Asian beetle quarantine zone expands. A lot.

The Asian Long Horned Beetle regulated zone has gotten a lot bigger.
Since the Asian Longhorned Beetle invasion first reared its face in Worcester, the hope was the invasive bugs were limited to the northwest corner of the city, where they were originally spotted. But after residents phoned in reports of infected trees on the southern [...]

Congressman McGovern supports failed bailout

House records indicate Congressman Jim McGovern voted in support of the failed bailout bill; we’ll have more as we hear his reaction.

Beetle Press Conference

There will be an Asian Long Horned Beetle related press conference today at 3pm at City Hall.  We’ll let you know as we hear more.

Who is Andre Thompson

Andre Thompson, the city man facing charges in connection with the murder of Becker student William Smith is a well known quantity in Worcester over the past couple years, with a rapidly expanding rapsheet for a guy who is only 19.

In August 2007, Thompson was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
Later that [...]

Real Worcester launches

After a soft-launch of sorts for the past month, RealWorcester.com has officially launched. It looks to be an interesting combination of aggregated material from local sources with some original blog content from the usual crew of Worcester bloggers.
It also looks like the site is linking to outside material at this point; during the soft-launch, [...]

Belated Birthday for 508

We’re about two weeks late now, but we’d be terribly remiss if we didn’t give big props and good wishes to Mike Benedetti for his outstanding work over the past year on the 508 podcast. The weekly show, which turned one with it’s 52nd episode earlier this month, is as close as you’ll find to [...]

Rep. O’Day in support of Question 2

Tomorrow’s Worcester Magazine features a cover story on the battle over ballot Question 2, a binding referendum which would decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults.   It’s a passionate debate, with proponents of both sides fervently arguing their case in the feature story.
But there has been little, if any word from state lawmakers [...]

Unions split over Moore

Not every labor organization is coming out against Michael Moore’s bid for State Senate.
Today, Massachusetts Laborers’ District Council sent us the following letter:
“The Massachusetts Laborers’ District Council of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, AFL-CIO and its 24,000 (twenty-four thousand) members in the public and private sectors throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts proudly  and [...]

City Council Liveblog 9/23/08

9:00: Police Chief Gary Gemme is advocating for his creation of a Fall Impact Unit – similar to the Summer Impact Unit – by once again discussing how there’s a significant uptick in crime after midnight.
8:54: Continuing their pledge, Councilors Clancy and Palmieri vote(twice) against appropriating money to improvements at Worcester Airport. They’ve said [...]

Central Mass AFL-CIO will not back Moore

According to a memo from Central Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Joe Carlson, the union will not support State Senate candidate Michael Moore in the general election. “It is just not acceptable to have anyone degrade and criticize organize labor in the manner that the Moore campaign and then expect us to help him in a [...]