given a sendoff the morning of March 18 as the Crusaders departed Worcester for the National Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament. Holy Cross (23-9) will play Michigan at the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor...
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Runner feels ready to cross finish line
SHREWSBURY – “Wake up, big man.” Matt Kaestner heard those words while he was lying on the bench at the gym. He had fallen asleep for 10 minutes and didn’t even know, a scary situation. A few other health scares popped up over the next few months, and...
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Worcester’s St. Patrick’s parade draws thousands
WORCESTER – The green was out in full force as the Worcester County St. Patrick’s Parade made its way past the cheers of thousands who lined Park Avenue throughout the early afternoon Sunday, March 15. About 100 groups started their 2-mile march at...
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Why city benched for March Madness
WORCESTER — With the men’s NCAA March Madness basketball tournament about to electrify more than a dozen American cities, Worcester fans of a certain age will remember the last time the DCU Center hosted the contest. The babies born next door at Saint...
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R M BEAN B OCK
AYER – Justin Lee spends his working hours surrounded by tofu. He helps oversee a Nasoya manufacturing plant in Ayer that makes the silky-smooth, plant-based product virtually nonstop. h Lee led a tour of the plant at 1 New England Way on Tuesday,...
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Eyes fixed on the state title
Five teams from Central Massachusetts are hoping to cap the season with a state title this weekend. On Saturday, March 14, the Wachusett girls’ basketball team will look to repeat as Division 1 state champions as the Mountaineers take on top seed...
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‘End of our journey’
WORCESTER – Just days before they were set to host a weekend of St. Patrick’s Day festivities, the owners of the storied O’Connor’s Restaurant & Bar announced they have closed for good. The restaurant, which had operated on West Boylston Street for...
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Plentiful snow may make grass greener
With the temperature pushing 70 degrees this week, mounds of piled snow were melting fast, unearthing front lawns. City landscapers say that following months of harsh winter, the grass might just be greener, eventually. “Overall, the snow itself is...
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Fire becomes fatal
SOUTHBRIDGE – A 68-year-old woman who was pulled from a house fire later died, according to the fire chief. The fire of Monday, March 9, gutted the house at 417 South St. The woman succumbed to her injuries in the early morning hours of March 10,...
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Winter thaw
WORCESTER — Like melting snow, the removal of holiday decorations from Worcester Common is a good indication that winter is nearing the end. The knee-high snow that blanketed the region two weeks ago disappeared further March 9 with temperatures of...
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ICE paying big prices for detention centers
The rapid effort by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to convert commercial warehouses into detention centers has hit another controversy: big price tags. The initiative has involved a parade of warehouse purchases in which the government has...
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LAUNCH INTO THE AGES
Margaret Smith Worcester Magazine | USA TODAY NETWORK IWORCESTER – t’s as much local lore as history: a young man, sitting among the branches of a cherry tree at his family home in Worcester on Oct. 19, 1899, looking at the night sky – especially a...
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Next stop: Final Four
There are plenty of local teams still chasing a state championship, and the Wachusett Regional girls basketball team kept rolling in action Thursday, March 5. Junior Teegan Lanpher (25 points) and senior Jae Scott (22 points) helped the Mountaineers...
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Strikes on Iran decried
The United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran, a group that investigates human rights abuses in the country, issued a statement that “strongly condemns” the U.S. and Israeli strikes that launched the...
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Sweets over the cold
WESTBOROUGH – At 7 degrees Fahrenheit, the freezers storing ice cream at Uhlman’s Ice Cream were colder than the air outside – but only slightly. The family-run shop opened for the season Friday, Feb. 27. Monday, March 2, with temperatures hovering...
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Goddard gets his tribute at airport
WORCESTER – The Worcester Regional Airport has a new figure overlooking its passengers – celebrated Worcester native and “Father of Modern Rocketry” Robert H. Goddard. Tuesday, March 3, the airport dedicated a life-size silhouette of Goddard standing...
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U.S. on high alert for attacks
WASHINGTON – Federal counterterrorism agencies are on high alert for a potential retaliatory attack on U.S. soil after U.S. and Israeli forces launched strikes on Iran that killed the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other top...
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The bird’s the word
FITCHBURG – Dozens of birders have been flocking to Fitchburg Municipal Airport from miles around during the past three months since the first sighting in December of a lone chestnut-collared longspur, a rare bird – at least in Massachusetts. “This is...
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Trump: Strikes ‘ongoing’ as Tehran retaliates
The United States launched military strikes and “major combat operations” against Iran on Feb. 28, President Donald Trump said, targeting the country’s missile capabilities. “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent...
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A weighty matter
WEST BOYLSTON – The 5,000square-foot warehouse in West Boylston is stuffed to the rafters with items discarded by the residents of seven Worcester County municipalities — kitchen wares, sewing notions, art supplies, picture frames, artwork, books,...
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Fallout for those in the Epstein files continues
WASHINGTON – The day after Larry Summers, a former treasury secretary, said he plans to resign from Harvard University, Borge Brende, the president and CEO of the World Economic Forum, said Feb. 26 he was stepping down — two of the latest in a series...
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Best skiers take on Wachusett
PRINCETON –The top high school skiers in Massachusetts ascended to the top of Wachusett Mountain for the state Alpine Ski Championships Wednesday, Feb. 25. The fast-paced event features boys’ and girls’ individual and team competitions.
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Worcester residents are fed up with snow
WORCESTER – Lucian Sbat has had enough of the snow. “I want to leave the country,” Sbat said with a winsome smile and hearty laugh. “I’m sick of it.” Originally from Syria, Sbat immigrated to the United States for a better life. And he may have found...
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BLIZZARD WATCH
Worcester County was experiencing blizzard conditions Feb. 23 as a nor’easter pummeled the region. Central Massachusetts woke to wind-blown snow Feb. 23. By 11 a.m., 15 inches of snow had fallen in Milford. Holden reported 11.5 inches, and Worcester...
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Woman in the arena
WORCESTER — Coming from “Grafton Hill grit,” Amy Peterson has had a deep connection with the DCU Center, the arena that started its reign as the Centrum when it opened on Sept. 2, 1982, with a gala by Frank Sinatra. Peterson, who spent nine years as...
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Life changes in flux
Chrissi Bates has no regrets about having surgery. h Bates, a transgender woman who lives in Westborough, said her vaginoplasty procedure, performed by Dr. Ashley Alford at UMass Memorial Health, was a success. She wants her “trans sisters” to have the...
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Supreme Court strikes down tariffs
WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court dealt a major blow to President Donald Trump’s economic agenda, ruling that he does not have the authority to impose sweeping tariffs at the stroke of a pen. The court on Feb. 20 tossed the tariffs that are the...
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‘LARGER THAN LIFE’
SHREWSBURY – While the final seconds ticked off the clock in his team’s 77-57 win over St. Paul on Feb. 18, Shrewsbury High boys’ basketball coach Adrian Machado walked over to the end of the bench and planted a hug on his daughter, Sofia. Machado,...
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Jesse Jackson’s visits to Worcester
The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the outspoken and passionate advocate for civil rights, made a handful of visits to Central Massachusetts. h He died Tuesday, Feb. 17. He was 84. h Jackson delivered the commencement address May 24, 1981, at the University of...
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Pawtucket shooter had many troubles
The shooter who opened fire at a hockey game in Pawtucket on Feb. 16 was known for having a short fuse, had faced court action for unpaid debts, and had gone through a divorce after gender reassignment surgery, records and interviews...
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Competition tradition
WORCESTER — The Clark Tournament has reached its 85th chapter, with schools from throughout the region taking part in the February vacation tradition. Thirty-two high school teams, in Large School and Small School divisions, are part of the...
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‘Gloom and dread’
DUDLEY – Kristina and Nicholas Caruso thought they had their dream house. It sits on 6 acres in a quiet, wooded area where they can raise their four young children. The plan was to grow old in the house and leave it to their kids. That idea may be...
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PALATIAL (and pricey)
Two single-family homes in Worcester County sold for more than $3 million in 2025, with one in Southborough only $1,000 short of $4 million. h The year’s priciest 10 sales included homes in Southborough, Northborough and Webster, among others. h The...
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Haxhiaj’s trial begins with officer testimony
WORCESTER – Witnesses and Worcester police officers present at the immigration action scene on Eureka Street last year took the stand in Worcester District Court for the start of the trial of former District 5 City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj. The trial...
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MEDAL-WINNING PERFORMANCE
Korey Dropkin, a Southborough native and 2013 graduate of Algonquin Regional High School, competed Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 10, with his partner, Cory Thiesse, with the gold medal on the line in the mixed curling finals at the Winter Olympics in Cortina...
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Maye: ‘Got to be better’
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Drake Maye was relegated to a makeshift tent outside Levi’s Stadium, a sort of press conference purgatory for the losing team at Super Bowl LX. The Patriots quarterback wore a forlorn look after missing out on this first chance...
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A legend honored
WORCESTER – Boston Celtics and Holy Cross legend Bob Cousy (’50) was the guest of honor at the Hart Center on Saturday, Feb. 7, as the Crusaders held a ceremony to name the basketball court at the Hart Center in his name. Holy Cross marked the 125th...
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BEHIND THEbeat
veryone had a hole in their heart, but not the kind that describes despair. It was, quite literally, a hole. h It’s called the foramen ovale, and it’s there in the womb. It’s supposed to naturally close after birth, but for some it never does. That’s...
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City to ICE: Back off
WORCESTER – After releasing an executive order reasserting and amending the city’s policy on U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, City Manager Eric D. Batista stands firm in his decision to prohibit the use of municipal property for any ICE...
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U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty expires
WASHINGTON – A 15-year-old treaty that restricted how many nuclear weapons the United States and Russia can maintain has come to an end, as experts warn that no new agreement could portend a new arms race not seen since the Cold War. The New START...
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Millbury cop stable after store shooting
TOP: Police in a tactical unit outside of the Family Dollar store confronted the suspect, according to a prosecutor. RIGHT: Police investigate around the area of 20 Main St. in Spencer where the first shooting began Feb. 3. SPENCER – A police officer...
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TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Wednesday, Feb. 4, the 35th day of 2026. There are 330 days left in the year. On this date in: 1789: George Washington was unanimously elected to be the first president of the United States by 69 presidential electors. John Adams was elected...
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SUPER SENDOFF
The New England Patriots departed from T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, Rhode Island, the afternoon of Feb. 1 en route to Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, California. The Patriots take on the Seattle Seahawks at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 8. Quinsigamond Community...
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‘They didn’t leave us anything at all’
DEIR DIBWAN, West Bank – The Jewish settler outpost of Or Meir is small. A handful of prefabricated white shelters, it sits at the end of a short dirt track on a hill leading up from Road 60, a major route that dissects the Israeli-occupied West...
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UNDER PERIL
WORCESTER – Rosette Gazemar is busy these days. h The case manager at Friendly House in Worcester has more than 700 case files of people from Haiti who face a risk of being deported. The families have temporary protected status that allows them to...
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Light over darkness
WORCESTER − Dozens of nurses and others gathered outside the Worcester Veterans Affairs Clinic on Belmont Street the evening of Thursday, Jan. 29, for a vigil in memory of Alex Pretti, the Minnesota man killed in a confrontation with federal agents on...
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Blaze hits child center
The Gardner Fire Department and other departments were working Thursday, Jan. 29, to extinguish a fire at 838 West Broadway, the location of 123 Grow Child Center. Firefighters responded to the scene, where flames could be seen shooting out of the...
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Man arraigned on single count of murder
WORCESTER – Albert F. Carabba, the man indicted in September in the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend in Worcester 16 years ago, was arraigned Wednesday, Jan. 28, in Worcester Superior Court on a sole charge of murder. Patricia Santos was 36 when she...
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Storm hits the Top 10
It was a significant storm, as predicted, one that required multiple snowclearing passes of the driveway. The 22.4 inches of snow registered in Worcester for the storm of Jan. 25-26 was the 10th-highest storm total on record, according to the National...
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Snowy blanket
Central Massachusetts was blanketed in white the morning of Jan. 26, after a huge winter storm that had swept across much of the nation brought Worcester its biggest snow accumulation in nearly eight years. By the morning of Jan. 26, more than a foot...
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Tens of millions hunker down for winter storm
Much of the nation east of the Rocky Mountains hunkered down for what could be the worst winter storm of the season, along with some of the coldest temperatures seen in years. The storm rolled through Texas and Oklahoma on Jan. 23, hitting the region...
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