Gun control is a top-agenda item for many Democrats, and they'll need all the votes they can to push changes.

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus addressing the Montana Legislature in Helena, Mont. Democrats who long ago embraced pro-gun politics to gain a foothold in Western and other gun-friendly states are facing constituents angry with Washington's renewed call for a ban on assault weapons - and they are doing so very cautiously. In Montana, the Clinton-era assault weapon ban vote nearly sank U.S. Sen. Baucus in 1996 - and with Baucus up for re-election in 2014, gun advocates want to make sure he remembers his vote for the ban. AP Photo/The Independent Record, Dylan Brown, file  

By MATT GOURAS

HELENA, Mont. — U.S. Sen. Max Baucus has been here before.

Back during the Clinton era, the Democrat faced a choice: support an assault weapons ban urged by a president from his own party and risk angering constituents who cherish their gun rights, or buck his party. He chose the ban, and nearly lost his Senate seat.

Now, as he begins his campaign for a seventh term, Baucus faces the question again. For weeks, gun foes have sought assurances he would oppose the assault weapons ban. But it was only this past week he said he would oppose it.

That decision alone doesn't settle the issue for his re-election campaign. His opponents are watching closely, eager to pounce as he navigates a series of other gun control proposals, including an expected call for universal background checks.

Baucus' predicament is one that a group of Democrats like him in the West and South are facing. They hail from predominantly rural regions of the country where the Second Amendment is cherished and where Republicans routinely win in presidential elections.

From Montana to Louisiana, these anxious voters have made at least six Democratic senators a little uneasy heading into next year's election season. Both sides are aware that gun-owners' rights are taking shape as a campaign issue that could shift the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.

"Make no mistake — it is a very delicate dance for rural state Democrats," said Barrett Kaiser, a Democratic political consultant.

"I would be stunned if the Montana congressional delegation said anything but 'hell no' to gun control measures," he added.

Part of the concern comes from a proposal by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would ban assault weapons and high-capacity clips. The plan is a response to calls for new gun restrictions from President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school.

Gun control is a top-agenda item for many Democrats, and they'll need all the votes they can to push changes.

Baucus knows, though, that a gun control vote "opens the door for whoever challenges him, because Montanans do not want the federal government restricting guns. That is clear as day," said Republican state Rep. Scott Reichner, who was Mitt Romney's campaign chairman in Montana.

"It would be a monumental mistake on his part" to support federal gun control legislation, Reichner said.

Gun rights carry sway in Montana. The state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks says Montana "boasts more hunters per capita than any other state in the nation." State lawmakers have been discussing measures to expand gun rights. And a pro-gun group, the Montana Shooting Sports Association, has set up a website that is updated with Baucus' public statements on gun policy.

Other Democratic senators that Republicans are watching closely include Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

Democrats control the Senate, but if Republicans pick off these seats they could take the chamber.

Pryor already has said he won't support an assault weapons ban, and the measure is unlikely to clear the Senate. Gun activists still worry that other restrictions they oppose are in the works.

"I don't think the assault rifle ban, the semi-auto ban, has been the real objective," said Gary Marbut of the Montana Shooting Sports Association. "I think that is where the rubber meets the road, federal gun registration."

The gun rights crowd considers mandatory registration as an unconstitutional overreach of federal authority and the close attention paid to all discussions on the topic show how carefully Baucus and others must tread.

Baucus would appear to be a shoo-in for re-election. He's the third most senior U.S. senator and the chairman of the Finance Committee, which lets him prioritize many Montana projects.

He's also a consummate dealmaker who routinely collects endorsements from Republican-allied groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And he's worked hard over the years to become the only Senate Democrat with an A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association.

But one wrong gun vote could energize his opposition.

Though Baucus specifically rejected the assault rifle ban, he stopped short of mentioning expanded background checks by name. Baucus indicated he prefers the focus was elsewhere.

"Instead of focusing on new laws, Max believes the first step should be effectively enforcing the laws already on the books," Baucus spokeswoman Jennifer Donohue said Thursday.

The entire debate represents a potential replay of the most difficult fight of his career, when Baucus voted for the 1993 Brady Bill that established background checks and the original 1994 ban on assault rifles and high-capacity clips.

Those votes led to the closest election in four decades of politics for Baucus, a narrow victory in a bitter campaign against Republican Denny Rehberg.

The other Democratic senators in rural states could find themselves in similar fights and have been cagey over the issue. Most have taken a wait-and-see approach.

The NRA last month launched an advertising campaign aimed squarely at this group, sending a strong message. The organization did not return a call seeking comment.

Democratic political operatives say the NRA could be overplaying its hand this time, arguing some sportsmen may be willing to listen to moderate proposals.

Still, Baucus and his colleagues aren't likely to take risks and by next year's election, he and others could seek to turn the issue to their advantage by using a pro-gun stance to appeal to conservative and libertarian-minded voters.

"Why wouldn't he want to talk about guns?" said Montana State University political scientist David Parker. "Sen. Baucus is as about as middle of the road as they get in the United States Senate. What he doesn't want to do is have himself painted as a national Democrat or as an Obama Democrat."

KLM flights from Kennedy Airport are powered by a mix of 25 percent recycled cooking oil and 75 percent jet fuel.

A Dutch airliner flew from New York to Amsterdam on a fuel combination that contained leftover oil from Louisiana's Cajun food. Associated Press file photo  

A Dutch airliner flew from New York to Amsterdam on a fuel mix that included leftover oil from frying Louisiana's Cajun food.

The KLM flights from Kennedy Airport are powered by a combination of 25 percent recycled cooking oil and 75 percent jet fuel.

After the first such flight Friday, the concept will be tested on 24 round-trip trans-Atlantic trips every Thursday for the next six months.

KLM executive Camiel Eurlings jokingly told the New York Post that "it smelled like fries" while the plane was being fueled.

The waste oil from frying up crawfish, cracklins and other Cajun specialties is refined at a Louisiana plant, then trucked to JFK.

KLM says the cooking oil reduces polluting carbon emissions up to 80 percent.

The latest jobs report and unemployment numbers are creating an argument in Washington over who should get a pat on the back and who should get the blame.

A board on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average on March 5, 2013, which beat the previous high it set in October 2007, before the financial crisis and the Great Recession. (Associated Press file photo)

WASHINGTON – Increased hiring, lower unemployment, stock market on the rise. Who gets the credit?

It's a hotly debated point in Washington, where political scorekeeping amounts to who gets blame and who gets praise.

Following Friday's strong jobs report – 236,000 new jobs and unemployment dropping to a four-year low of 7.7 percent – partisans hurriedly staked out turf.

"Woot woot!" tweeted former White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee. "With 12 million still unemployed?" countered Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's spokesman, Don Stewart.

Presidents usually get the rap for economic downturns and reap benefits when things improve. But the main factors affecting the current recovery and the record activity in the stock market may have less to do with high-profile fiscal policy fights in Washington than they do in the decisions of the Federal Reserve Bank, which has pumped trillions of dollars into the economy, kept interests rates at near zero and pushed investors away from low-yield bonds to stocks.

"From a policy standpoint, this is being driven primarily by the Fed," said Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo.

Yet to some, Washington deserves little recognition.

"Economies recover," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and now head of the American Action Forum, a conservative public policy institute. He acknowledged the Fed's monetary policies halted the initial free fall by the financial industry, but he said the economy has had to catch up to the Fed's low interest rates.

"It took a long time for the housing market for them to matter and for the auto market for them to matter," Holtz-Eakin said. "So I don't think that's a policy victory."

If Democrats are eager to give President Barack Obama acclaim for spurring the recovery with an infusion of spending in 2009, there are just as many Republicans who will claim his health care law and his regulatory regimes slowed it.

If there is common ground among economists, it is that the next step in fiscal policy should be focused on reining in long-term spending on entitlement programs, particularly Medicare, instead of continuing debates over short-term spending. But such a grand bargain has been elusive, caught in a fight over Obama's desire for more tax revenue and Republican opposition to more tax increases.

Obama and some Republicans are trying to move the process with phone calls and a dinner here and a luncheon there. Next week, the president plans to address Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate in separate meetings to see, as he put it Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address, "if we can untangle some of the gridlock."

Who gets credit does have political consequences. A strong economy would create more space for Obama to pursue other aspects of his second-term agenda. But it's an important question for the long term, too, because if the recovery is indeed accelerating it could validate the policies that the Obama administration and the Fed put in place.

Hiring has been boosted by high corporate profits and by strength in the housing, auto, manufacturing and construction sectors. Corporate profits are up. Still, it might be too soon to declare victory. While the recovery may be getting traction, the U.S. economy is not yet strong.

Economic growth is forecast to be a modest 2 percent this year. Unemployment, even as it drops, remains high nearly four years after the end of the Great Recession, with roughly 12 million people out of work.

Last year's early months also showed strong job gains only to see them fade by June.

March could prove to be a more telling indicator as the economy responds to a third month of higher Social Security taxes and as across-the-board spending cuts that kicked in March 1 begin to work their way through government programs. Economists say anticipation of the cuts already caused a downturn in the fourth quarter of last year as the defense industry slowed spending. The Congressional Budget Office and some private forecasters say the coming cuts could reduce economic growth by about half a percentage point and cost about 700,000 jobs by the end of 2014.

"My view is that aggressive monetary and fiscal policy response to the recovery has been a net positive," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

But referring to the automatic cuts, he said, "Fiscal policies have turned from a very powerful tailwind to a pretty significant head wind." And, he added, "the economy is going to be tested again in the next few months."

Obama has been distancing himself from the potential consequences of the automatic cuts, even though he signed the legislation that put them in place. Initially, they were designed to be so onerous that it would force all sides to work out a long-term deficit-reduction and debt-stabilization package. But that agreement never materialized.

If the recovery has been slow, White House officials argue, it is because Republicans have been unwilling to yield to Obama's demands for deficit reduction that combines tax increases and cuts in spending.

Obama himself seemed to touch on that viewpoint in his weekly address.

"At a time when our businesses are gaining a little more traction, the last thing we should do is allow Washington politics to get in the way," he said while heralding good economic news. "You deserve better than the same political gridlock and refusal to compromise that has too often passed for serious debate over the last few years."

Vitner, the Wells Fargo economist, argues that if anyone deserves credit for the recovery, it is the American public and American businesses "for being able to tune out all the noise that's coming from Washington."

"It's remarkable," he said, "that in the face of so much political uncertainty we've been able to see the growth that we have."

A threat received by Peter Pan Bus Lines indicated a bomb would detonate inside a bus if the speed of the coach fell below 50 mph.

Updates a story published at 5:50 p.m. Saturday, March 9.

SPRINGFIELD — Two Peter Pan buses were stopped and searched by police in Western Massachusetts and Rhode Island after the Springfield-based bus company received back-to-back bomb threats involving a coach that left Providence late Saturday morning.

Chris Crean, vice president for safety and security at Peter Pan Bus Lines, said the incident was an apparent hoax, but the company followed protocol and contacted authorities in both states. "Any of these types of threats today ... we have to take seriously," Crean said.

Peter Pan's customer service department received calls from someone claiming a bus that left Providence contained a bomb, Crean said. Company officials quickly narrowed down the possible threat to two coaches, both of which left Providence Saturday morning and were intercepted by police a short while later.

Crean said one bus was stopped by Massachusetts State Police on Interstate 90 in Chicopee, while the other was stopped by Rhode Island authorities on Interstate 95. No explosive devices were found on either coach, according to authorities in both states.

A ranking officer with the the Rhode Island State Police told the Providence Journal that investigators are attempting to trace the calls, the first of which was placed to Peter Pan's Springfield office around 11 a.m. Maj. Michael J. Winquist said the initial call indicated a bomb would detonate on a coach that left Providence if the bus traveled slower than 50 mph – derivative of the plot of the 1994 film "Speed," starring Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.

Another call was received a few minutes later, prompting a Peter Pan dispatcher to request the location of the bomb. "All they said was Providence," Winquist told the Journal.

The Providence buses were headed for New York City and Albany, N.Y. Crean said the Albany-bound bus was stopped, evacuated and searched on I-90 in Chicopee. The same happened with the New York City-bound bus, he said.

Crean called the episode "unfortunate," adding that passengers were delayed for about 45 minutes to an hour.

State police and fire marshals in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island are investigating.

A train loaded with passengers made its way through the drifts, as far as the North Wilbraham-Indian Orchard line, where it chugged to a halt. For two days the passengers were stranded.

When David Roberts threw his heavy load of pine knots over his shoulder on March 11, 1888, and set out to sell them on Springfield streets, he must have thought business would be brisk.

Snow had already begun falling, and the people would be in need of the pine knots, and the warmth they would generate in fireplaces and stoves.

Maybe the chilly winds and snow were the very reasons the peddlar of pine knots ventured out.

Whatever the reason, David Roberts didn’t live to tell. He was a casualty of one of Mother Nature’s most spectacular rages – the blizzard of 1888.

The snow began falling on March 11, and continued for more than 24 hours.

About four feet fell on level ground but wind-whipped drifts of 15 to 20 feet were common.

Although Roberts was the only fatality in Springfield, there were close calls.

A man named Edwin F. Leonard noticed a hat in a snowbank, when he stooped down to pick it up, he discovered a little girl buried in the snow.

The blizzard, actually three storms which hit one after another, paralyzed the Northeast. More than 400 people died.

A train loaded with passengers made its way through the drifts, as far as the North Wilbraham-Indian Orchard line, where it chugged to a halt. For two days the passengers were stranded.

Thousands of employees were stranded at mills and factories, unable to get home to their families.

The Springfield Armory closed down for lack of coal. Springfield Street Railway trollies were abandoned in snowdrifts in the middle of the street.

As in the case of most natural disasters, when the sick and injured were taken care of in Springfield, it was time to make merry.

Downtown hotels shook to the rafters with revelry as “the knights of the cork” sang and drank on end.

For years following the storm, The Association of ‘88, consisting of those who stayed at the Hotel Cooley during the storm, met annually.

The only way to get around after the storm was by snowshoes, which rapidly became scarce.

Telegraph boys attached lengths of wire around their waists so they could be pulled from snowdrifts which reached over their heads.

Tons of snow were carted from city streets, using horse-drawn wagons and man-powered shovels.

Over the years when forecasters predict heavy snow eyes scan the clouds, waiting for a repeat performance, waiting for the first flake signaling another blizzard of 1888.

But it has yet to happen.

Even with the threat of global warming they just don’t have winters like they used to. Maybe next year, maybe next week, maybe never.

Massachusetts statistics show that there are 7,700 farms in the state. Most are small, averaging just 68 acres in size, and total cash receipts equaled $489 million in 2011.

Gideon Porth, the new owner of Atlas Farms, stands in front of the farm's farm stand at 218 Greenfield Road in South Deerfield, where he plans on running the business this summer. The Republican / John Suchocki  

SOUTH DEERFIELD — Atlas Farm is growing more than just food — it is growing its business in ways that bring it more in touch with the everyday consumers it, and all New England farms, needs to survive.

Owner Gideon Porth, who has farmed 55 acres of land on the Connecticut River here since 2006, has bought 40 acres of cropland and a retail farm stand on Route 5 that he plans to open in May. The land and greenhouses on Route 5 will be vital, he said, since they are on the busiest road in his part of Franklin County, and because direct marketing is crucial not just for him, but for farmers all over New England.

“Our farm for the last five or six years has gotten more into wholesale production and sales,” he said.

Wholesalers, those who buy produce and move it on to supermarkets, restaurants or to specialty retailers such as Whole Foods, have grown to about two-thirds of Porth’s business, he said. Direct-to-consumer channels such as farm shares and farmers markets, as close as Northampton and as far away as Boston, are just a third of the business.

“But wholesale business is less stable,” Porth said. “I feel like it is a lot less reliable in certain ways. You are competing in a global marketplace with fresh produce.”

Global marketplace? In the organic vegetable business with its hippie ethos?

Jean McCarthy, left, owner of North Woods Animal Treats in Keene, N.H., and Peter Armand, owner of Griffin Greenhouse and Nursery Supply in Cheshire, Conn., were among the exhibitors at the Harvest New England Agricultural Marketing Conference and Trade Show in Sturbridge last month.
The Republican | John Suchocki




 

Jean McCarthy, of Keene, N.H., owner of North Woods Amimal Treats, was among the exhibitors at the Harvest New England Agricultural Marketing Conference and Trade Show in Sturbridge late last month.The Republican / John Suchocki 

“All these people want to have retail operations,” she said. “All these people might be looking for more things to sell at those retail operations. All the people who are interested in natural foods and would go to those farm retail operations might also be interested in natural pet treats. It is a natural fit.”

The future of, and the possible undoing of, New England’s farms is in the hands of those health-and-nature conscious customers, said Lorraine Stuart Merrill, commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food.

“There is a great opportunity today to get people to eat fresh, local foods,” she said. "It is not a fad. Once a person starts, they never go back.”

But all those local customers also pose a threat. They like to buy houses, houses that take up land.

“This drives our high cost of land,” she said during a roundtable forum with heads of the agriculture departments from all six New England States. “It is very expensive.”

Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Ross said direct marketing can also bring culture clashes. He reminded the crowd of farmers that Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt., was faced with death threats last year after word got out on social media that the college was going to put down an aged working ox and serve the beast in the dining hall.

“This is the mentality you are dealing with,” he said to the snickers of a knowing audience. “People think their food magically appears at the grocery store.”

The annual parade draws hundreds of thousands of people, increasing the pressure to find a good spot.

Makeshift space-savers like this on Northampton Street, seen on Sunday, are showing up as people try to secure good spots to watch the March 17 Holyoke St. Patrick's Parade, though officials warn stuff could get hauled away if it's blocking sidewalk passage. Mike Plaisance, The Republican  

HOLYOKE -- The junk-now-to-see-later displays have begun.

City officials were hoping people would wait until a day or two before the Holyoke St. Patrick's Parade to bring out furniture and other stuff to reserve viewing spots for the crowded event to avoid blocking sidewalks.

Otherwise, they said, if makeshift space-holders are displayed days in advance as in previous years, public works crews might haul the stuff away.

But buckets, planks of wood, yellow crime-scene tape and other items were visible on Northampton Street sidewalks Sunday as parade fans save spots.

The parade is March 17 and annually draws hundreds of thousands of people, with spot-claimers traditionally clogging especially Northampton Street sidewalks with everything from lawn chairs and cinder blocks to crime scene tape.

"The items used to hold the spots blocked sidewalks and ramps making it unsafe for pedestrians to pass. This situation required DPW staff to respond and clear the obstructions and make the area safe to walk and drive," General Superintendent William D. Fuqua said Friday.

Last year, location-savers began appearing on Northampton Street nearly two weeks before parade day. Stuff wound up being removed to the DPW garage at 63 Canal St.

Such obstructions expose the city to liability if a pedestrian is hurt or a vehicle accident occurs because too much stuff on a sidewalk is clogging a pathway. People need to be sure at least three feet of space is available on the sidewalk for a wheelchair or walker to maneuver, he said.

"We'd like the public to refrain from putting out items to hold their spots until after 7 a.m. Saturday. Items that show up earlier than Saturday at 7 a.m. may be removed as they were last year," Fuqua said.

Devoting time to the removal of such stuff from sidewalks keeps crews from doing other jobs such as parade-related preparations, he said.

Lt. Matthew F. Moriarty said he hasn't heard of many complaints to police about sidewalk blockages related to the parade.

"I think, sad to say, people are so used to it it doesn't bother people any more," Moriarty said.

Residents along the route have been saving sidewalk-viewing spaces for decades as house parties on parade day are part of the tradition.

Not all the furniture that springs up on a sidewalk in the days preceding the parade belongs to the home where it is placed. Residents told The Republican and MassLive.com last year of trucks unloading site-savers secured to utility poles and street signs by rope and then departing.

The City Council is considering an ordinance that would prohibit placement of space-savers on sidewalks until three days before the parade. The Ordinance Committee will consider the proposal Tuesday but it won't be established in time to affect this year's parade, council President Kevin A. Jourdain said.

"We want everyone to enjoy the day and find a good location for themselves and family along the parade route without creating an eyesore or obstruction of our public ways," said Jourdain, who proposed the ordinance.

Lyman Terrace houses 400 tenants in 18 buildings that need costly renovations.

Meetings about the Lyman Terrace housing complex usually draw good-sized crowds, such as this one in March. David Molnar, The Republican  

HOLYOKE -- A second in a series of meetings about the future of the Lyman Terrace housing complex is set for Monday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Holyoke Heritage Park Visitors Center, 221 Appleton St.

MassDevelopment and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, two quasi-public finance agencies, are working with the Holyoke Housing Authority and the city to determine whether the 1930's-era Lyman Terrace can be renovated or must be razed.

The complex needs millions of dollars in renovations. Lyman Terrace consists of 18 brick buildings that house 400 tenants in 167 units bordered by Lyman, Front and John streets in the Downtown Neighborhood.

Democracy for America joins several other progressive Democratic organizations in supporting Markey's Senate candidate.

At a breakfast for the Massachusetts delegates to the Democratic National Convention, former Vermont Governor and presidential nominee Howard Dean, pointed out that the Omni Hotel, where the group is staying, is owned by financial backers of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. (Associated Press file photo)  

The national progressive political action committee Democracy for America will endorse Democratic Senate candidate and U.S. Rep. Edward Markey on Monday.

Democracy for America is a grassroots organizing PAC founded by Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and 2004 presidential candidate.

“In this year's special Senate primary, Democracy for America is proud to put its full support behind Ed Markey -- the only tried and true progressive in the race,” Michael Langenmayr, political director of Democracy for America, said in a statement.”Democracy for America members know they can trust Markey, unlike his primary opponent, to be a reliable (Elizabeth) Warren ally in the Senate and continue his long record of standing up to conservative Democrats on health care reform and climate change."

Markey is facing U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate special election.

Democracy for America is a Vermont-based group with around 33,600 Massachusetts members. During the 2012 Senate race between Warren, a Democrat, and Republican Scott Brown, the organization says it raised $373,000 from its members for Warren’s campaign and trained nearly 150 volunteers. Democracy for America is a progressive group that focuses on issues including universal health care, gay marriage, overturning the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, protecting Social Security and supporting a progressive tax code.

The organization is barred from advertising in the special election by the “People’s Pledge” signed by Markey and Lynch. But the group could still help Markey’s campaign in the same way it helped Warren’s - through training volunteers, organizing resources and fundraising from its members.

Several other liberal organizing groups have also supported Markey including MoveOn.org and Progressive Massachusetts. Though both Lynch and Markey have typically voted with the Democratic Party, Lynch angered some liberal Democrats by his vote against the Affordable Care Act, his opposition to abortion and other issues on which he has broken with his party. Markey has been getting support from much of the Democratic base, while Lynch has been attracting support from organized labor and independent voters.

Boston authorities say there are disturbed by an assault on an MBTA bus driver by more than a dozen youths.

BOSTON (AP) — Boston authorities say there are disturbed by an assault on an MBTA bus driver by more than a dozen youths.

Transit police Superintendent Joseph O'Connor said Sunday that a woman threw her pass at the driver on Saturday morning.

Then perhaps as many as 20 teenage boys stood in front of the bus, preventing it from moving, while some boarded and punched the 53-year-old driver, while others tried to pull the driver through the window.

O'Connor says it's unclear whether the fare dispute was related to the attack.

The male driver hit an alarm, scattering the youths.

The driver required treatment for minor injuries.

There have been no arrests and police are asking the public for information.

Journalist Soledad O'Brien will be giving an upcoming lecture at College of the Holy Cross.

In this Oct. 2, 2010 file photo, Soledad O'Brien attends Comedy Central's "Night Of Too Many Stars: An Overbooked Concert For Autism Education" at the Beacon Theatre in New York. CNN’s anchor O’Brien won’t immediately be leaving CNN even though her job as morning show host is ending. New CNN boss Jeff Zucker said Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013, that he has reached a deal to help fund a production company for O’Brien, who will be making three documentaries for CNN and host this year’s “Black in America” documentary. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes, File) The Associated Press  

O'Brien has anchored a CNN morning show, but recently announced plans to leave and start her own production company.

She will do some documentary work for CNN along with other projects.

Holy Cross officials say O'Brien's March 19 talk will be free and open to the public.

O'Brien is an Emmy Award winner who wrote a memoir in 2010 about her career and how her upbringing influenced her experiences.

The National Association of Black Journalists named the Harvard University graduate its Journalist of the Year in 2010.

The journalist's talk is part of College of the Holy Cross' effort to mark the 40th anniversary of when it opened its doors to female students.

A coalition of housing advocates in Springfield will host a city-wide tour to call attention to the housing crisis in the city.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A coalition of housing advocates in Springfield will host a city-wide tour to call attention to the housing crisis in the city.

The tour is part of a national campaign to be launched Wednesday in at least a dozen cities around the country. The campaign, called "Homes For All: Defend, Reclaim, Rebuild Our Communities," seeks to focus attention on the housing crisis.

Springfield-area residents who have been directly affected by evictions, homelessness, public housing destruction and foreclosure will lead elected officials and community leaders on the tour. Stops will include vacant, foreclosed property, city neighborhoods that have been hard hit by foreclosures, a homeless shelter and tenant-owned cooperative housing.

The campaign will call on the federal government to invest new resources to created affordable, accessible and safe homes.

A 14-year-old girl was flown to a Boston hospital with what were described as "severe" injuries following a snowboarding accident at a Westford ski area.

WESTFORD, Mass. (AP) — A 14-year-old girl was flown to a Boston hospital with what were described as "severe" injuries following a snowboarding accident at a Westford ski area.

Nashoba Valley Ski Area General Manager Al Fletcher says the girl was found unconscious after attempting a jump late Sunday morning.

The ski area called the Fire Department for assistance.

A medical helicopter landed in the ski area's parking lot to fly the girl to Boston Children's Hospital.

As a part of MassLive.com's ongoing live chat series, Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse is scheduled to take reader questions at 2 p.m. on Thursday, March 14.

As a part of MassLive.com's ongoing live chat series, Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse is scheduled to take reader questions at 2 p.m. on Thursday, March 14.

Headlines from the city in the last week include:

• Police on Thursday continued investigating a shooting that injured a 5-year-old boy and his father in the Flats Neighborhood on Wednesday.
• Sergio Paez, Worcester schools administrator, appointed superintendent by Holyoke School Committee.
• Toy guns and off-color novelties among vendor items banned along Holyoke St. Patrick's Parade route.
• Mount Tom power plant to leave regional electrical grid for one year, but critics of coal-burning plant hope to make shut down permanent.
• A coalition of private and public agencies and officials gathered at Holyoke Community College on Tuesday, saying that a new $300,000 grant from the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation will boost efforts to get homeless families into stable jobs and out of shelters and hotels.

You can participate in the chat by joining us on Thursday, dropping your questions in the comment section below or sending them to feedback(at)masslive.com.

The driver was taken to an area hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.

SPRINGFIELD -- A man who allegedly tried to outrun police on I-91 south early Monday morning was trapped in his car by his seat belt after a rollover crash near the Longmeadow line.

Dennis Leger, aide to Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant, said the fire department received the call at 1:56 a.m. Rescue Squad members arriving at the scene at exit 1 found a Buick Regal on its roof. The driver, Leger said, was tangled in his seat belt and hanging upside-down in the vehicle.

Leger said firefighters did not need hydraulic tools to remove the man from the car, but that they had to cut him out of his seat belt.

The driver was taken to an area hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.

WGGB reports that according to the Massachusetts State Police the crash happened as the man refused to pull over for troopers attempting to make a traffic stop.

The exit was closed for about an hour during the incident.

Few presidents in modern times have been as interested in gun control as Richard Nixon, of all people.

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Few presidents in modern times have been as interested in gun control as Richard Nixon, of all people. He proposed ridding the market of Saturday night specials, contemplated banning handguns altogether and refused to pander to gun owners by feigning interest in their weapons.

Several previously unreported Oval Office recordings and White House memos from the Nixon years show a conservative president who at times appeared willing to take on the National Rifle Association, a powerful gun lobby then as now, even as his aides worried about the political ramifications.

"I don't know why any individual should have a right to have a revolver in his house," Nixon said in a taped conversation with aides. "The kids usually kill themselves with it and so forth." He asked why "can't we go after handguns, period?"

Nixon went on: "I know the rifle association will be against it, the gun makers will be against it." But "people should not have handguns." He laced his comments with obscenities, as was typical.

Nixon made his remarks in the Oval Office on May 16, 1972, the day after a would-be assassin shot and paralyzed segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace. As president, Nixon never publicly called for a ban on all handguns. Instead, he urged Congress to pass more modest legislation banning Saturday night specials, which were cheaply made, easily concealed and often used by criminals.

Not all of the president's men appeared to share his passion on the issue. The recordings and memos show that Nixon administration officials saw gun control as a political loser.

Nixon, a Republican, did say publicly that if Congress passed a ban on Saturday night specials, he would sign it. But in a sign of how potent the NRA was even 40 years ago, this narrow piece of legislation never made it to his desk, and there is no sign that he ever sent a draft bill to Capitol Hill.

Today, President Barack Obama faces similar hurdles in trying to ban assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines. Gun control advocates say no one needs such powerful weapons to kill an intruder or take down an animal. In Nixon's time, the argument of such advocates was that Saturday night specials were too poorly made to be relied on for self-defense or hunting.

"Let me ask you," Nixon said to Attorney General John Mitchell in June 1971, "there is only one thing you are checking on, that's the manufacture of those $20 guns? We should probably stop that." Saturday night specials sold for $10 to $30 at the time. Mitchell responded that banning those guns would be "pretty difficult, actually," because of the gun lobby.

"No hunters are going to use $20 guns," Nixon countered.

"No, but the gun lobby's against any incursion into the elimination of firearms," said Mitchell.

The term Saturday night special originated in Detroit, where police observed the frequency with which the guns were used to commit weekend mayhem. Lynyrd Skynyrd memorialized the weapon in its 1975 song, "Saturday Night Special," in which the Southern rock band sang: "Ain't good for nothin'/But put a man six feet in a hole."

Nixon's private comments were not always supportive of gun control, particularly measures that would go beyond handguns. For example, in a taped conversation just a few days after saying that people shouldn't have handguns, the president asked rhetorically, "What do they want to do, just disarm the populace? Disarm the good folks and leave the arms in the hands of criminals?"

But most of his comments on the tapes, available at the websites of the National Archives and of the University of Virginia's Miller Center, were in favor of stronger gun control.

At a June 29, 1972, news conference, about six weeks after Wallace's shooting, Nixon said he'd sign legislation banning Saturday night specials. Later that year, the Senate did pass such a bill, but the House never acted on the legislation.

The bill's sponsor, Indiana Democrat Birch Bayh, said in a recent interview that the NRA helped prevent his bill from getting through Congress. The Nixon administration supported an unsuccessful Republican alternative Senate bill on Saturday night specials that had a definition the NRA preferred.

The shooting of another politician put gun control back on the radar the following year. On Jan. 30, 1973, two robbers shot Sen. John Stennis, D-Miss., and surgeons initially thought he would die. Stennis survived and lived until 1995.

The day of the shooting, Nixon told White House special counsel Charles Colson, "At least I hope that Saturday night special legislation, at least we're supporting that, you know. We're not for gun control generally, but we are for that. God damn it that ought to be passed. Or was it passed?"

When Colson told him it hadn't, Nixon instructed his counsel, "We better damn well be for it now, huh?"

At a news conference the next day, the president repeated his call to ban Saturday night specials. He also volunteered a comment that few national politicians would make today: "Let me say, personally, I have never hunted in my life. I have no interest in guns and so forth."

By March 1973, aide John Ehrlichman was telling Nixon that gun control was a "loser issue for us."

"You've got a highly mobilized lobby," he told the president. "I think what we have to do is carve out a little piece of it, and Saturday night specials, of course, has been our tactic."

Other White House officials also argued against doing much, including Tom C. Korologos, a White House deputy assistant for legislative affairs who later was an outside lobbyist for the NRA and ambassador to Belgium under President George W. Bush.

"The thing that worries me is that the president's hard-core support comes from the gun-folk and obviously we need support these days," Korologos wrote in an Aug. 31, 1973 memo, referring to the Watergate scandal that would undo Nixon's presidency.

"Lurking in the background is the president's personal statement: 'I'm a liberal on gun control,'" Korologos said. Nixon might have made this statement privately; there is no record of him saying it publicly.

Korologos' conclusion: "I vote for a 'talk' meeting and then 'tough it out' by doing nothing and hope nobody gets shot in the next three years."

The effort to ban Saturday night specials receded in recent decades as the focus of gun control advocates shifted to rein in more powerful weapons.

Nixon's focus soon shifted, too.

In June 1972, a little over a month after his chat about banning handguns, Nixon had a recorded conversation that showed him trying to get the FBI to stop investigating the break-in at Democratic offices at the Watergate office building by burglars tied to his re-election committee.

Few remember the tapes about handguns. History forever remembers the tape that gave Nixon's Watergate pursuers their "smoking gun."

City Manager Michael O'Brien is asking the Worcester City Council to transfer $150,000 so work can begin on designing a new multipurpose, synthetic turf field at the park on Lake Avenue. The hope is to get the work started on designing the facility, which will include a running track, new lighting and grandstands among other improvements, so it can be ready for use early next year.

WORCESTER -- According to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette*, City Manager Michael O'Brien is asking the Worcester City Council to transfer $150,000 so work can begin on designing a new multipurpose, synthetic turf field at the park on Lake Avenue. The hope is to get the work started on designing the facility, which will include a running track, new lighting and grandstands among other improvements, so it can be ready for use early next year.

Robert Moylan, commissioner of public works and parks, told the Telegram & Gazette there is a growing demand in the city for more rectangular fields. The growing popularity of rugby, soccer and lacrosse has meant that the grass fields in the city are taking a beating and don't have enough time to regenerate. A turf field would help meet the demand because it would be able to stand up to more regular use.

Moylan told the T&G he hopes the new field at Lake Park will be completed by early 2014. A major hurdle to get over, though, is getting the Legislature to approve the construction. The park is state-owned so the city will need approval from the Legislature.

The state would not contribute any funds to the construction of the new field.

*Worcester Telegram & Gazette articles require a subscription.

In other headlines, New York City's ban on large sugary drinks starts this week.

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Federal prosecutors are gathering information about contact that a former medical director of Phillips Academy in Andover who is facing child pornography charges has had with minors.

BOSTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors are gathering information about contact that a former medical director of Phillips Academy in Andover who is facing child pornography charges has had with minors.

According to a judicial order filed Friday in federal court in Boston, "the government has produced and anticipates continuing to produce various materials that contain the names of certain minors known" to Dr. Richard Keller.

The order did not specify the nature of the contact or say when it took place.

A lawyer for Keller said in an email to The Boston Globe (

The 56-year-old Keller of Andover was arrested in September on charges of receiving child pornography. He has pleaded not guilty.

Cambridge College, in the former US Factory Outlets Space, has 15 classrooms and offices in 18,000 square feet of space, employs 50 faculty and staff and serves about 300 students over the course of a year.

Cindi Keyes of Springfield, a Cambridge College student, works in the new computer lab at the college's new facility in Tower Square in downtown Springfield. The Republican | Don Treeger  

SPRINGFIELD – Cambridge College is open in downtown’s Tower Square with 50 employees and faculty, a number that includes part-timers, and courses expected to draw as many as 300 students over the course of a year.

“It is important, no question about it,” said Fred G. Christiansen, senior property manager for Tower Square's manager, CB Richard Ellis New England Inc. “We’ve looked at an educational component for some time as something we thought would be compatible. It may even have the effect of expanding some of our business hours to accommodate the student activity.”

Forty-year-old Cambridge College is a nonprofit non-traditional college that provides higher education for adult learners, said Deborah C Jackson, the college’s president.

The college has other Massachusetts locations in Cambridge and Lawerence, as well as five out-of-state locations. The Springfield location had been on Cottage Street, Jackson said.

But Cottage Street was too far out of the way, Jackson said. The college’s Tower Square location is the space that was occupied by US Factory Outlets until 2005. It faces Boland Way.

“So now we are here, easily accessible,” Jackson said. “We have parking in the Tower Square garage. We are right off I-91 and accessible to people working downtown, working in Tower Square.”

Cambridge College is located in Tower Square in the space formerly occupied by US Factory Outlets
The Republican | Don Treeger




 

Most classes are at night and on weekends.

The move was first announced in October 2011. Christiansen said it took a long time to prepare the space.