Dr. Timothy Lang removed the lever Wednesday during a 45-minute operation. Arthur Lampitt, now 75, is recovering at home.

CREVE COEUR, Mo. -- Fifty-two years ago, Arthur Lampitt of Granite City, Illinois, smashed his 1963 Thunderbird into a truck. This week during surgery in suburban St. Louis, a 7-inch turn signal lever from that T-Bird was removed from his left arm.

Dr. Timothy Lang removed the lever Wednesday during a 45-minute operation. Lampitt, now 75, is recovering at home.

Arthur Lampitt and his wife Betty of Granite City, Mo., show off the 1963 Thunderbird turn signal that was embedded in his arm for 51 years, after having surgery to remove it on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2014. AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jesse Bogan 

A decade or so ago, his arm set off a metal detector at a courthouse. An X-ray showed a slender object the length of a pencil, but since it caused no pain or hardship, Lampitt was told to let it be.

He was moving concrete blocks a few weeks ago when the arm began to hurt for the first time.

"Everything was fine until it started to get bigger," Lampitt's wife, Betty, said. "The arm started bulging."

Lampitt decided to have surgery. He initially wasn't sure what was in the arm. He wondered if perhaps a medical instrument had been left during the emergency room visit in 1963.

He unearthed a collection of old photos of the mangled Thunderbird taken by a friend at the scene. He noticed the metal blinker lever was missing from the left side of the steering column. He figured that was it, and surgery at City Place Surgery Center in Creve Coeur, Missouri, confirmed it.

"Seven inches long," Lang told Betty.

"Oh, my God," Betty said.

Lang said a protective pocket grew around the lever.

"We see all kinds of foreign objects like nails or pellets, but usually not this large, usually not a turn signal from a 1963 T-Bird," Lang said. "Something this large often gets infected."

Lampitt wasn't sure what he'd do with the lever -- maybe make a key chain out of it.

"We'll figure out something, I am sure," he said.

Police say Clarice Felix and Dave Virgile of Randolph were killed.

WESTBOROUGH - State police have identified two people killed in a car crash on the Massachusetts Turnpike that also seriously injured two others.

Police say the accident happened around 3:15 a.m. Thursday on the eastbound side of the Interstate 90 when the driver of a 2002 Honda Accord with five occupants was traveling on a flat tire. The slow-moving car was struck by a 2011 Dodge Ram pickup truck towing a boat trailer.

Police say Randolph residents 18-year-old Clarice Felix and 27-year-old Dave Virgile were killed in the Honda.

Two other passengers suffered serious injuries and were transported to UMASS Medical Center in Worcester. Their conditions are unknown. The Honda driver suffered minor injuries, and the driver of the Dodge was treated at the scene.

The event will be held on a Sunday afternoon.

WILBRAHAM - Children and their families are invited to the Wilbraham Public Library on Jan. 11 at 2 p.m. for a children's program, 'Winter Wonders.'

Appropriate for children, ages 3 and older and their families, the program, by entertainer Jackson Gillman, features participatory songs and stories about shoveling, snowmen, snow angels and nature in winter.

No registration is required. The event is funded by the Wilbraham Friends of the Library.

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, the father of current Gov. Andrew Cuomo, died Thursday.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Mario Cuomo, a son of Italian immigrants who became an eloquent spokesman for a generation of liberal Democrats during his three terms as governor of New York but couldn't quite bring himself to run for president, has died. He was 82.

Cuomo died Thursday of natural causes due to heart failure at his home, the same day his son Andrew started his second term, according to a statement released by the governor's office. He was surrounded by his family.

Cuomo loomed large in New York politics as governor from 1983 through 1994 and became nationally celebrated for his ability to weave the story of his humble upbringing with ringing calls for social justice.

But he was also known for the presidential races he stayed out of in 1988 and 1992. Cuomo agonized so publicly over whether to run for the White House that he was dubbed "Hamlet on the Hudson."

In 1991, Cuomo left a plane idling on the tarmac at the Albany airport rather than fly to New Hampshire and jump into the battle for the presidential nomination at the last minute. He left the door open for a lesser-known governor, Bill Clinton of Arkansas.

Cuomo's last public appearance came in November, when Andrew was re-elected governor of New York. The frail-looking patriarch and his son raised their arms together in victory at the election-night celebration. He didn't attend Andrew Cuomo's speech Thursday because he was not well, but the current governor spoke of his father.

"He is in the heart and mind of every person who is here. He is here and he is here, and his inspiration and his legacy and his experience is what has brought this state to this point," Andrew Cuomo said. "So let's give him a round of applause."

His reputation for eloquence was secured at the 1984 Democratic National Convention when he delivered his "Tale of Two Cities" keynote address, in which he told of the lessons he learned as the son of a grocer in New York City.

"I watched a small man with thick calluses on both his hands work 15 and 16 hours a day," Cuomo told the crowd. "I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet -- a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language -- who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example."

While Mondale's candidacy stumbled, Cuomo took his oratorical skill to Notre Dame University, where as the nation's most famous Roman Catholic supporter of abortion rights, he argued the church should not expect him to press for outlawing abortions, given that many Catholics themselves were having them.

Cuomo was an unusually cerebral politician, giving to musing at length about anything from fiscal policy to the Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

He was prickly as well as eloquent. Cuomo regularly sparred with reporters, Republicans, fellow Democrats and even children. He once said "I didn't come into this business to be bland," and he rarely was. Complaining about what he saw as anti-Italian stereotyping, Cuomo once said the Mafia was "a word invented by people" and "a lot of baloney." He once had a little boy near tears after asking how old he was and then pressing the child on how he could be sure of that.

In early 1987, he was leading in the polls among prospective White House contenders when he said he would not be a candidate. A more protracted dance in 1991 ended with the filing deadline for the nation's first presidential primary 90 minutes off. Cuomo walked into a packed news conference in Albany and cited a continuing budget battle with New York's Republicans in declining to run.

Before the news conference had even ended, the national TV crews were packing up their cameras.

Cuomo easily won re-election for governor in 1986 and 1990. He repeatedly vetoed legislation that would have restored the death penalty in New York, and he closed down the Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long Island. He also built 30 new prisons. Under Cuomo, the state budget grew from $28 billion to $62 billion.

In 1993, he turned down an opportunity to be nominated by Clinton for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, telling the new president in a letter that "by staying active in our nation's political process, I can continue to serve as a vigorous supporter of the good work you are doing for America and the world."

Nineteen months later, with voters tired of him, Cuomo lost his bid for a fourth term to George Pataki, a GOP state lawmaker who had promised to cut taxes and bring back the death penalty.

"I wanted to win this more than any political contest I ever had," Cuomo said as he prepared to leave office. "I'm not good at wanting things in life. I've made a habit of not wanting things too much."

Mario Matthew Cuomo was born on June 15, 1932, and grew up behind the small grocery store run by his parents in Queens.

He attended St. John's University in New York City, and after graduating with honors in 1953, he spent a summer playing minor league baseball in Georgia for a Pittsburgh Pirates farm team. His professional baseball career ended after he was hit in the head by a pitch and spent several days in a hospital.

Cuomo graduated from St. John's Law School in 1956, tied for top class honors, and soon after went into private practice. He came to the attention of New York City's political community in 1972 when he successfully mediated a housing dispute in Queens for then-Mayor John Lindsay.

In 1974, Cuomo made his first run for public office, losing a Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. Hugh Carey, the newly elected Democratic governor, appointed Cuomo as New York's secretary of state.

He lost a race for mayor of New York City to Koch in 1977. During the campaign, posters that read "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo" mysteriously appeared in some neighborhoods. Cuomo denied any responsibility, but the bachelor Koch never forgave him.

Cuomo was elected lieutenant governor in 1978.

Following his tenure as governor, Cuomo joined the prestigious Willkie Farr & Gallagher law firm in Manhattan. He continued to give speeches across the country.

Cuomo and his wife, Matilda, had three daughters and two sons. Andrew was New York's attorney general before becoming governor. His other son, Chris, is a CNN newscaster. Daughter Maria married designer Kenneth Cole.

Christopher Dunbar, 24, of Manchester, Connecticut, was charged with assaulting a state trooper, operating under the influence of drugs, and a slew of other offenses, after allegedly rear-ending a pickup truck on I-495 and attempting to flee the scene.

MILFORD — A Hartford-area man was taken into custody after a violent struggle following a car crash on Interstate 495 on New Year's Day, according to Massachusetts State Police officials in Framingham.

Trooper Christopher Keyes, assigned to the Milbury barracks, responded to a two-car crash in the northbound lane of I-495 in Milford at 11:17 a.m. Thursday. Keyes arrived on scene to find a man trying to stop and enter vehicles in an apparent "attempt to flee the scene of a crash," police said.

Keyes first tried to get the man out of the roadway. But when the subject, later identified as 24-year-old Christopher Dunbar of Manchester, Connecticut, failed to comply with the trooper's commands, Keyes move in for an arrest. That's when a "violent struggle ensued" as the man struggled with Keyes, police said.

Keyes managed to handcuff Dunbar and place him in the back of his cruiser. Once inside the car, however, Dunbar proceeded to kick out the cruiser's rear window, police said. Dunbar then kicked Keyes during a second physical struggle with the trooper, police said.

He was charged with a slew of offenses, including operating under the influence of drugs; assault and battery on a police officer; assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (shod foot); carjacking; malicious destruction of property over $250; leaving the scene of a property-damage accident; disorderly conduct; and following too closely.

There was also a warrant for Dunbar's arrest, police said.

Keyes' investigation revealed that Dunbar rear-ended a pickup truck on the highway, then bolted into the woods on foot "before reemerging and making attempts to force his way into vehicles slowing for the crash," police said.

No injuries were reported by the driver of the pickup truck.

Dunbar was booked at the Milbury barracks and will likely be arraigned Friday in Milford District Court.

Gagne, who was lying in the roadway, was struck by a Chatham police cruiser en route to an emergency call shortly after 4 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 1, according to Chatham Police Chief Mark Pawlina.

Updates story posted at 12:19 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 1.

Law enforcement officials say Garrett Gagne was lying in the middle of Crowell Road when he was run over by a southbound police cruiser en route to an emergency call shortly after 4 a.m. on Jan. 1.

Gagne, a former standout lacrosse player at Longmeadow High School and St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, was later pronounced dead at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, officials said.

The officer was responding to an emergency call when his cruiser "ran over an unknown object lying in the roadway," Chatham Police Chief Mark R. Pawlina said. The officer, who hasn't been publicly identified, immediately stopped and determined that the object was "a human body," Pawlina said.

"It is unknown why or how the victim was lying in the roadway at that location prior to the accident. It is also unknown what the victim's condition was just prior to the accident," the chief said.

That stretch of Crowell Road is dark with no street lights or other exterior lighting to illuminate the road, according to Pawlina.

Gagne was in Chatham with some friends for New Year's Eve festivities, but "those associates could not be reached or located immediately after the accident," Pawlina said.

Members of the Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis & Reconstruction Section assisted with the investigation. The state Medical Examiner's office will try to determine a cause of death, including whether Gagne was alive or dead when he was struck by the police cruiser.

"My heart goes out to the family and involved and to the officer involved," Pawlina said at a news conference several hours after the fatal pedestrian accident.

"It's just something that, uh, no person could expect or think would happen," he said, adding that the officer is "very upset, very distraught."

The officer's name will likely be released on Friday, Jan. 2, according to Pawlina.

St. Lawrence University President William L. Fox issued the following statement on Gagne's death:

With profound sadness I share with you the news that Garrett Gagne '15 was struck by a car and killed early Thursday morning in Chatham, Massachusetts.

Garrett, a government major, was a four-year member of the men's lacrosse team. An accomplished athlete and fine student, Garrett also worked on the game management crew for Saints football home games.

When Mike Mahoney, Garrett's lacrosse coach, contacted me this morning, he told me "Garrett was close to all of us on the team – a leader, mentor, and friend. His smile and enthusiasm were contagious. He could light up the field and sidelines with his personality. This sudden and shocking loss touches every one of us who knew him as one of our best."

Prior to enrolling at St. Lawrence, Garrett captained both the lacrosse and ski racing teams at Longmeadow High School, where he was a three-time All-Scholastic honoree. Garrett was Longmeadow's Offensive Player of the Year for lacrosse and a two-time Massachusetts state champion in ski racing.

Wisdom and meaning seem impossible right now in the midst of our immediate, heart-breaking sadness. We must, of course, give our best and most loving thoughts to Garrett's family and friends in a day of such sudden deep grief. When our campus community returns from break, we will plan a gathering to honor Garrett's memory. Until then, we offer our memorial website for your reflections and tributes to Garrett.

The relic originates from the bloodied undershirt from the attempted assassination of St. John Paul II in 1981.

WILBRAHAM — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has announced that it has been selected to receive a relic of St. John Paul II, the pope who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in April 2005.

The relic originates from the bloodied undershirt from the attempted assassination on his life in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981, said Mark Dupont, spokesman for the Diocese of Springfield.

"Just this past week, the assassin Mehmet Ali Agca, brought flowers to St. John Paul II's tomb inside St. Peter's Basilica," Dupont said.

The relic will be formally received by Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski during a liturgy on Jan. 31 at St. Cecilia Church in Wilbraham.

According to an article in the news and information website, www.iobserve.org, the Diocese of Springfield was selected to receive a first class relic of St. John Paul II, thanks to the efforts of Father Daniel Cymer, the parochial vicar at St. Cecilia Parish in Wilbraham.

Father Cymer is a native of Poland and admires the saint who he said helped to protect his Jewish friends from the Nazis, stood up to communism and stood against the "culture of death."

Father Cymer personally asked Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of the Archdiocese of Krakow, Poland, to have the relic not only come to the diocese, but remain in the diocese permanently.

The relic arrived from Krakow in November and is currently being held at the Friends of St. John Paul II "Be Not Afraid" Center in Linden, N.J. The center and shrine gives Catholics in the United States an opportunity to support the building of the International Center of St. John Paul II Shrine in Krakow, Poland.

"The Pope John Paul II foundation was established to spread John Paul's legacy," said Cymer.

The first class relic is a piece of cloth with John Paul's blood on it. It was saved after he was shot in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City in 1981. The relic will be presented to Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski at the 5 p.m. Mass on Saturday, Jan. 31, at St. Cecilia Parish. Father Miroslaw Krol, the president of the board of the "Be Not Afraid" Center will be the homilist. People will be able to venerate the relic following the evening Mass.

Father Daniel Boyle, St. Cecilia's pastor, said relics of the saints are a gift to the church. "I think they connect us to the saints and the saints connect us to Christ," said Boyle. "We don't worship relics, we worship Christ. We venerate relics."

Following the Mass, people are invited to attend a dinner featuring Polish food and a Polka band. Cymer said it will be a great evening for people of all ages. Cymer, who works with St. Cecilia's youth group and heads up the Faith Formation program, said families and children in particular will benefit from the event.

"Families could pray for strength and unity through the intercession of John Paul II," Cymer said. "I want young people and children to know they are never alone. The have the saints that they can relate to ... They can always turn to God for help."

Tickets for the dinner can be purchased after Mass on the weekends of Jan. 10 and Jan. 17. For more information, call St. Cecilia's Parish at 596-4232.

Advocates of EZ-ID, led by family members of murdered teenager Molly Bish, suggest that using symbols and fewer characters would make it easier for witnesses of a crime to remember a license plate.

BOSTON - A Massachusetts task force delivered a setback to advocates for a new method of designing license plates that would use symbols in addition to numbers and letters.

Advocates of the so-called EZ-ID system, led by family members of murdered teenager Molly Bish, suggest that using symbols and fewer characters would make it easier for crime victims and witnesses to remember license plates and report them to the police. But the task force, in a report released in December, found that the shift would cost $47 million in implementation costs and could hinder law enforcement by making it harder to share license plate information between police in Massachusetts and law enforcement elsewhere. It found that the science is inconclusive as to whether EZ-ID is effective.

"In the absence of scientific evidence, it is not fiscally prudent to invest potentially $47 million in the EZ-ID license plate format," the report concluded.

Jay Gardiner, director of the Molly Bish Center for the Protection of Children and the Elderly at Anna Maria College and an advocate for EZ-ID, said he still believes EZ-ID will be implemented. "The data is clear nationally that alpha-numeric does not work. It's ineffective," Gardiner said. "To do nothing is not an option."

Bish, of Warren, was kidnapped in 2000 at a pond where she working as a lifeguard. Her body was found three years later, and her killer has not been found. Her mother saw a suspicious man in a white car the previous day, but no one ever identified the vehicle.

Gary Richard, president of the Danvers-based EZ-ID license plate program, heard about Bish and Elizabeth Smart, a Utah teen who was abducted and held for nine months, and came up with EZ-ID. The proposal is to have fewer characters on a license plate and make one of them a symbol, like a heart, triangle or diamond.

Advocates have pushed for the implementation of EZ-ID for five legislative sessions. This year, they were successful in getting a task force established to study the issue and report back to the legislature.

The task force was chaired by Registrar of Motor Vehicles Celia Blue. Members included representatives of state and local police, state departments dealing with public safety, transportation and finance, and Molly Bish's mother, Magi Bish.

062510 - Warren - Magdalen, left, and John Bish stand in front of the heart-shaped sign at their home in Warren that says 'Still Missing Molly' and the date she disappeared from Comins Pond, where she was working as a lifeguard. The Bishes are holding photographs of their daughter. Lori Stabile 

The task force concluded that more scientific study is necessary on issues surrounding EZ-ID. There have been conflicting studies about whether EZ-ID would help people remember a plate, and the only study that was peer-reviewed found that symbols made no difference in memory.

The task force also recommended that any major changes be made nationally, rather than on a state level. Although states design their own license plates, there is a national non-profit that recommends best practices. The task force identified numerous potential problems with having one state using symbols on license plates. For example, registry of motor vehicle staff would not be able to input symbols from a normal keyboard, and out-of-state police officers would be unable to enter a license plate with a symbol into their databases for traffic enforcement. Law enforcement agencies use national databases of license plates for things like identifying stolen vehicles, and those databases cannot account for symbols. Police officers currently transmit messages to dispatchers in formats that do not use symbols.

A change would also require costly updates to software for things like electronic tolling.

So far, the only other state looking at implementing EZ-ID is Pennsylvania.

The report estimated that the cost of implementing EZ-ID would be $47 million over a five-year rollout period. That includes costs for replacing existing license plates, training staff, updating software, doing public outreach and other expenses.

The report does recommend that the state move toward randomly generating the numbers and letters it puts on license plates. This would result in more unique combinations, which could allow the state to use five characters instead of six.

"This 'uniqueness' will enable law enforcement to narrow the search more quickly when only part of a plate is identified," the report wrote.

The report also recommends running a public awareness campaign to remind people to keep their license plates unobstructed and working with inspection stations to make sure cars' plates are readable.

The report recommends that law enforcement be trained in other memory recall strategies, including hypnosis, which have been proven effective in helping elicit accurate testimony from eyewitnesses.

According to Department of Transportation spokeswoman Amanda Richard, all the members of the task force supported the recommendations, but no formal vote was taken.

Gardiner had not seen the report Friday. But he said law enforcement groups have endorsed the EZ-ID proposal. He argued that the current system is not science-based and is "simply not working" in terms of allowing people to remember license plates and identify cars.

"It needs to be simplified," Gardiner said.

A $10,000 reward is being offered for information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of those who robbed the credit union on Dec. 23.

AGAWAM -- A $10,000 reward is being offered for information on a robbery that occurred at a credit union in Agawam last week.

A robber with a handgun hopped the counter of Holyoke Credit Union at 4 Washington Ave. on Dec. 23 at around 11 a.m., grabbed cash from a money drawer and bolted on foot, according to Agawam police. No one was injured.

Holyoke Credit Union officials announced Friday that a $10,000 reward is being offered for information that could directly lead to the arrest and conviction or guilty plea of those responsible, ABC40 reports.

Police described the robber as a white male who was wearing a ski mask and dark clothing.

Anyone with information on the robbery should call the Agawam Police Department Detective Bureau at 413-786-1717.

Nuclear plant operators in Plymouth plan to begin moving spent fuel into dry cask storage, part of a new campaign that officials say is needed to maintain room in spent fuel pools, conduct refueling operations, and continue safely generating electricity for the region.

By MICHAEL NORTON

Nuclear plant operators in Plymouth plan to begin moving spent fuel into dry cask storage, part of a new campaign that officials say is needed to maintain room in spent fuel pools, conduct refueling operations, and continue safely generating electricity for the region.

Entergy Corporation, which runs the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, said Friday that its plans had been approved and would be monitored by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Plans call for three casks to be loaded at Pilgrim as part of a process that officials expect to be completed by the end of January.

According to plans, the casks will be kept within a "highly secure fenced in area in specialized containers placed on a concrete pad located 25 feet above sea level."

Entergy said the casks are "tested under rigorous engineering and safety criteria" and are designed "to withstand a variety of extreme scenarios, ranging from tornadoes, accidents and severe weather, to earthquakes and terrorist attacks."

Entergy called dry cask storage a "reliable and safe method for storing spent fuel using large, airtight steel and concrete canisters that provide structural strength and radiation shielding."

According to Entergy, more than 500 dry casks are in use in the U.S. Loaded casks weigh 360,000 pounds and each cask is 18 feet tall and 11 feet wide.

The meeting is Monday at 3 p.m. at the police station.

WILBRAHAM - The Police Station Building Feasibility Committee will
receive an appraisal report of two sites on Boston Road being considered for a new police station at a meeting on Monday afternoon.

The meeting will be held at 3 p.m. at the police station.

The committee is considering two sites for a new police station - 2780 Boston Road, just east of the fire station, and 10 Post Office Park on Boston Road, near Monson Savings Bank.

The committee also will review the estimated development cost of the two sites and will receive an update from architect Jeff McElravy on the design concept for a new police station.

Interim Town Administrator Thomas Sullivan, a member of the building feasibility committee, said he would seek appraisals of the two sites before a final recommendation is made as to the top site.

The 2780 Boston Road site has been offered to the town for $425,000, and the 10 Post Office Park site has been offered for sale to the town for $795,000.

The Police Station Building Feasibility Committee is meeting its timetable of bringing a recommended building project for approval at the May annual town meeting.

Once there is a recommended site and schematic design, the building feasibility committee and police chief plan to do more outreach to the community, giving more tours of the existing 100-year-old police station, showing the deficiencies of the existing police station and the needs and requirements of a modern police station.

Chatham police identify two-year veteran Christopher Vardarkis as officer who hit Garrett Gagne of Longmeadow.

A digest of news stories from around New England.

WHDH-TV, 7News, Boston

The hearing will be Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

WILBRAHAM - The Board of Appeals will hold a public hearing Jan. 8 at 5:30 p.m. at Town Hall on a petition for a special permit to allow the operation of a family day care on property at 2367 Boston Road owned by Elizabeth Erickson, Kim Ingram and Jacqueline Ingram.

The application and plans are on file with the Board of Appeals, according to Edward Kivari Jr., chairman of the Board of Appeals.

One of the diners said she was shocked when saw the n-word printed on it.

A waiter in Texas was fired after a racial slur appeared on a number of restaurant-goers receipts on New Year's Eve.

One of the customers said she was shocked when she received her receipt and it had the "n" word printed on it as the check name, according to USA Today.

"All capital letters, just right there," said customer Justyce Hill. "I just did a double take. I was like, 'Wow.' It was just a shock to me.'"

When the friends first noticed the slur, they checked with diners at other tables to see if anybody else had similar notes on their receipts, according to KTVT-TV, the CBS affiliate for Dallas-Fort Worth. But no other tickets did.

"It's sad that it's still occurring," Ta'les Russell told KTVT about this experience. "We are here in the new year, starting fresh, celebrating with family and friends. This is the worst way to start, with everything going on in our society in Ferguson. It's sad that we have to experience this still today in 2015."

The owner of the Shatila Lebanese Grill and Hookah in Pantego, Texas, Mike Salame said he fired the waiter on the spot when he found out about the incident.

"It's very very improper," Salame said. "That's why when I found out, on the spot, I terminated him ... on the spot."

The group of six people had asked their server for separate checks, and when the checks arrived they each noticed the slur.

Hill said the group tried to pull the server aside and talk to him about the receipts, but he said, the server downplayed it and said he "didn't mean anything by it."

Salame said the waiter had only worked at his restaurant for a week, and that he had received two other complaints about him. Salame did not say what the complaints were about.

But, he told WFAA-TV, abc8 in Dallas-Fort Worth, he reached out to the group of friends, and apologized about the waiter, who, he said was an 18-year-old of Syrian decent.

The only comment the server, whose name was printed on the receipt as Ragheed, had for the television station was, "My bad."

"At the end, it kinda ruined it for us," Russell told the TV station.

"I went to sleep thinking about it; went to sleep upset about it and woke up upset about it," added one of her friends, Jasmine Tucker.

According to WFAA, the six friends had just come from a New Year's Eve church service and wanted to celebrate the new year with each other. But instead, they left shocked and disappointed.

"We're being labeled. This is what they identified us as, and not the three girls and three guys," said Russell.

The auditions will be held at the theater.

LUDLOW - The Exit 7 Players will hold auditions for its spring musical, 'A Chorus Line,' Sunday at 6 p.m. and Monday at 7 p.m. at the theater located at 37 Chestnut Street.

Performers are asked to prepare 32 bars in the style of the show and are neither encouraged or discouraged from preparing a song from the show.

Those preparing numbers from outside the show are asked to provide sheet music in the correct key. An accompanist will be provided.

The show will be directed by Janine Flood.

More information is available at exit7players.org.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose less than 10 points to close at 17,832.99.

By STEVE ROTHWELL

NEW YORK — Stocks got off to a sluggish start on the first day of trading in the New Year, ending the day mixed as a report showed that manufacturing growth slowed in December.

U.S. factory activity grew at the slowest pace in six months last month, weakened by declines in orders and production, according to the Institute for Supply Management. While the sector is still in good health, growth was slower than economists had forecast.

The stock market climbed to record levels at the end of 2014 and investors may now be reassessing the outlook for the market at the start of the year, said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial, an independent broker-dealer firm. While growth prospects in the U.S. look decent, in Europe and Asia they are less encouraging.

Investors are "stepping back and saying, 'now we're in the New Year, let's take a fresh look,' " said McMillan. "There's certainly some degree of, I wouldn't say pessimism, but readjustment, going on."

The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 0.70 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 2,058.20. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 9.92 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 17,832.99. The Nasdaq composite dropped 9.24 points, or 0.2 percent, to 4,726.81.

Stocks had another good year in 2014, but the rally faded in the final days of the year. The S&P 500 climbed 11.4 percent, after rising 29.6 percent in 2013. To justify those gains, company earnings will have to keep growing.

"We don't think the U.S. equity market is going to do anywhere near as well this year" as it has in recent years, said Dan Morris, global investment strategist at TIAA-CREF, an investment manager. "There's a lot more that could go wrong than could go right in the U.S."

Morris says stock investors should expect returns in the single digits this year, and should also brace themselves for higher levels of volatility as the Federal Reserve moves toward its first rate increase since 2006.

On Friday, stocks started out with solid gains, then fell back after the ISM published its manufacturing report. After drifting lower for much of the afternoon, the market recovered slightly and ended the day little changed.

U.S. crude fell after moving between losses and small gains. The price dropped 58 cents to $52.69 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the international standard, declined 91 cents to $56.42.

Declining in oil prices are a boon to consumers, who are paying less for gas, but they hurts energy companies by lowering their revenues. The energy industry accounts for about 10 percent of earnings of companies in the S&P 500 index.

The fall in prices will also mean that oil companies will rein in spending on plants and equipment, said Anastasia Amoroso, global market strategist for J.P. Morgan Funds.

"The benefit of lower oil prices is incremental to the damage that they inflict on other parts of the economy," Amoroso said.

In currency trading, the euro retreated against the dollar. The decline came after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi indicated that the bank could support a government bond-buying program to combat alarmingly low inflation in the eurozone. The currency fell to $1.2003, its lowest level against the dollar in 4-1/2 years.

Investors have a number of concerns about Europe as 2015 begins. Growth is anemic in the region and an election in Greece on Jan. 25 could re-ignite the country's debt crisis if an anti-austerity party wins.

In government bond trading, prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.11 percent from 2.17 percent on Wednesday. Markets were closed Thursday for the New Year's Day holiday. The dollar also rose against the Japanese yen, climbing 0.6 percent to 120.51.

In metals trading, gold edged up $2.10 to $1,186.20 an ounce, silver rose 17 cents to $15.77 an ounce and copper slipped less than a penny to $2.82 a pound.

In other energy futures trading:

1. Wholesale gasoline dropped 3.9 cents to $1.433 per gallon.
2. Heating oil fell 3.8 cents to $1.796 a gallon.
3. Natural gas rose 11.4 cents to $3.003 per 1,000 cubic feet.

The Cape and Island District attorney said Gagne has been using drugs and alcohol.

CHATHAM - Cape Cod's top prosecutor said Garrett Gagne of Longmeadow, who died after being run over by a police cruiser on Cape Cod, was high on alcohol and drugs.

Garrett Gagne 

Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe told the Boston Globe that Gagne was "seriously impaired" when he was run over in Chatham early on New Year's Day. O'Keefe said Gagne had been drinking hard alcohol, but he declined to name the drugs. He said had drunk "hour after hour of alcohol" while going to bars and house parties.

The 22-year-old Gagne was a senior government major and lacrosse player at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York.

Authorities say Gagne was lying on an unlit street at about 4 a.m. Thursday when Chatham police officer Christopher Vardakis ran over him while responding to an emergency call.

Vardakis was placed on leave pending the investigation.

A Massachusetts woman who slashed her two children's throats -- before dousing them with lighter fluid and setting fire to their apartment -- was sentenced Friday to 20 to 25 years in prison.

SALEM, Mass. (AP) -- A Massachusetts woman who slashed her two children's throats -- before dousing them with lighter fluid and setting fire to their apartment -- was sentenced Friday to 20 to 25 years in prison.

Tanicia Goodwin, 27, of Salem, pleaded guilty to armed assault with intent to murder, arson and other charges during a hearing in Salem Superior Court. She was ordered to not have contact with any children, including her own, 8-year-old Jamaal and 3-year-old Erica.

Authorities said firefighters responding to the blaze in March 2012 discovered that vents and sprinklers in the apartment had been covered and the front doorknob had been removed.

Goodwin then went to the police station and told authorities, "I'm sorry, babies. I did what I had to do to protect my children," prosecutors said.

Both children survived and are now living with relatives. They did not attend the sentencing.

Goodwin told Judge James Lang that she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is now on medication that makes her thoughts "more clear." Her lawyer, Denise Regan, said Goodwin grew up in abusive and neglectful conditions and was only 8 or 9 years old when she began receiving treatment for mental illness.

Lang said Goodwin's actions were shocking.

"I'm frankly at a loss for words, really, to articulate the heinous nature of what occurred here," Lang said.

Assistant District Attorney Melissa Woodward said Goodwin attacked Jamaal as he was watching television and eating cereal, telling him that he had lived too long and cutting his throat. Goodwin then told Jamaal to give a goodbye hug to his little sister, whose neck also was slashed, Woodward said.

Goodwin then doused both children with lighter fluid, set a fire and at some point had cut her own neck.

"This was by all accounts a double murder with a pitiful feigned suicide attempt by the defendant," Woodward said.

Worcester and Springfield each experienced fewer homicides last year, but Boston saw its murder rate climb from 41 to 52 from 2013 to 2014.

SPRINGFIELD — In a year beset with bad news, from the assassination of two New York City cops to the largest Ebola outbreak ever documented, two of Massachusetts' largest cities may offer somewhat of an antidote.

Worcester and Springfield each experienced fewer homicides in 2014, with decreases of 22 percent and 30 percent, respectively.

In Springfield – a city of 154,000 with an annual per-capita violent crime rate that typically outpaces Boston's (including in 2013) – there were 14 homicides in 2014, or six fewer than in 2013.

Worcester, population 182,500, had just seven homicides last year, compared to nine the previous year.

In Boston, meanwhile, the number of killings spiked by about 27 percent from 2013 to 2014, or from 41 homicides to 52. The increase ended a four-year run of murders trending downward in the commonwealth's largest city, population 646,000.

Although Boston's overall crime rate dropped last year, that good news was largely overshadowed by the rise in homicides, most of which occurred in the city's Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan neighborhoods.

"We are a much safer city than we have been for many, many years," James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University, told The Boston Globe.

After a rash of fatal shootings along the Union Street corridor in Springfield's Old Hill neighborhood, someone placed a sign on the front door of an apartment building at 528 Union St. – the scene of a past murder. (CONOR BERRY / THE REPUBLICAN FILE) 

For Springfield, the 20 killings in 2013 represented a dramatic 66.6 percent hike from 2012, when there were only 12 homicides in the city. The original homicide tally for 2013 was 19, but that number was later amended to 20 after the beating death of a 5-month-old infant.

In 2014, there were originally 15 homicide investigations in Springfield. However, a fatal stabbing at a Girard Avenue apartment complex in November was ruled self-defense and no criminal charges were filed in the case.

Springfield's 14 killings in 2014 represented the lowest amount since the dozen recorded in 2012. By comparison, Hartford, population 125,000, had 19 murders last year.

Five of Springfield's 2014 murder victims were age 24 or younger, and nine were age 25 or older. Of the 14 victims, eight were black, three were white and three were Hispanic.

In the past decade alone, 165 people have been killed in Springfield, or an average of 16½ homicides a year.

The ten-year breakdown is as follows:

• 2014 = 14 homicides
• 2013 = 20
• 2012 = 12
• 2011 = 19
• 2010 = 16
• 2009 = 17
• 2008 = 14
• 2007 = 20
• 2006 = 15
• 2005 = 18

Homicides were down last year in cities such as Springfield and Worcester, but killings rose by 27 percent in Boston from 2013 to 2014. In this file photo from The Republican, an entryway to a Worthington Street club in Springfield was broken during violence that ended in bloodshed in the city's entertainment district.

In terms of where people are being killed in Springfield, murders are fairly evenly distributed throughout the city, with neighborhoods closer to downtown generally experiencing higher rates than outlying sections such as Boston Road, Sixteen Acres, East Springfield, the Outer Belt and Indian Orchard.

Forest Park, one of Springfield's largest and most ethnically and economically diverse communities, has racked up 16 murders in the past five years alone, more than any other city neighborhood during that period.

Regionwide, there were only 19 murders in all of Western Massachusetts last year, nearly 74 percent of which were committed in the city of Springfield. The other homicides were in Holyoke, which had four killings, and Pittsfield, which had a single murder.

By comparison, there 24 murders in Western Massachusetts in 2013, more than 83 percent of which were committed in Springfield (20 killings). The remaining four homicides were in Holyoke.

BELOW is a table listing all homicide victims in the Pioneer Valley since 2010:

The White House warned that this was just the beginning of the U.S. response.

HONOLULU (AP) -- Opening a new front in its cyber spat with North Korea, the United States slapped new sanctions Friday on government officials and the North's defense industry in its first public act of retribution for a cyberattack against Sony. Despite lingering doubts by the cyber community, the U.S. insisted that North Korea was to blame.

The White House warned that this was just the opening salvo in the U.S. response.

While the fresh sanctions will have limited effect - North Korea already is under tough U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program - American officials portrayed the move as a swift and decisive response to North Korean behavior they said had gone far over the line. Never before has the U.S. imposed sanctions on another nation in direct retaliation for a cyberattack on an American company.

"The order is not targeted at the people of North Korea, but rather is aimed at the government of North Korea and its activities that threaten the United States and others," President Barack Obama wrote in a letter to House and Senate leaders.

With this round of sanctions, the U.S. also put North Korea on notice that payback need not be limited to those who perpetrated the attack.

The 10 North Koreans singled out for sanctions didn't necessarily have anything to do with the attack on Sony, senior U.S. officials said. Anyone who works for or helps North Korea's government is now fair game, said the officials - especially North Korea's defense sector and spying operations.

The sanctions also apply to three organizations closely tied to North Korea's government: the country's primary intelligence agency, a state-owned arms dealer that exports missile and weapons technology, and the Korea Tangun Trading Corp., which supports defense research. All three of those entities were already subject to U.S. sanctions, so Friday's move against those groups appeared primarily symbolic.

Obama has also warned Pyongyang that the U.S. is considering whether to put North Korea back on its list of state sponsors of terrorism, which could jeopardize aid to North Korea on a global scale. Beyond that, it's unclear what additional penalties the U.S. has in its arsenal.

North Korea has denied involvement in the cyberattack, which led to the disclosure of tens of thousands of confidential Sony emails and business files, then escalated to threats of terrorist attacks against movie theaters. Many cybersecurity experts have said it's entirely possible that hackers or even Sony insiders could be the culprits, not North Korea, and questioned how the FBI can point the finger so conclusively.

Senior U.S. officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, dismissed those arguments and said independent experts don't have access to the same classified information as the FBI.

"We stand firmly behind our call that the DPRK was behind the attacks on Sony," one official said, using an acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Those sanctioned include North Koreans representing the country's interests in Iran, Russia and Syria. Any assets they have in the U.S. will be frozen, and they'll be barred from using the U.S. financial system. Americans will be prohibited from doing business with them, the Treasury Department said.

At the United Nations, no one answered the phone at North Korea's U.N. Mission, and calls to a diplomat there were not answered. Sony, too, declined to comment.

While denying any role in a cyberattack, North Korea has expressed fury over the Sony comedy flick "The Interview," which depicts the fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Sony initially called off the film's release after movie theaters decided not to show the film. After President Barack Obama criticized that decision, Sony decided to release the film in limited theaters and online.

The White House called the sanctions "the first aspect of our response" to the Sony attack - a declaration that raised fresh questions about who was behind a nearly 10-hour shutdown of North Korean websites last week.

Despite widespread speculation, the U.S. never said whether it was responsible for shutting down North Korea's Internet. But North Korea had a blunt response. Its powerful National Defense Commission blamed the outage directly on the U.S. and hurled racial slurs at Obama, calling him a reckless "monkey in a tropical forest."

On Friday, U.S. officials still wouldn't say who was responsible. Yet they pointed out that there had been media reports suggesting North Korea shut down its own Internet.

North Korea and the U.S. remain technically in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The rivals also are locked in an international standoff over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs and its alleged human rights abuses.