Investigators have been analyzing blood found in the basement of a Maine home where a missing toddler was last seen six weeks ago, an official said Saturday.

View full sizeFILE - This undated file photo obtained from a Facebook page shows missing toddler Alya Reynolds. Investigators say they've found blood inside the Maine home where a toddler was reported missing six weeks ago. State police spokesman Steve McCausland said the blood was found in the basement early in the investigation into Ayla Reynolds' disappearance from her father's home in Waterville. The father, Justin DiPietro, said Ayla was missing from her bed when he checked on her the morning of Dec. 17. (AP Photo/obtained from Facebook, File)

By CLARKE CANFIELD

PORTLAND, Maine — Investigators have been analyzing blood found in the basement of a Maine home where a missing toddler was last seen six weeks ago, an official said Saturday.

The blood was found early in the investigation into Ayla Reynolds' disappearance from her father's home in Waterville, state police spokesman Steve McCausland said. The state crime laboratory has been running tests on it since then, but it was unclear when results would be available.

Ayla's father, Justin DiPietro, reported her missing Dec. 17. He had put her to bed the night before in the home he shares with his mother and said she wasn't there the next morning.

McCausland called the discovery of the blood "troubling." He declined to discuss how much blood was found in the basement or how old it might have been.

Ayla was 20 months old when she disappeared. She had been staying with her father at the time in the house where DiPietro lives with his mother. Her mother, Trista Reynolds, lives in Portland.

DiPietro told police she was wearing green pajamas with polka dots and the words "Daddy's Princess" on them and had a soft cast on her broken left arm.

DiPietro, his mother and a third adult were home the night of Dec. 16, and police have questioned all three, McCausland said.

View full sizeA collection of toys and mementos are placed on the lawn in front of the Violette Ave. home in Watervile, Maine, where police and the FBI are investigating the disappearance of 20 month-old Ayla Reynolds, Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Michael C. York) mementos

"We believe they have not given us the full story," he said.

Trista Reynolds was participating in a vigil Saturday for the girl and could not be reached for comment. DiPietro did not immediately return a message left on his cellphone.

The two came face to face for the first time since Ayla's disappearance at the vigil on the City Hall steps in downtown Waterville, said Bob Vear, a friend of the DiPietro family who organized the vigil. They spoke privately for about 10 minutes before giving each other a hug, Vear said.

A woman who answered DiPietro's mother's cellphone hung up after being asked about the blood.

The blood was among hundreds of pieces of potential evidence that were removed from their home as part of a criminal investigation into the girl's disappearance. The discovery of the blood was first reported Saturday by WCVB-TV in Boston.

Ronald Reynolds, who is Trista Reynolds' father, said DiPietro hasn't been forthcoming with his version of what happened or what he knows. DiPietro has said he took a polygraph test, but has declined to say what the results were.

"They haven't given the full story, but this family has gone through so much pain, so much hurt," said Reynolds, who lives in Portland. "We're going into two months now and don't know anything, and all we get is the runaround."

Vear said he was first made aware of the blood sample Dec. 24, but he doesn't think it'll amount to anything.

"I cut myself at home all the time," he said. "It could be Justin's, it could be the baby's. There were five or six people in the house that night."

The case is the second in the past year involving charges that Hispanic women from New York were brought to Vermont farms for prostitution purposes.

(AP File Photo)

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Two men are facing charges for allegedly bringing a woman from New York City to Vermont to engage in prostitution with farm workers.

Jose Lorenzo Cardona-Paguada and Rafael Posadas-Lara appeared Thursday in federal court in Burlington, where they were ordered to remain in custody pending trial on charges of transporting for prostitution. Officials say the two men and the woman, Maribel Huerta-Mendez, are illegal immigrants.

The Burlington Free Press reported that border patrol agents recovered two notebooks with names, addresses and phone numbers of farms in Vermont and New York, along with a ledger of prostitution transactions.

The case is the second in the past year involving charges that Hispanic women from New York were brought to Vermont farms for prostitution purposes. Many Vermont dairy farms employ foreign workers.

Raymond Maldonado, 31, of 177 Elm St., Apt. 1L, was charged with two counts of assault and battery on a child, including one count of causing "bodily injury" to the minor, according to Holyoke police.

Republican file photo

HOLYOKE – A city man was arrested for allegedly assaulting a child during a Saturday evening incident at Kmart, 2211 Northampton St., according to Holyoke Police Department records.

Raymond Maldonado, 31, of 177 Elm St., Apt. 1L, was charged with single counts of assault and battery on a child and assault and battery on a child with bodily injury in connection with the 6:42 p.m. incident.

Maldonado is expected to be arraigned on the charges Monday in Holyoke District Court.

Police did not release the age of the victim or any other circumstances of the alleged crime.

A Hispanic man, armed with a gun and wearing a black "hoodie," was last seen in a black Honda fleeing south on Kent Road toward Fernbank Road and Wilbraham.

File photo

SPRINGFIELD – Police responded to a report of a carjacking on Kent Road at around 3:04 a.m. Sunday in the city's Boston Road neighborhood.

According to Springfield police reports, a Hispanic male, armed with a handgun and wearing a dark-colored, hooded sweatshirt, stole a black Honda in the vicinity of 101 Kent Road, just south of Radner Street.

Police said the sedan was last seen fleeing south on Kent toward Fernbank Road near the Wilbraham town line. Wilbraham police were alerted and were on the lookout for the stolen vehicle.

It was unclear if the victim of the carjacking was injured. More information will be posted on MassLive as it becomes available.

THE MAP BELOW shows the approximate location of a carjacking reported on Kent Road at 3:04 a.m. Sunday:

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Jesse A. Rodrigue, 31, of 103 South St. has denied felony charges stemming from alleged vehicle break-ins in Northampton last year.

NORTHAMPTON – A city man with a lengthy criminal history was summoned to Hampshire Superior Court to face charges linked to a series of vehicle break-ins last year in Northampton, according to police and prosecutors.

Jesse A. Rodrigue, 31, of 103 South St. pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of nighttime breaking and entering to commit a felony, daytime breaking and entering to commit a felony and larceny in excess of $250, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported.

The charges stem from separate vehicle break-ins in December and October, according to the Northwestern District Attorney's office. Rodrigue is accused of stealing a GPS in one alleged break and of possessing items from other area burglaries, according to authorities.

Rodrigue was free on bail and awaiting trial for the October case when he was arrested again in December, the Gazette reported. He has a long record that includes drug and burglary charges and a history of skipping court appearances, according to prosecutors, who asked for new bail in the case.

A judge released Rodrigue on personal cognizance, however, ordering him to live with his parents pending the disposition of his cases. Rodrigue, whose attorney acknowledged that his client has substance-abuse issues, also was ordered to abstain from alcohol and drugs and to enter a treatment program.

A pretrial hearing was scheduled for March.

Springfield reported more than 3,000 suspensions last year, the highest number statewide.

MassLive.com file photos

Grades 9 -12: This map of Western Massachusetts high school districts in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin Counties shows the number of records — including in-school and out-of school suspensions and expulsions — for students in grades 9-12. (Mandy Hofmockel/MassLive.com)

Across Western Massachusetts, school officials make no apologies for their district’s suspension rates.

They say a number of factors – from the specter of the Columbine, Colo., school shootings in 1999 to a new emphasis on bullying prevention – have forced schools to adopt tough, but flexible discipline policies.

“We are very serious about school safety,” said Christopher Collins, vice chairman of the Springfield School Committee and a former school principal.

“But we try to avoid out-of-school suspensions whenever possible; there are a series of steps we try first,” he said.

Still, Springfield reported more than 3,000 out-of-school suspensions last year, the highest number statewide. Boston, Lynn, Worcester and Brockton made up the top five, with more than 2,000 suspensions each, according to an analysis by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

The 3,000-plus figure for out-of-school suspension days represents a small fraction of the district’s 20,164 overall suspension days, reflecting the policy of reserving out-of-school suspensions for violence or highly disruptive behavior.

Lesser measures – parent conferences, in-house suspensions, or transfers to other schools – were used more often, allowing students to remain in class.

In Springfield, the most suspensions were given to 9th-graders, who missed 5,399 school days due to 1,206 suspensions, the analysis of data from the 2009-2010 school year shows. In first grade, 306 school days were lost to 114 suspensions, the lowest total for any grade.

Suspension rates fluctuate sharply from school to school during that period, the figures show.

Ten elementary schools – Brightwood, Brunton, Dryden, Ells, Freedman, Glenwood, Kensington, Liberty, Lincoln and Talmage – issued fewer than a dozen suspensions.

By contrast, nine others – Brookings, Harris, Boland, Indian Orchard, DeBerry, Mary Walsh, Warner, White Street and Zanetti – had between 50 and 91 suspensions.

Disparities were apparent at the middle school level, too, with Duggan handing out 90 suspensions while Van Sickle, Forest Park and Kiley reporting 309, 316 and 333, respectively.

Perhaps the most striking contrast can be seen in the number suspensions for “ unassigned,” or minor, suspensions.

Nearly two-thirds of the 309 suspensions at Forest Park were for unassigned incidents; at the Gerena Middle School, by contrast, none of the 102 suspensions was listed as unassigned.

To achieve a consistent approach toward suspensions, the School Department adopted a code of conduct in 2002 identifying 54 categories of violations and spelling out punishment for each one.

But the sheer range of infractions – from skipping school and wearing lewd T-shirts to arson, kidnapping and homicide – leaves room for discretion, as the figures suggest.

Springfield School Committee member Antonette E. Pepe said there should be no glaring discrepancies on how schools handle and report disciplinary cases.

While some students might be disciplined for minor infractions, there is a corresponding pressure on principals to keep suspension totals down to protect their school’s image, Pepe said.

“Principals end up getting punished for having too many suspensions,” she said.

In Holyoke, Superintendent David L. Dupont cited Columbine and the nationally publicized suicides of two local students as a factors shaping school security policy.

Carl J. Walker-Hoover, 11, a student of New Leadership Charter School in Springfield, hanged himself April 6, 2009; Phoebe N. Prince, a South Hadley High School freshman, hanged herself Jan. 14, 2010. Both had complained about bullying by classmates.

In that context, Dupont said, statistics that show thousands of disciplines were issued in the 2009-2010 school year are unsurprising.

“It’s like a high degree of alertness,” Dupont said.

Holyoke in that school year registered more than 8,000 classroom incidents in Grades 1 to 12, including fights and other physical attacks, sexual harassment, thefts and threats. That resulted in 2,678 suspensions and 8,333 classroom days lost, said the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

“Nothing is taken as a joke,” Dupont said. “If it rises to the level where police have to be notified, the teachers do that.”

Like Springfield schools, Holyoke’s statistics show an escalating number of offenses through the grades that peaks at Grade 9 at 2,829, and drops significantly in the three upper grades: Grade 10, 1,205; Grade 11, 665, and Grade 12, 687.

Dupont said many problem students drop out after freshman year, but something else is at work: students in Grade 10 are maturing and the idea of graduating from high school begins to enter their thinking.

“There’s a leveling off,” Dupont said.

In Westfield, the approach toward suspensions at Westfield High School is based on “fidelity to the school discipline code” and as a result the school can be seen as having a large number of suspensions, said principal Raymond K. Broderick.

Those suspensions ranged from a partial day to 10-days; last year there were a total of 891 suspensions, he said.

Most resulted from missing class time or violating discipline codes restricting the use of electronics equipment, especially cell phones. First offense for use of cell phone brings students a warning, third offense can result in suspension, he said.

Broderick said zero-tolerance in discipline does work, but he believes flexibility is also needed. “Our suspension numbers are high now because I have no resources to provide alternative programs to students,” he said.

Chicopee Superintendent Richard W. Rege Jr. said the number of out-of-school suspensions has been reduced dramatically since 2002, mostly because teachers are using different disciplinary methods.

“I don’t think Chicopee was ever overly tolerant with respect to what we would expect of behavior. If anything, what we tried to do is get people to give up the impression that external suspension is the answer in every case,” he said.

Instead, teachers use long detentions after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and there is also Saturday school for some offenses.

For more disruptive behavior, there are internal suspension rooms, where students spend the day working on their studies but are separated from peers for the entire day. They also have lunch in the room, Rege said.

Students with chronic behavior problems are often referred to Chicopee Academy, the city’s alternative school.

“The reality is long-term suspensions will not help the graduation or dropout rate or help the child be a productive citizen,” Rege said.

In Agawam, there were 238 incidents in public schools, resulting in a total of 824 days of school missed.

Incidents ranged from possession of illegal drugs with intent to sell in the fourth grade, and tobacco use in seventh grade to physical attacks and the threat of physical attacks throughout the school population.

School Superintendent William P. Sapelli said students know they will be sent home for serious violations of the district’s discipline policy.

“Zero tolerance does work. You don’t turn your head,” Sapelli said.

Suspension is a good tool because it projects the rest of the school population, he said.

Monson School Superintendent Patrice L. Dardenne said having strict disciplinary guidelines is not necessarily a deterrent.

A lot of the acts by students are “spur of the moment” with no thought to possible consequences, according to Dardenne, who said some students see a suspension as a three day vacation “which is not going to change behavior.”

“I don’t think that the act of a suspension is the tool that will change behavior,” he said, adding that anyone bringing a weapon or banned substance to school would face suspension or expulsion.

Staff writers Mike Plaisance, Jeanette DeForge, Ted LaBorde, Sandra Constantine, Lori Stabile and Fred Contrada contributed to this report.

More than 3,000 out-of-school suspensions were imposed for Springfield students in the 2010-2011 school year.

By BEVERLY FORD
New England Center for Investigative Reporting

Thousands of Massachusetts public school students were suspended during the 2009-2010 school year for smoking, skipping class, tardiness and other minor infractions under “zero tolerance” discipline policies that are creating what critics call a “cradle to prison” pipeline.

From Boston to the Berkshires, the numbers reflect a troubling trend that appears to have continued into the following school year.

Massachusetts logged more than 75,000 in-school and out-of school suspensions in the 2010-2011 school year, a study of state education data by the New England Center for Investigative Journalism has found. Details on the particulars of those suspensions is not yet available, but they do account for thousands of days of lost classroom time for students, many of whom are in danger of dropping out of school, critics say.

Topping the list was Springfield, with more than 3,000 out-of-school suspensions during the 2010-2011 school year. Boston, Lynn, Worcester and Brockton follow, each with more than 2,000. Holyoke, Fall River, Lawrence, Lowell and New Bedford each marked more than 1,000 out-of-school suspensions during the same time period.

For many observers, the numbers which raise more concern are those which reflect how much class time is lost for students punished for minor infractions.

Statewide, students facing minor offenses lost nearly 54,000 days of classroom time during 2009-2010, the most recent year for which such detailed data about the infractions is available. The number of days lost for minor offenses exceeded the number of days lost by students charged with gun, alcohol, knife and explosive possession, sexual assault, theft and vandalism combined, the data shows.

Minor offenses are classified as “unassigned,” a term used by state education officials to cover non-violent and non-criminal misdeeds, such as talking back to a teacher, swearing or truancy.

Once removed from school, many of those youngsters fall behind in their studies, primarily because a majority of students involved in serious discipline cases get no educational services once tossed from the classroom, says Nakisha Lewis, a project manager with the Schott Foundation for Public Education. The Schott Foundation is a Cambridge-based group which advocates for more equitable distribution of educational resources.

The state considers school discipline a local matter, but urges school districts “to offer some type of alternative education wherever possible” for suspended or expelled students, according to state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education spokesman J.C. Considine. School districts are under no obligation to do so, however, and few actually do, education advocates say.

That philosophy has some concerned.

“We’re creating what many people are calling ‘dropout factories,’” noted Lewis, who has helped the Schott Foundation spearhead several studies, including one which found that students who are suspended or expelled often drop out of school, leading to juvenile delinquency, arrests and, eventually, prison. Taking kids out of class for non-violent offenses, Lewis explained, is akin to creating a cradle-to-prison pipeline.

“It doesn’t take a leap of imagination to know that if you take children with problems and throw them onto the street with little or no education, we’re going to breed a society of criminals,” said attorney Sam Schoenfeld, of Canton, who has represented a number of expelled and suspended students. “What needs to be done is to stop this chain of events.”

Yet stopping suspensions and expulsions may be difficult, especially since that cradle-to-prison pipeline begins at the earliest of ages.

In the table below, column 5 shows the total number of records for each offense. Each record represents a suspension, expulsion, removal from class or other disciplinary action. Column 6, at the far right of the table, shows the total number of days lost for each offense.

According to the state data, children as young as 4 years old were excluded from school for at least one day during the 2009-2010 school year. That same year, students from pre-school to third-grade lost 1,825 classroom days because of suspensions for “unassigned,” or minor, infractions. “Unassigned,” is a term used by state education officials to cover non-violent and non-criminal offenses such as talking back to a teacher, swearing or truancy.

More than 2,100 students in pre-school through third-grade received suspensions during the 2009-2010 school year, 1,546 of them for violent or drug related offenses, according to Considine. An additional 574 students also received suspensions for “unassigned” misdeeds, he said.

Among those suspended during that school year was an 8-year-old Taunton boy who was tossed out of school in December 2009 and ordered to undergo psychological testing because his stick-figure drawing of a crucified Christ was considered too violent by school administrators. School officials denied that the boy’s suspension had anything to do with religion and stood their ground, saying, “The incident was handled appropriately.”

A year later, in 2010, Brockton officials paid out nearly $250,000 in legal fees and settlement costs when the mother of a 6-year-old sued after her son was suspended for the alleged sexual harassment of another first-grader.

“When a child as young as 4 is suspended, something in wrong,” said Barbara Best, director of foundation relations and special projects with the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington, D.C. The suspensions of grade schoolers should be “a wake-up call” to school administrators that zero-tolerance discipline policies just don’t work, she said.

“We don’t have a child problem; we have an adult problem if we’re suspending 4, 5 and 6 year olds,” Best added.

By the time students reach high school, suspensions and expulsions peak, especially for minority students, according to John Melia, director of the Children’s Law Project at Massachusetts Advocates for Children.

Melia points to the case of a Somali boy who was expelled from high school last year after he poked another student with a pencil. Despite no prior disciplinary record, the 16-year-old was cited for using the pencil as a weapon, a charge which mandated immediate expulsion under the school’s code of conduct.

It wasn’t until Melia, who served as the boy’s lawyer, stepped into the case that the teen was allowed to return to school. He remained on probation for the rest of the school year without further problems.

Still, that incident remains a troubling reflection on what is happening in classrooms throughout the Bay State, where school administrators are tossing misbehaving youngsters out of class in the name of school safety.

Photo by Ryan HuttonSonia Vivas is now an honors student after she was kicked out of school in the eighth grade.

Sonia Vivas knows all about that. A good student with no disciplinary record, Vivas was on track to fulfill her dream of becoming a lawyer when an encounter with two other teens sent her life into a tailspin.

Accused of stealing a cell phone and pulling a knife on a student, the 14-year-old eighth-grader was tossed out of school with little more than a cursory hearing after the mother of one of the girls complained her daughter felt threatened. For six months, Vivas, who denies the allegations, languished at home, banished from classes at her Somerville middle school where she was the only Hispanic student in the eighth-grade.

“It was pretty traumatizing,” she says now, five years later. “It made me feel pretty horrible. It changed my life.”

It took the intervention of a lawyer and a diagnosis of a learning disorder to finally get Vivas back to class, this time at an alternative school. Today, the Somerville high-school honors student is headed for a brighter future but the dream of a legal career she once cherished is now over, crushed by the hours spent in court fighting to get the school district to provide her with an education.

In an era where the issue of school safety breeds little tolerance for student misbehavior, Vivas’ story is not unique.

In fact, of the almost 1 million public school students in Massachusetts during the 2009-2010 school year, 7,075 students from pre-school to 12th-grade got tossed out of school for “unassigned,” or minor, offenses alone, Considine said.

Those figures have education and child advocates concerned. “The Massachusetts law is meant to give principals the ability to make the best decisions on the spot,” said Joan Meschino, director of Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, which advocates for systemic solutions to social justice issues. “Instead, it opens the door for them to include other offenses rather than what was originally intended. It allows them to broaden the net, sweep up at risk kids and push them out the door.”

That philosophy has caused students to lose an inordinate amount of class time to school suspensions. In the 2009-2010 school year alone, Bay State students lost a total of 199,056 days to both in-school and out-of-school suspensions. In 2008-2009, that figure topped 215,000.

The reason for so much lost class time is due to strict disciplinary measures that can be traced back to the 1990s when violent street gangs began to emerge on city streets.

It wasn’t until April 20, 1999 that school violence became a bloody reality when two high school seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., and massacred 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves. The murders, education advocates said, ushered in a new era of concern over school safety.

“Suspension became the automatic response to misbehavior,” said Johanna Wald, who has worked on school discipline issues for the Charles Hamilton Huston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. Wald said drugs, guns and other threatened and real school shootings have created an era of “zero-tolerance policies” in many schools.

“Now,” she added, “we are thankfully recognizing how damaging that highly punitive approach is, especially to teenagers. What they need is to be in school, to have relationships with competent adults who can steer them in the right direction.”

Yet the swift suspension or expulsion of students, often for minor infractions, continues unabated even though studies show that tossing a kid out of school encourages a child to drop out altogether. And that leads to a host of other problems ranging from unemployment to criminal behavior, the Schott Foundation’s Lewis said.

“Our concern is to change the process and the practices for those kids who don’t commit serious offenses,” noted Melia.

“What is lacking is how to create a pipeline that makes kids successful,” added Melissa Pearrow, assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and School Psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. “How do we create classrooms and prepare teachers to make all students successful in school and in life? Teachers can do things to engage kids and be supportive but we need administrators to be supportive too. We need administrators to be on board.”

That may soon happen thanks to two new bills currently under consideration by the state Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education.

The bills, aimed at preventing kids from dropping out of school, encourage school districts to reduce their reliance on expulsion and suspension as disciplinary tactics and puts some due process rights in place for students charged with misdemeanors, according to state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, co-chair of the committee. One also mandates that no student be suspended for more than a year and gives teachers and administrators discretion in how they deal with unruly students.

“We need to get students back into the educational process,” said Chang-Diaz, “and we need to allow school administrators the flexibility and the authority to make decisions protecting the safety of students and staff.”

Paul Andrews, director of professional development and government services for the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, said discipline policies need to be consistent, fair, and progressive so that punishment increases in severity with each new occurrence. School administrators also need to be able to use their own discretion to better resolve issues, he said, adding that parental involvement and support is also key.

“It requires the cooperation of local government, families and schools,” he said. “We all have to work together. We all have a responsibility to make this work.”

The New England Center for Investigative Reporting www.necir-bu.org is a nonprofit investigative reporting newsroom based at Boston University.

Christin L. O'Kane, 37, of 80 West Main St. was sentenced to jail after admitting to double counts of cocaine possession with intent to distribute.

AP file photo

NORTHAMPTON – A Ware woman was sentenced to a year at the Western Massachusetts Regional Women's Correctional Center in Chicopee after admitting Friday to drug charges in Hampshire Superior Court in Northampton.

Christin L. O'Kane, 37, of 80 West Main St., Apt. 2, was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty last month to double counts of cocaine possession with intent to distribute, the Daily Hampshire Gazette of Northampton reports.

Details about the date and location of her offenses were unavailable.

A judge ordered O'Kane to serve a two-year probation sentence after she's released from jail. During her probation term, she must abstain from using drugs and submit to random testing, according to court-ordered conditions.

O'Kane had originally been charged with more than half a dozen offenses, including cocaine trafficking, a felony punishable by a lengthy prison sentence.

The Rev. Karen L. M. Haringa (pictured) was pastor of the Adams Square Congregational Church when it closed in January 2011. The church's nearly $400,000 in remaining assets were distributed among various Worcester-area churches and nonprofits.

AP PhotoThe Rev. Karen Haringa was pastor of Worcester's Adams Square Congregational Church when it closed last January. Although the church is gone, its members have donated its remaining $390,000 in assets to Worcester-area churches and nonprofit groups.

BRONISLAUS KUSH, The Telegram & Gazette

WORCESTER – The members of the Adams Square Congregational Church knew for some time that they would eventually have to shut the doors of their Burncoat Street house of worship.

The only question was when to do it.

The congregation, established in 1898 as a missionary church to serve residents in the Burncoat-Lincoln area, was never too big to begin with, but it held its own until Interstate 290 was constructed in the 1960s, cutting the neighborhood in two and dramatically scissoring the church's membership.

"After that, it really was only a matter of time," said the Rev. Karen L. M. Haringa, Adams Square's last pastor.

The church's younger families began moving to the suburbs and the remaining older congregants living on limited incomes found it tougher and tougher to support and maintain their spiritual home.

At the end of 2009, the congregation unanimously voted to call it quits.

There was no talk of merging with another church or of finding smaller, more affordable quarters.

"The burden (of operating the church) had fallen on a small group. We were just too few," Rev. Haringa said.

The church closed last January, with the last service held on Jan. 16, 2011. Farewells, some teary-eyed, were made at a brunch that followed at Maxwell-Silverman's Toolhouse.

There had been some talk that Adams Square might shut down a bit earlier but nobody wanted to shutter the church during the Christmas season.

Though the congregation is gone, its mission, members said, will miraculously continue.

That's because the 31 remaining congregants decided to distribute the church's dissolved assets — about $390,000, including funds from the sale of the church property to a Hispanic group of Seventh Day Adventists — to 30 area churches and nonprofit organizations.

The money must be used for neighborhood outreach programs.

The state attorney general's office approved of the disbursement plan last Dec. 20.

The beneficiaries, which include the Salvation Army Citadel Corp., seven Roman Catholic churches in Worcester and Shrewsbury and the United Church of Christ Massachusetts Conference, have expressed thanks for Adams Square's generosity.

For example, during Advent, Rev. Haringa, now retired, was invited to preach at Greendale People's Church.

That congregation gave Rev. Haringa a certificate of appreciation and promised to plant a tree on church grounds as a remembrance of Adams Square's gesture.

"It was just a wonderful thing for the Adams Square church to do," said Mary Ann Ritaco, the administrative assistant at Greendale People's Church.

Meanwhile, parishioners at Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Church plan on using some of the money they will receive to help the Interfaith Hospitality Network, an association of about 25 local churches that helps the area needy.

"We are humbled by your action and by your big heart, which will continue to beat through so many congregations in Worcester and beyond for years to come," said the Rev. Chester J. Misiewicz, Blessed Sacrament's pastor.

Rev. Haringa, who graduated from Andover Newton Theological School and who was ordained in 1977, said Adams Square had a membership of about 150 when she became pastor in 1978.

She said that Worcester once had 11 Congregational churches, each serving particular neighborhoods.

"I once was asked why we had closed, and I responded by asking that person, 'Do you go to church?' The person was shocked by the question and, in response, I got that classic deer in the headlights look," said Rev. Haringa, a Webster native.

A real estate agent said the woman named in the federal charges no longer owns the property.

HOLYOKE – The federal government has filed discrimination charges against the former owner of an apartment building at 728 Hampden St. in a case involving family rights and lead-free paint certification.

Nilma Y. Fichera, of North Babylon, N.Y., owner of N.A.G. Realty LLC, refused to show or rent apartments to families with children because she was unable to certify the building was free of lead paint, said a press release Wednesday from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Fair Housing Act requires that if a family chooses to live in an apartment, even though family members have been advised the unit hasn’t undergone lead-paint treatment, the owner is prohibited from denying the family the right to occupy the unit just because the family has children, HUD documents show.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, lead exposure can cause nervous system and kidney damage, poor muscle coordination, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder and speech, language and behavior problems

Massachusetts law requires that lead hazards – such as deteriorating lead paint – be removed or covered when children under 6 occupy a unit. It also holds landlords responsible for any harm caused by the lead, according to the website of the state office of Health and Human Services.

Four testers working for the Housing Discrimination Project Inc. contacted Fichera several times in May 2011 after responding to advertisements placed about apartments at 728 Hampden St., according to HUD documents. The Housing Discrimination Project is a nonprofit organization that tries to ensure fair housing by doing such tests.

Fichera couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday. A phone number for her in North Babylon, N.Y. was out of service.

The HUD documents say that N.A.G. Realty owns the 24-unit, 728 Hampden St. building, which is across from the Stop & Shop supermarket in the Highlands Neighborhood. But Winchester Realty LLC bought the property Nov. 21, said Paul R. Gallagher, owner and president of Martinelli, Martini & Gallagher Real Estate, Inc., 1763 Northampton St.

HUD vs. Nilma Y. Fichera and N.A.G. Realty, LLC

Gallagher said his firm brokered the sale. His company is listed on a sign in the lobby at 728 Hampden St. as the property manager, but Gallagher said his company didn’t begin managing the property until sometime in December.

Another sign in the lobby at 728 Hampden St. reads, “Nilma Fichera, mgr., P.O. Box 2560, North Babylon, N.Y., 11703, N.A.G. Realty LLC.”

HUD documents show the address of N.A.G. Realty to be 1548 Northampton St. That is the address of Sutter Jewelry, and Mayor Alex B. Morse also had a headquarters there in his 2011 election campaign. Owner James A. Sutter said he gets mail for N.A.G. Realty but doesn’t know Fichera or anyone from N.A.G. Realty.

Lawyer Kathleen M. Kelly, who now has an office in South Hadley, is listed as resident agent of N.A.G. Realty, 1548 Northampton St., on the website of the state Secretary of State’s corporations division. Kelly couldn’t be reached for comment.

Gallagher said Kelly has represented his firm in deals over the years, had an office in his firm’s building until May and represented Fichera when she bought 728 Hampden St. in 2005.

HUD has charged Fichera and N.A.G. Realty with discriminatory housing practices. The charge will be heard by a U.S. administrative law judge unless any of the parties in the case elects to have it heard in federal district court, HUD documents show.

If an administrative law judge finds discrimination has occurred, the judge can award damages and impose fines. If the case is decided in federal court, the judge can award punitive damages, HUD documents show.

Tito Conklin, 18, was charged in connection with an altercation outside the mall's Cafe Square section.

03.09.11 | Photo by Julian Feller-Cohen – A Hadley Police Department cruiser.

HADLEY – A teenager was arrested after allegedly assaulting a person around 8:30 p.m. Friday at the Hampshire Mall, 367 Russell St.

Eighteen-year-old Northampton resident Tito Conklin, whose address was unavailable, was charged in connection with an incident outside the mall's Cafe Square, according to abc40, media partner of The Republican and MassLive.

The Hadley Police Department was unable to provide details about the case early Sunday.

At first, Conklin and the alleged victim reportedly engaged in some pushing and name-calling. But things quickly escalated when Conklin allegedly assaulted the individual, throwing him face first into the pavement, abc40 reports.

An ambulance responded around 8:39 p.m. and took the unidentified person to an area hospital for treatment of facial lacerations, according to Fireground360, a website maintained by area firefighters and first-responders.

Arraignment information, including the specific charges against Conklin, was unavailable.

The Democrat will likely get a good reception in the Pioneer Valley, but first he'll have to face questions in Boston about his car crash and relationship with Michael McLaughlin, a former housing official accused of illegal campaign fundraising.

Timothy P. Murray

Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray is scheduled to visit Northampton on Monday and Holyoke on Friday, but first he'll have to make it through Sunday's broadcast of "On the Record," the weekly political roundtable program that airs at 11 a.m. on Boston's WCVB Channel 5.

The program, which was taped ahead of time, will cover Murray's controversial November car crash and relationship with former Chelsea Housing Authority Executive Director Michael McLaughlin, who's accused of illegally raising money for the lieutenant governor.

Murray has come under fire for crashing a state-owned cruiser and for ties to McLaughlin, whom Murray has described as a mere campaign volunteer. Murray said last week he plans to ask the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance to investigate whether McLaughlin illegally raised funds for his political campaign.

According to a Boston Globe investigation, phone records show that the pair called each other nearly 200 times over the past two years and that McLaughlin ran an extensive political operation for Murray until his November resignation from the Chelsea Housing Authority, where he earned a $360,000 salary.

The FBI is investigating whether McLaughlin broke federal laws, the Globe has reported.

Murray may have escaped uninjured from the 108-mile-per-hour crash on Nov. 2, 2011, but he hasn't yet escaped media questions about the incident, including ongoing coverage by the Globe and Boston Herald.

A recent Globe editorial faulted Murray, a possible Democratic candidate for governor, for failing to "level with the public" about the crash.

Murray is expected to have an easier time this week when he travels to Northampton and Holyoke. On Monday, he's scheduled to attend a celebration in honor of Mary Clare Higgins, the former Northampton mayor, at 5 p.m. at the Garden House, 300 North Main St., Florence. On Friday, he's slated to attend the Connecticut Valley Superintendents Roundtable at 1 p.m. at the Delaney House, 1 Country Club Road, Holyoke.

The governor said many decisions, such as setting fees, will be taken directly from the boards of trustees that govern the colleges and placed into the hands of the state Board of Higher Education.

BOSTON – Leaders of community colleges in the Pioneer Valley are leery of Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s plan to place all community colleges under a powerful governing board in Boston, saying the move might weaken local control and hurt efforts to improve job training for employers in the region.

Patrick is asking the state Legislature to approve a law to bring the 15 community colleges into a new central system as a way to improve coordination for job training, both statewide and regionally.

The governor is also seeking to give an existing state board – the state Board of Higher Education – new powers to allocate state funding to each campus, to set fees for students and to appoint and remove presidents.

William F. Messner

The community colleges in Greenfield, Holyoke and Springfield offer two-year degrees and are often overshadowed by the University of Massachusetts and private colleges in Hampshire and Hampden counties. But the three colleges together have about 20,000 full and part-time students and are noted for offering an affordable education and training programs for certain careers.

William F. Messner, president of Holyoke Community, which has 7,000 students, said local businesses and institutions are best situated to identify employment needs in a region and to craft plans to meet those needs.

“To direct that process from Boston gives me great pause,” Messner said. “You’ve got to be a lot smarter than I am to be able to define the workforce needs of an area in the state while sitting behind a desk in Boston.”

Funding is a key issue, said Messner, especially with budget cuts in recent years that he said have cut his school’s state budget by 25 percent.

Holyoke Community, for example, puts hundreds of students on a wait list for its program to train registered nurses. The college needs to hire more faculty for the program but nursing faculty are hard to find and expensive, he said.

“It’s a question of resources,” Messner said. “I understand some folks don’t want to hear that, but it’s the God’s honest truth.”

Stephen H. Keller, executive vice president and chief academic officer at Springfield Technical Community, also expressed concerns about consolidating too much authority in Boston.

“I’d feel better if the state Department of Higher Education was in Springfield, not Boston,” Keller said. “West of Worcester, we might as well be in New York.”

Patrick’s plan would strip each college’s board of trustees of their existing powers to set student fees and to appoint a president.

According to the plan, the state Board of Higher Education would select a search committee, including members of local boards of trustees, and the committee would interview candidates for president and would recommend three finalists. The state board would get the final say on appointing a president.

During a conference call with reporters last week, Patrick said many decisions, such as setting fees, will be taken directly from the boards of trustees that govern the colleges and placed into the hands of the state Board of Higher Education.

Under the governor’s plan, the local boards of trustees would still oversee day-to-day operations at the colleges and would be involved in setting the campus mission.

Generally, the plan calls for shared control of the campuses between the state and local boards.

Patrick said the community colleges need to be unified to better train students for job openings and to better align the colleges with the needs of employers.

“We have a skills gap,” Patrick said during his “State of the State” speech a week ago. “We can do something about that. We can help people get back to work. And our community colleges should be at the very center of it.”

The governor’s plan is also aimed at clearing the way for students to transfer credits among colleges.

To help in the change to a new system, Patrick is proposing a $10 million increase in the community college system’s budget for the coming year and asking businesses to match that money with an additional $10 million.

Patrick would fund the 15 colleges at $218 million for the fiscal year that starts July 1, an increase from $209 million in state funding two years ago and up from $188 million in state dollars three years ago.

Messner and other community college leaders praised Patrick for recognized the importance of the two-year colleges.

Messner said he also likes the governor’s plan to develop a more rational approach for financing the colleges. Under Patrick’s plan, the state board would receive a lump sum and then would consider enrollment and performance measures when making decisions on allocating funding to individual campuses.

Currently, the budget for each campus is set by state legislators and the governor.

Keller, the executive vice president at Springfield Technical Community, also cited the need for increasing funding to the colleges.

Springfield Technical also turns away hundreds of students from its program for registered nurses, partly because many students need remedial training in math and English, Keller said.

Other highly specialized programs at Springfield Technical – robotics and laser optics and photonics – need more faculty, space and equipment, he said. Capacity is also limited at those programs, mostly because of a lack of funding, he said.

Keller said the colleges do need to work more closely with industry to better anticipate future employment needs.

Springfield Technical, which has 6,700 full and part-time students, could benefit from a new funding formula if it is based on a college’s training of students for jobs and careers.

“If the emphasis is on technical and vocational education, that puts us in a good position,” Keller said.

Robert Pura

Patrick said his plan would help the state’s 240,000 unemployed people obtain the skills needed to fill an estimated 120,000 current job openings, including many that require special skills.

Robert L. Pura, president of Greenfield Community College, which has 6,000 students, said he is also not convinced that a central governing board is the best answer.

“Other states have figured out that a strong central board alongside a strong local board is really the right balance,” Pura said.

Local trustees understand and appreciate the needs of employers in communities, he said.

Greenfield Community also works incredibly well with a regional employment board, which includes representatives from local businesses and industry, Pura said. The boards, located around the state, have planning and oversight responsibilities for worker training and placement programs in their areas.

Pura says he will work with the governor as Patrick’s plan presents a good opportunity to have a debate about the future of the community colleges.

Pura praised Patrick and a couple of top state education aides, but he noted that administrations come and go on Beacon Hill. Former Gov. W. Mitt Romney, for example, proposed merging community colleges, including Holyoke and Greenfield.

Pura said he agrees that community colleges should help people get jobs they want and should help employers fill vacancies. “The truth is, we’ve been doing that for a while here,” Pura said.

This isn’t the first time Patrick proposed an overhaul for community colleges. In 2007, Patrick proposed to make Massachusetts’ community colleges free to all high-school graduates in the state by the year 2015, but the plan died amid a state fiscal crisis.

Patrick’s new plan follows a report by the Boston Foundation, a civic group, that said community colleges are hampered by low graduation rates, cuts in state funding and a lack of accountability. The report said a central board should govern the colleges.

Kevin Galvin of Marstons Mills died at Massachusetts General Hospital.

U.S. Fish and WildlifeA little brown bat similar to this one bit Kevin Galvin of Marstons Mills, transmitting the rabies that claimed his life.

HYANNIS – A man who had been confirmed by state public health officials as suffering from rabies in a Boston hospital has died, according to a story in the Cape Cod Times.

Kevin Galvin, 63, of Marstons Mills died Monday at Massachusetts General Hospital. State and local public health officials would not confirm the cause of death, The Times reported.

His obituary did not specify a cause of death, but the Times obtained his death certificate, which listed rabies encephalitis as the cause of death, at Boston City Hall on Friday.

The last recorded human case of rabies contracted in the state was in 1935.

According to a story previously reported by The Associated Press, a Cape Cod man in his 60s was being treated in a Boston hospital this month, and was likely bitten by a bat in his home.

The Associated Press had reported that state Department of Public Health spokesman John Jacobs said tests conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the rabies the man was suffering from was transmitted by one of two species of brown bat, both of which are relatively common to Massachusetts.

Mayor Jean Quan was among those inspecting damage caused after dozens of people broke into City Hall on Saturday, smashing glass display cases, spray-painting graffiti, and burning an American flag.

View full sizeOccupy Oakland protestors burn an American flag found inside Oakland City Hall during an Occupy Oakland protest on the steps of City Hall, Saturday, January 28, 2012, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Beck Diefenbach)

By TERRY COLLINS

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Oakland officials assessed damage to City Hall caused by Occupy protesters while leaders of the movement claimed Sunday that police acted illegally in arresting hundreds of demonstrators and could face a lawsuit.

Mayor Jean Quan was among those inspecting damage caused after dozens of people broke into City Hall on Saturday, smashing glass display cases, spray-painting graffiti, and burning an American flag.

That break-in culminated a day of clashes between protesters and police. Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said nearly 400 people were arrested on charges ranging from failure to disperse and vandalism. At least three officers and one protester were injured.

In a news release Sunday, the Occupy Oakland Media Committee criticized the police conduct, saying that most of the arrests were made illegally because police failed to allow protesters to disperse.

"Contrary to their own policy, the OPD gave no option of leaving or instruction on how to depart. These arrests are completely illegal, and this will probably result in another class action lawsuit against the OPD, who have already cost Oakland $58 million in lawsuits over the past 10 years," the release said.

The scene around City Hall was mostly quiet Sunday morning, and it was unclear whether protesters would mount another large-scale demonstration.

Dozens of officers remained present inside and outside City Hall after maintaining guard overnight. Occupy Oakland demonstrators broke into the historic building and burned a U.S. flag, as officers earlier fired tear gas to disperse people throwing rocks and tearing down fencing at a convention center.

"They were never able to occupy a building outside of City Hall," Jordan said Sunday. "We suspect they will try to go to the convention center again. They will not get in"

Saturday's protests — the most turbulent since Oakland police forcefully dismantled an Occupy encampment in November — came just days after the group said it planned to use a vacant building as a social center and political hub and threatened to try to shut down the Port of Oakland for a third time, occupy the airport and take over City Hall.

Quan, who faced heavy criticism for the police action last fall, on Saturday called on the Occupy movement to "stop using Oakland as its playground."

"People in the community and people in the Occupy movement have to stop making excuses for this behavior," Quan said.

On Sunday, Quan said she is tired of the protesters' repeated actions.

"I'm mostly frustrated because it appears that most of them constantly come from outside of Oakland," Quan said. "I think a lot of the young people who come to these demonstrations think they're being revolutionary when they're really hurting the people they claim that they are representing."

View full sizePolice move in on Occupy Oakland protesters on Oak Street and 12th Street as tear gas gets blown back on them in Oakland, Calif. on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. An unlawful assembly was declared as occupiers planned to take over an undisclosed building. (AP Photo/The Tribune, Bay Area News Group)

Saturday's events began late Saturday morning, when a group assembled outside City Hall and marched through the streets, disrupting traffic as they threatened to take over the vacant Henry Kaiser Convention Center.

The protesters then walked to the convention center, where some started tearing down perimeter fencing and "destroying construction equipment" shortly before 3 p.m., police said.

Police said they issued a dispersal order and used smoke and tear gas after some protesters pelted them with bottles, rocks, burning flares and other objects.

The number of demonstrators swelled as the day wore on, with afternoon estimates ranging from about 1,000 to 2,000 people.

A majority of the arrests came after police took scores of protesters into custody as they marched through the city's downtown, with some entering a YMCA building, said Sgt. Jeff Thomason, a police spokesman.

Quan said that at one point, many protesters forced their way into City Hall, where they burned flags, broke an electrical box and damaged several art structures, including a recycled art exhibit created by children.

Dozens of officers surrounded City Hall, while others swept the inside of the building looking for protesters who had broken in, then ran out with American flags before officers arrived.

The protest group issued an email criticizing police, saying, "Occupy Oakland's building occupation, an act of constitutionally protected civil disobedience was disrupted by a brutal police response today."

Michael Davis, 32, who is originally from Ohio and was in the Occupy movement in Cincinnati, said Saturday was a very hectic day that originally started off calm but escalated when police began using "flash bangs, tear gas, smoke grenades and bean bags."

View full sizeOakland Mayor Jean Quan surveys damage to City Hall on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, in Oakland, Calif., following an Occupy Oakland protest Saturday. After a confrontation with police, demonstrators gained entrance to City Hall where they burned an American flag, broke glass and toppled a model of City Hall. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

"What could've been handled differently is the way the Oakland police came at us," Davis said. "We were peaceful."

City leaders joined Quan in criticizing the protesters.

"City Hall is closed for the weekend. There is no excuse for behavior we've witnessed this evening," City Council President Larry Reid said during a news briefing Saturday.

Oakland Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, echoed Reid's sentiments and said that what was going on amounts to "domestic terrorism."

The national Occupy Wall Street movement, which denounces corporate excess and economic inequality, began in New York City in the fall but has been largely dormant lately.

Oakland, New York and Los Angeles were among the cities with the largest and most vocal Occupy protests early on. The demonstrations ebbed after those cities used force to move out hundreds of demonstrators who had set up tent cities.

In Oakland, the police department received heavy criticism for using force to break up earlier protests. Quan was among the critics, but on Saturday, she seemed to have changed her tune.

"Our officers have been very measured," Quan said. "Were there some mistakes made? There may be. I would say the Oakland police and our allies, so far a small percentage of mistakes. But quite frankly, a majority of protesters who were charging the police were clearly not being peaceful."

Earlier this month, a court-appointed monitor submitted a report to a federal judge that included "serious concerns" about the department's handling of the Occupy protests.

Jordan said late Saturday that he was in "close contact" with the federal monitor during the protests.

Quan added, "If the demonstrators think that because we are working more closely with the monitor now that we won't do what we have to do to uphold the law and try keep people safe in this city, they're wrong."

Gingrich, who served in the House for two decades, also made a populist pitch as a Washington outsider.

By SHANNON McCAFFREY

LUTZ, Fla. (AP) — Newt Gingrich on Sunday called GOP president rival Mitt Romney a "pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase liberal."

Gingrich made the comments outside a megachurch in Lutz, Fla., two days before the presidential primary.

Gingrich is trailing Romney in Florida and has been labeling the former governor a Massachusetts moderate. Now Gingrich is moving his 2012 rival even further left.

He also criticized Romney's campaign tactics during two television interviews Sunday morning, decrying his opponent's "basic policy of carpet-bombing his opponent."

One of the ads being run by Romney suggests that Gingrich is exaggerating his ties to Ronald Reagan. Gingrich chafed at that, noting that the former president's son Michael was joining him on the campaign trail Monday "to prove to everybody that I am the heir to the Reagan movement, not some liberal from Massachusetts."

Former GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain, a tea party favorite, will also appear with Gingrich on Monday.

At a large rally Sunday at The Villages, a sprawling retirement community in central Florida, Gingrich accused Democratic President Barack Obama of coddling foreign leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"I believe we need to be stronger than our potential enemies," Gingrich told the crowd. "The president lives in a fantasy world where there are no enemies, there are just misguided people with whom he has not yet had coffee."

He said Chavez "deliberately, cynically and insultingly gave him an anti-American book and Obama didn't have a clue that he'd been insulted."

He said the Obama administration should be focused on Ahmadinejad's "pledge to wipe out Israel and drive America out of the Middle East."

"But if I were a left-wing Harvard law graduate surrounded by really clever left-wing academics I would know that this was really a sign that (Ahmadinejad) probably had a bad childhood," Gingrich said.

He described Obama's approach to Ahmadinejad as, "If only we could unblock him we could be closer to him and we could be friends together."

Gingrich, who served in the House for two decades, also made a populist pitch as a Washington outsider. He said the GOP's "old establishment" is trying to block his path to nomination.

"It's time that someone stood up for hard-working, taxpaying Americans and said, 'Enough,'" Gingrich said. "And if that makes the old order uncomfortable, my answer is, 'Good.'"

Restore Our Future's "Reagan" Ad

The Boston-based Mass Mentoring Partnership serves as an umbrella group for 190 mentoring programs across the state, including 25 in Western Massachusetts. Statewide, there are about 23,000 young people paired up with mentors in Mass Mentoring Partnership programs. Locally, the group serves 1,613 young people

Mark M. Murray/ The Republican01/25/2012 Springfield- R. Devin Whitsett, left a junior at Putnam Vocational High School, works with Andrew S. Christensen, right an investment analyst at MassMutual.

SPRINGFIELD – When Devin T. Whitsett walks among the rows of office cubicles at MassMutual Financial Group’s sprawling corporate headquarters, he belongs.

He greets people by name and is greeted by name. The financial analysts ask him how he’s doing. How to act in a business setting just one of the things Whitsett’s volunteer mentor, MassMutual investment analyst Andrew S. Christensen, has taught him over the past year and a half.

“He’s introduced me to his boss and his boss’ boss,” said Whitsett, a junior at Putnam Vocational Technical High School.

Whitsett, who wants to pursue a career in information technology, possibly as a programmer, admits he can be a little forgetful. Christensen helps with reminders. They also worked out some of the trickier parts of Whitsett’s chemistry studies.

“He keeps me on my game,” Whitsett said.

But Christensen said it’s more than just homework and learning about MassMutual, it’s really just asking Whitsett how he’s doing.

“He’s a great guy,” said Christensen, who lives in Springfield. “He’s got great values, and those values are helping him now.”

Christensen got involved in the program about two years ago, soon after he returned to his job at MassMutual after serving in Iraq with the Massachusetts Army National Guard.

MassMutual has won an Ignite Award from the Mass Mentoring Partnership in recognition of its Career Pathways mentoring program. It’s the first time Mass Mentoring has given an award in the business category, said Richard S. Greif, director of marketing an partnerships for the Mass Mentoring Partnership.

The Boston-based Mass Mentoring Partnership serves as an umbrella group for 190 mentoring programs across the state, including 25 in Western Massachusetts. Statewide, there are about 23,000 young people paired up with mentors in Mass Mentoring Partnership programs. Locally, the group serves 1,613 young people.

“Most of them are through formal mentoring programs, like Big Brothers/Big Sisters,” Greif said.

The idea is to provide emotional and moral support to young people; get them thinking about a job or college. “They are not there to be a parent,” Greif said. “They are not there to solve all the problems.”

January is mentoring month.

Also in January, First Niagara Bank donated $50,000 to support Mass Mentoring Partnership’s efforts in Western Massachusetts.

Mass Mentoring Partnership has also recognized state Sen. Michael R. Knapik, R-Westfield, and state Sen. Stephen Kulik, D-Worthington, for their efforts on behalf of these programs. MassMutual’s program has 75 students, all sophomores and juniors from the Springfield High School of Science and Technology and Putnam, said Pamela A. Mathison, a community responsibility specialist with MassMutual. She said it’s only a 2-year-old program and students are maturing along with it. That means next year there will be more than 100 students, sophomores, juniors and seniors, who will have been mentored by MassMutual employees all three years.

In Operation Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed hundreds of weapons to flow across the border into Mexico.

By PETE YOST

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is tightening procedures for responding to information requests from Congress in the aftermath of a troubled arms trafficking investigation.

In Operation Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed hundreds of weapons to flow across the border into Mexico.

The Justice Department told three congressional committees in a letter Friday night that it has improved coordination between agents and their managers in carrying out arms trafficking investigations.

Attorney General Eric Holder probably will face questions about the changes when he testifies Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. That committee has been investigating the department's mistakes in the probe since early last year.

In a letter last February to Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the department said that ATF had not authorized the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser and that the agency makes every effort to intercept weapons that have been purchased illegally.

Yet in Operation Fast and Furious, both statements turned out to be incorrect because the ATF office in Phoenix, Ariz., had undertaken a risky tactic known as "gun-walking" in an unsuccessful effort to track small-time illicit gun buyers to the heads of major arms trafficking networks.

Many of the guns wound up at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S., including the scene of a killing near Nogales, Ariz., where U.S. border agent Brian Terry was slain. Two guns connected to Fast and Furious were found at the scene of Terry's murder.

Some ATF agents with direct knowledge of what had gone on with Operation Fast and Furious were talking to Grassley's office. In contrast, the Justice Department was relying on information from top ATF officials in Washington and the U.S. attorney in Phoenix, who all incorrectly denied that ATF was allowing weapons purchases by "straw" buyers to transport guns into Mexico.

In the letter to Congress on Friday night, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the department must solicit information directly from employees with detailed personal knowledge of the subject matter at issue and consult records relevant to the inquiry if such records are available.

"Recognize that, in some instances, the employees with the most relevant information may already have made protected disclosures on the subject to Congress or others," the letter said.

The department emphasized its commitment to protecting the rights of whistleblowers, but added that the Whistleblower Protection Act does not bar the department from seeking relevant information directly from employees who have made protected disclosures.

Doing so, the letter said, is necessary "to ensure the accuracy and completeness" of information provided to Congress.

The ATF has expanded the opportunities for employees to raise work-related concerns and stressed the need for supervisory level officials to be receptive to those concerns, Cole's letter adds. In other changes, the ATF:

—told all of its agents that they must take all reasonable steps to prevent a firearm's criminal misuse and that early intervention may be necessary to prevent trafficking.

—has improved coordination between field agents and headquarters personnel in Washington.

—engaged in training for agents in Arizona and New Mexico with a renewed emphasis on intercepting illicit weapons shipments.

—is giving agents a direct line of communication to the agency's second-in-command.

The first ever Holyoke Winter Carnival includes 25 events.

Staff Photographer David MolnarBonnie Coopersmith, of West Springfield. with her dog, "Hunter Blue" who is blind at the Hot Dogs on a Cold Day dog sho at the Holyoke High School. The event was part of the city's Winter Carnival. "Hunter Blue" is wearing a second place ribbon for "Fluffiest."

HOLYOKE- Ken Johnston, a Holyoke resident, came up with an idea to host a series of events that would highlight the many positive places and programs in Holyoke.

“What I noticed the most is how many wonderful people there are in this city,” said Johnston the director of Holyoke’s first Winter Carnival.

“There are 25 events at 15 different venues across the city and a lot of that is due in large part to the many business owners and residents who volunteered their time and effort to make this happen,” he said.

The week long series of events includes a library open house, a family movie night, activities at Heritage State Park and more.

Events kicked off on Sunday with a Guns vs. Hoses hockey game at Fitzpatrick Skating Arena, Salsarengue Restaurant held a domino tournament and Holyoke High School held a fun and unique dog show with categories including “fluffiest” and “best dressed.”

“We just wanted to make it fun for the participants,” said Teresa Shepard ,director do the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.

“I’m so impressed with the volunteers who made this happen,” she said.

Bonnie Coopersmith is a resident of West Springfield, but she works in Holyoke and decided to come out for the dog show with her dog Hunter Blue.

“I work in the city and I thought it would be a great idea to come out and support the carnival,” she said.

Hunter Blue, who is 13-years-old and blind, entered the categories of fluffiest and best trick.

Less than a mile away on High Street Salsarengue Restaurant owner Jose Bou sponsored a domino tournament.

“Anytime there is something going on that highlights the good things in Holyoke I want to be a part of it,” he said.

Bou’s restaurant has a domino team called Los Macheteros. Jackie Lozada is the captain of that team, she is also a resident of Holyoke.

“I think this is a great idea that really showcases a lot of different places in the city,” she said.

Lozada said she hopes the carnival will happen again in the future.

Mayor Alex Morse attended the hockey game featuring the Holyoke Fire Department vs. the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department. He said events like this are a great way for residents to enjoy the city.

“This certainly shows civic pride,” he said.

Morse said he was impressed with the grassroots effort made by the team of volunteers to make the carnival possible.

“It’s just a group of eight dedicated volunteers who believed in my idea and helped me make it become a reality,” Johnston said.

For a full listing of events visit www.holyokewintercarnival.org.

President Barack Obama endorsed the bill in his State of the Union speech last week, saying he would "sign it tomorrow."

View full sizeSen. Scott Brown with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs as the group considered a revision to the STOCK Act of 2011, which would apply the same insider trading rules citizens must abide by to Congress members and employees. (Submitted photo by Scott Brown's office)

By LARRY MARGASAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Aware that most Americans would like to dump them all, members of Congress hope to regain some sense of trust by subjecting themselves to tougher penalties for insider trading and requiring they disclose stock transactions within 30 days.

A procedural vote Monday would allow the Senate later this week to pass a bill prohibiting members of Congress from using nonpublic information for their own personal benefit or "tipping" others to inside information that they could trade on.

Insider trading laws apply to all Americans, but CBS' "60 Minutes" in November said members of Congress get a pass, citing investment transactions by party leaders and a committee chairman in businesses about to be affected by pending legislation.

The broadcast report raised questions about trades of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio; the husband of Democratic leader and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California; and Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

All three denied using any insider information to make stock trades, but the broadcast set off a flurry of efforts in Washington to deal with the public perception.

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of registered voters found 56 percent of them favor replacing the entire 535-member Congress. Other polls this year have given Congress an approval rating between 11 percent and 13 percent, while disapproval percentages have ranged from 79 percent to 86 percent.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said he's working on an expanded bill that would go beyond stock transactions and ban lawmakers from making land deals and other investments based on what they learned as members of Congress.

The Senate version of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act would subject any member of Congress who violates the ban on insider trading to investigation and prosecution by regulatory agencies and the Justice Department. It also directs the House and Senate ethics committees to write rules that would make violators subject to additional congressional penalties.

"We can start restoring some of the faith that's been lost in our government by taking this common sense step of making members of Congress play by the exact same rules as everyone else," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who with Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., wrote the bill. "We must make it unambiguous that this kind of behavior is illegal."

President Barack Obama endorsed the bill in his State of the Union speech last week, saying he would "sign it tomorrow." Brown used that opening to briefly speak with the president as he was exiting the House chamber after Tuesday's address.

"The insider trading bill's on Harry's desk right now," Brown told Obama, referring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "Tell him to get it out, it's already there."

"I'm gonna tell him," answered Obama. "I'm gonna tell him, I'm gonna tell him to get it done."

Obama raised the issue again in his radio and Internet address on Saturday.

"The House and Senate should send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress, and I will sign it immediately. They should limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact," he said.