The fire displaced two adults and three children from the first floor, four adults and two children from the second floor and two adults from the third floor.

SPRINGFIELD - A total of 13 people in three apartments were displaced Thursday afternoon by a fire in the top floor of a three-family residence at 21 Blake Hill Road, said Dennis Leger, aide to Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant.

The fire, reported at about 4:30 p.m., was confined to the top floor of the structure, but the lower floors sustained smoke and water damage.

Leger said the total damage was an estimated $20,000.

The fire displaced two adults and three children from the first floor, four adults and two children from the second floor and two adults from the third floor, he said.

The American Red Cross, Pioneer Valley was called to the scene to offer aid and temporary shelter, he said.

The cause of the fire is undetermined. The Springfield Arson and Bomb Squad is investigating to determine the cause, he said.

The property, located between Fort Pleasant Street and Belmont Avenue in Forest Park, is owned by ANHS Properties of Springfield.

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MGM Resorts officials said they want to retain as much of the historic features in the South End as feasible in designing the casino project

SPRINGFIELD — Representatives of MGM Resorts International continued discussions on Thursday with the Springfield Historical Commission regarding ways to develop a proposed casino in the South End that retains as much of the historic features that can be incorporated into the plans.

Options for saving certain buildings and facades in the targeted area remain under consideration and will be discussed with the commission over a period of months, as long as the casino project remains under consideration by the city, officials said.

Discussions began with the Historical Commission in January, and various amendments to the plans are being considered in response to commission concerns, MGM officials said.

“It’s advancing the architectural design to start to respond to some of the questions or opportunities that we’ve e got for each of the historical structures in question,” Hunter Clayton, executive vice-president for MGM Resorts Development LLC.

Among changes under consideration, MGM is mulling if it should reduce the size if its proposed eight-story parking garage, perhaps by taking away two floors, said Chuck Irving, president of Davenport Properties, a consultant with MGM.

In addition, the company is considering if it should eliminate plans for a skywalk that would cross Main Street from the MassMutual Center to the corner of State and Main Street. Historical Commission members had raised concerns the skywalk would damage the old Mass Mutual building at the corner, would obstruct the view, and questioned the need for the structure.

MGM Resorts and Penn National Gaming are proposing casinos in Springfield, with Penn National’s project planned in the North End of the downtown district. City officials are negotiating casino agreements with both companies, and one or both could be considered for approval by Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, the City Council, and voters.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission will then consider granting one casino in Western Massachusetts, also considering projects proposed in Palmer and West Springfield.

MGM officials said they share the Historical Commission’s concerns about preserving the history of key buildings such as the State Armory building on Howard Street, and certain buildings along Main and State streets.

“I don’t think its weeks, I think it’s two or three or four months down the line as we focus beyond the next step which is really the host community agreement and being selected by the city,” Clayton said.

“I am happy they are trying to work with us,” said Ralph Slate, chairman of the Historical Commission. “They recognize that there are a lot of historical properties down there and seem to be willing to incorporate as much of the properties as is feasible.”

In another move aimed at historic preservation, MGM is considering relocating the First Spiritualist Church, now at 33-37 Bliss St., and purchased by the company to a new location on the casino property on the East Columbus Avenue side, officials said.

Some Historical Commission members, including Robert McCarroll, said they are pleased the church would be relocated and saved, but believe a different location might be better, not wanting it dwarfed by the large parking garage.

MGM officials said they will explore the options for the church, including a potential different site, and keep conferring on that issue with the commission.

Penn National had previously met with the Historical Commission. Penn National has options to buy The Republican newspaper property on Main Street, Peter Pan Bus Lines, the Kittredge building and some riverfront parcels.

The dog, a 3-year-old American bulldog, was euthanized by a veterinarian Wednesday at the request of the family.

Westfield Police headquarters The Republican staff [file]  

This is an update of a story originally posted at 8:22 a.m. Thursday

WESTFIELD – An 8-year-old Day Avenue boy, suffered a serious injury to an arm Tuesday afternoon when he was bitten by the family dog, officials said.

The attack, which occurred at the family home at 35 Day Ave., was reported to police shortly before 6 p.m. Tuesday, Capt. Michael McCabe said.

The dog, a 3-year-old American bulldog, was euthanized by a veterinarian Wednesday at the request of the family. Fraser said it was the first time, as far as he knows, that the dog has attacked anyone.

Animal Control Officer Kenneth Frazer said there were initially concerns that the damage was so great that doctors at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield were not sure if the boy’s arm could be saved.

On Thursday afternoon he told CBS 3 Springfield, the media partner of The Republican and Masslive.com, that the boy’s father had told him that following an operation, the boy was able to successfully able to move his fingers.

The incident occurred shortly after the boy had been bouncing on a trampoline in the yard, Frazer said, adding that the dog had a history of “going crazy” when children used the trampoline.

The boy got off the trampoline and was attempting to pass through a gated area leading toward the house when his arm got stuck in the gate. The boy started yelling for help and the dog, which was on the other side of the gate, attacked his arm.

McCabe said the boy’s father told police that the dog had “territorial issues.” The bite started near the boy’s right shoulder and extended into his upper arm, he said.

"I don't think I'm done with politics," the former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts told reporters after delivering the keynote address at a New Hampshire dinner commemorating the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death.

Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts addresses the crowd as a keynote speaker during the 11th Annual "Keeping the Dream Alive" dinner commemorating the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death, Thursday, April 4, 2013 in Nashua, N.H. Declaring that he's likely not done with politics, Brown refused to rule out a run for office in New Hampshire, while describing the Granite State as "almost a second home." Photo by Will Wrobel / The Telegraph via AP  

By STEVE PEOPLES

NASHUA, N.H. — Declaring that he's likely not done with politics, former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown from Massachusetts refused Thursday to rule out a run for office in New Hampshire, while describing the Granite State as "almost a second home."

"I don't think I'm done with politics," the Republican told reporters after delivering the keynote address at a New Hampshire dinner commemorating the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s death.

Asked if he might challenge Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire in 2014, Brown said: "I'm not going to rule out anything right now."

The former senator, now a Fox News contributor, won election to the Senate seat long held by Democrat Ted Kennedy after he died in 2009. Brown has been out of politics since January after losing his re-election contest to Democrat Elizabeth Warren.

Brown disappointed Massachusetts Republicans by declining to run in the special election to replace Sen. John Kerry, who was tapped by President Barack Obama to serve as secretary of state.

On Thursday, Brown highlighted his willingness to reach across the aisle during his three years in Washington.

"I was the most bipartisan senator in the United States Senate. That's I think what people want. Apparently they don't want it in Massachusetts," he said.

Brown emphasized his connection to New Hampshire throughout his remarks. He noted that he's been invited to speak in the state four out of the next five weeks.

"New Hampshire's like a second home," Brown said. "I was born at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. My mom and sister and family live here. Spent summers here growing up. Have a house here. Been a taxpayer for 20 years."

Brown's primary residence is in Wrentham, Mass., but he owns a home along New Hampshire's seacoast.

Should he decide to stay in politics in Massachusetts, he has political options there. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, is not seeking re-election in 2014, leaving the governor's seat up for grabs.

"I'm not sure what I'm going to do politically yet," Brown said. "I'm just re-charging the batteries."

Shaheen, a former New Hampshire governor faces her first re-election test as a senator next year. Recent polling suggests she is popular heading into the next election season.

Wayne Jennings, head of the National Cultural Diversity Awareness Council which hosted Thursday's event, encouraged Brown to run in New Hampshire.

"If folks in Massachusetts don't appreciate him down there, we would love to have him up here," Jennings said.

Marquinta E. Jacobs is the soldier whom Army investigators said was arrested.

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In this Aug. 18, 2010 image provided by the U.S. Army shows the Chaffee Gate entrance to Fort Knox. An Army civilian employee was shot and killed in a parking lot at Kentucky's Fort Knox on Wednesday, and investigators were seeking to question a man in connection with the shooting, authorities said.

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A soldier apprehended Thursday in Tennessee was charged with murder in the shooting death of a civilian employee at Kentucky’s Fort Knox a day earlier.

The FBI said in a court filing that Marquinta E. Jacobs fired a .45-caliber handgun at the victim, “striking him several times.” Jacobs is charged with murder, according to the criminal complaint.

Jacobs is the soldier whom Army investigators said was apprehended Thursday in Portland, Tenn., FBI spokeswoman Mary Trotman said.

Army investigators had said a soldier wanted for questioning in the killing was apprehended in Portland, where Jacobs’ mother lives. But the Army declined to identify the soldier, except to say he is a member of Fort Knox’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division.

The shooting occurred around 5:40 p.m. Wednesday in the parking lot at the Army Human Resources Command building, prompting a brief lockdown at the Army post in central Kentucky, about an hour southwest of Louisville.

The victim was an employee of the command, which handles personnel actions for soldiers.

A witness saw the Wednesday shooting after Jacobs and the victim had a verbal exchange in the parking lot, according to the federal criminal complaint, which gave the following account:

The witness reported seeing Jacobs shoot the victim, identified as “L.G.,” several times and then flee in a Dodge pickup truck. Investigators found eight shell casings at the scene.

Investigators interviewed Jacobs’ wife, who said he owned a .45-caliber Glock pistol, and they found ammunition at the home that matches the kind used at the crime scene. Jacobs’ wife told police that Jacobs had left the home on a black motorcycle.

The motorcycle was found at the home of Jacobs’ mother in Portland. His mother told police he had left around 9 p.m. Wednesday driving a Kia Rondo.

Police in Portland referred questions to the Army Criminal Investigation Command on Thursday. A message left for a spokesman at Army CID was not immediately returned Thursday night. Fort Knox has said in a statement that the soldier was a man believed to be traveling on a motorcycle.

After the shooting, the victim was transported to the Ireland Army Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead Wednesday.

Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command, said the shooting was a personal incident.

“Special Agents from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command are continuing the investigation and as previously released the shooting appears to be a domestic issue and not a random act of violence,” Grey said in a statement.

The identity of the victim was being withheld pending notification of family.

Nine black teens were wrongly convicted of raping two white women more than 80 years ago. 

In this July 26, 1937 file photo, New York attorney Samuel Leibowitz, center, stands in his office in New York with four of the "Scottsboro Boys," from left, Willie Robertson, Eugene Williams, Roy Wright, and Olen Montgomery. Levin is credited with saving from death all but one of the nine black teens who were wrongly convicted of raping two white women in 1931. In a final chapter to one of the most important civil rights episodes in American history, Alabama lawmakers voted Thursday to give posthumous pardons to the "Scottsboro Boys".
Associated Press




 

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Opening a final chapter to one of the most important civil rights episodes in American history, Alabama lawmakers voted Thursday to allow posthumous pardons for the “Scottsboro Boys”: nine black teens who were wrongly convicted of raping two white women more than 80 years ago.

The bill setting up a procedure to pardon the group must be signed by Gov. Robert Bentley to become law. He plans to study the legislation but has said he favors the pardons.

All but the youngest member of the group, whose ages ranged from 13 to 19, were sent to death row after false accusations from the women and convictions by all-white juries. All were eventually freed without executions. The case became synonymous with racial injustice and set important legal precedents, including a Supreme Court decision that outlawed the practice of systematically excluding black people from juries.

The last of the men died in 1989.

The House approved the legislation Thursday morning in a 103-0 vote. The measure earlier passed the Senate 29-0.

“This is a great for Alabama. It was long overdue,” said Democratic Rep. Laura Hall of Huntsville, who sponsored the bill in the House. Democratic Rep. John Robinson of Scottsboro said the pardons “should have happened a long time ago.”

House Speaker Mike Hubbard, a Republican, said, “You can’t change history, but you can take steps to right the wrongs of the past. The fact that this passed unanimously shows that today’s 21st century Alabama is far removed from the one that caused such pain for so many so long ago.”

That distance is still being measured.

Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, applauded the correction of “an historic miscarriage of justice.” But he noted that Alabama is involved in a Supreme Court case over the Voting Rights Act and has passed laws called discriminatory against immigrants in the country illegally.

“Like so many communities that have had tried to move beyond their ugliest chapters, Alabama has learned you can only move forward if you are honest about your past,” Jealous said. “It’s heartening that this was a unanimous vote.”

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “Alabama still needs to confront its present.”

Susan Glisson, executive director of the Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi, also was gladdened by the measure. “It is an opportunity for us to understand that period, especially the ways in which blacks were deemed inferior and therefore not worthy of equal treatment before the law,” she said.

But she found it ironic that it happened while Alabama is challenging its requirements under the Voting Rights Act, and said that the amount of time it took to pass may lead some to consider it an “empty gesture.”

“For those of us who care about where our country’s headed, I would hope we would take the opportunity to ask difficult questions about what reconciliation really means and also to understand the critical role that education and justice plays in its accomplishment,” Glisson said.

The nine teens from Georgia and Tennessee were accused of raping two white women on a freight train in north Alabama in 1931. At this time during the Great Depression, many people would sneak aboard for free rides between cities. There had been a fight between whites and blacks on the train, and the two women made the false rape accusations in hopes of avoiding arrest.

The defendants were convicted in trials where, as typical in such Deep South cases during Jim Crow, guilty verdicts were never in doubt. The Communist Party seized on the case as an opportunity to make inroads among black people and liberals, and its legal arm was named as their attorneys. There were years of appeals – some successful, as one of the women recanted and said their claim was a lie. All the men were eventually freed.

The case set important legal precedents, including Supreme Court rulings that guaranteed the right to effective counsel and barred the practice of keeping blacks off juror rolls.

It has also retained cultural resonance decades later. A Broadway musical entitled “The Scottsboro Boys” was staged in 2010, the same year a museum dedicated to the case opened in Scottsboro.

The Senate sponsor, Republican Sen. Arthur Orr of Decatur, credited Sheila Washington, founder of the Scottboro Boys Museum, for pursuing the legislation after the governor and parole board said they didn’t have the legal authority to issue pardons to the deceased.

If the bill is signed into law, a petition would need to be filed for each of the men for each of them to be pardoned, said Eddie Cook, executive director of the state parole board. The parole board will then decide whether to grant the pardon. Previously, there had not been a procedure for pardoning someone who is dead.

Washington said the pardons would finally shine a light on “this dark injustice.”

“I didn’t sleep at all last night. I was nervous and teary eyed,” she said.

Orr said it was unfortunate that the pardons are coming after all the Scottsboro Boys have died, but the legislation does let the state write a “better final chapter.”

“Their lives were ruined by the convictions,” he said. “By doing this, it sends a very positive message nationally and internationally that this is a different state than we were many years ago.”

In this July 26, 1937 file photo, New York attorney Samuel Leibowitz, center, stands in his office in New York with four of the "Scottsboro Boys," from left, Willie Robertson, Eugene Williams, Roy Wright, and Olen Montgomery. Levin is credited with saving from death all but one of the nine black teens who were wrongly convicted of raping two white women in 1931. In a final chapter to one of the most important civil rights episodes in American history, Alabama lawmakers voted Thursday to give posthumous pardons to the "Scottsboro Boys".
Associated Press




 

A building collapsed as it was being constructed illegally in a Mumbai, India, suburb, killing at least 27 people, police said Friday.

MUMBAI, India — A building collapsed as it was being constructed illegally in a Mumbai, India, suburb, killing at least 27 people, police said Friday.

The collapse injured 54 others and rescuers are searching for more casualties in the debris, Police Inspector Digamber Jangale said.

The building in the Mumbai suburb of Thane did not have clearances from local authorities to be built, he said. The first four floors had offices, but most occupants had left for the day at the time of the collapse.

Workers were adding four more floors and had finished three before the building fell.

Most of the dead were construction workers who were staying in the building, Jangale said. The condition of at least 10 of the injured was serious, he said.

Police said it was not immediately clear what caused the structure to collapse. Police have arrested the builder and his associate.

Building collapses are common in India as builders try to cut corners by using poor quality materials and multi-storied structures are built with inadequate supervision.

Fatal fire blamed on deteriorated fireplace

A firefighter stationed on an aerial ladder sprays water on the burned home at 6 State Road in Whately Thursday morning. Two women died in the blaze and were identified by the Northwestern District Attorney's Office./
Dave Canton




 

The Golonkas were discovered on different floors in the Golonka Farms farmhouse by searching firefighters. One of the victims was on the first floor and the other still in bed on the second floor. Both women were unconscious when they were pulled from the burning building, spokesman Dennis Annear, of Northwest Massachusetts Incident Management. The women were taken to Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton where resuscitation attempts failed and they were pronounced dead.

The two were well known in the area as the long-time proprietors of the Golonka Farms farm stand which stands next to the Golonka home. The farm stand has become famous for its fresh vegetables grown on the farm itself and its specialty corn. The farm stand building was not damaged in the blaze.

Yesterday, the state Fire Marshal's Office blamed the fatal fire on a malfunctioning fireplace. Fire Marshal Stephen Coan and Whately Fire Chief John Hannum issued a statement Thursday saying an old fireplace, which had deteriorated through years of use, allowed heat and sparks to escape through cracks under the firebox and ignite the structure of the old farmhouse.

Annear said, at the scene Thursday morning, the fire was initially reported at about 11:45 p.m. Wednesday night. First responding firefighters conducted a search of the building and found the unconscious women. Mutual aid from eight different fire departments included ambulance, equipment and 68 firefighters to help battle the blaze. Firefighters remained on the scene into the daylight hours of Thursday, wetting down debris. The rear portion of the building, including an attached storage shed and the kitchen of the home was nearly completely consumed by the fire, while the main portion of the home was severely gutted. Annear said the entire second floor of the home was gutted by flames while all but the two front rooms of the first floor were burnt out.

Company underpaid farm workers who workers Whately fields

BOSTON -- Federal authorities are ordering a South Deerfield-based company to pay more than $300,000 in back wages, damages and penalties to 14 farm workers who were forced to work up to 90 hours a week and were paid less than $3 per hour in some cases.

The federal Labor Department said Thursday that it has secure a consent judgement from a federal court in Boston to force Chang & Sons Enterprises, Inc. to pay the back wages to workers who worked on the company's bean sprout and soy bean farm on River Road in Whately.

According to attorneys working for the federal government, rather than paying its farm workers the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, the company paid its workers a flat rate of between $350 and $450 for a week's work, which could run as long as 90 hours. Workers planted the crops, harvested and worked in a packaging plant on the farm. Change & Sons sells its specialty products to restaurants primarily in the Northeast.

Material from the Associated Press was used

A single car crash on Riverdale Street injured two people and knocked a utility pole down, leaving live electrical wires across the roadway and closing the major artery into the morning commute.

Fire officials inspect the scene Thursday of the fire at 6 State Road in Whately that killed two women late Wednesday night. John Suchocki / The Repubican  

These were the most read stories on MassLive.com yesterday. If you missed any of them, click on the links below to read them now.

1) 8-year-old Westfield boy in danger of losing arm after being bitten by family dog [George Graham]

2) 2 dead in Whately house fire Photo at right. [Dave Canton]

3) West Springfield car crash on Riverdale Street sends two to hospital, knocks out power to WMECO customers [Dave Canton]

4) Massachusetts transportation secretary cautions Interstate 91 Springfield viaduct may not be replaced; governor's education plan in jeopardy [Dan Ring]

5) Restaurant review: Murphy's Pub in Agawam [Fran Bellamy]

129 sailors died when nuclear sub sank in 1963

The USS Thresher as it began its sea trials. The nuclear sub sank off the coast of Cape Cod 50 years ago, killing all 129 aboard. U.S. Navy  

Minutes later, the crew of a rescue ship made out the ominous words "exceeding test depth" and listened as the sub disintegrated under the crushing pressure of the sea. Just like that, the Thresher was gone, along with 129 men.

Fifty years ago, the deadliest submarine disaster in U.S. history delivered a blow to national pride during the Cold War and became the impetus for safety improvements. To this day, some designers and maintenance personnel listen to an audio recording of a submarine disintegrating to underscore the importance of safety.

"We can never, ever let that happen again," said Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy, an engineer and former submariner who now serves as commander of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C.

This weekend, hundreds who lost loved ones when the Thresher sank will gather at memorial events in Portsmouth, N.H., and Kittery, Maine.

Built at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, and based in Groton, Conn., the first-in-class Thresher was the world's most advanced fast attack submarine when it was commissioned in 1961.

Featuring a cigar-shaped hull and nuclear propulsion, the 278-foot-long submarine could travel underwater for unlimited distances. It could dive deeper than earlier submarines, enduring pressure at unforgiving depths. It was designed to be quieter, to avoid detection.

On April 10, 1963, the submarine already had undergone initial sea trials and was back in the ocean about 220 miles off Cape Cod, Mass., for deep-dive testing. Some submariners are baffled by the initial message about a minor difficulty because it's believed a brazed joint on an interior pipe had burst — a problem anything but minor.

The Navy believes sea water sprayed onto an electrical panel, shorting it out and causing an emergency shutdown of the nuclear reactor.

The submarine alerted the USS Skylark, a rescue ship trailing it, that it was attempting to surface by emptying its ballast tanks. But that system failed, and the sub descended below crush depth.

Understanding their dire situation, Navy crew members and civilian technicians would have scrambled to close valves to try to stem the flooding, struggled with a ballast system disabled by ice, and worked to restore propulsion by restarting the reactor, a 20-minute process.

Their deaths would have been instant because of the force of the violent implosion. The sub's remnants came to a rest on the ocean floor at a depth of 8,500 feet.

There was nothing the divers on the Skylark could do.

"It's one of those times when there's silence," recalled Danny Miller, one of the Skylark divers, now 70 and living in Farmington, Mo. "You don't know what to say. You don't know how to feel. You just know something tragic has happened."

The Thresher wreckage covers a mile of ocean floor, according to University of Rhode Island oceanographer Robert Ballard, who used his 1985 discovery of RMS Titanic as a Cold War cover for the fact that he had surveyed the Thresher on the same mission.

"It was like someone put the submarine in a shredding machine," Ballard said in a recent interview. "It was breathtaking. There were only a couple of parts that looked like a submarine."

Word of the disaster spread quickly.

Paul O'Connor, now a union president at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, remembers seeing the bulletin on TV. He was 6. Barbara Currier, whose husband, Paul, was a civilian worker on the Thresher, was shopping with her daughters when she heard the news on the radio in a store.

What followed was a blur of activity for families. Navy officers in dress whites showed up on doorsteps. Friends and neighbors brought food.

After the submarine was declared sunk, President John F. Kennedy ordered the nation's flags lowered to half-staff. International leaders sent condolences.

"The men, they were heroes. Most of them were doing what they wanted to do for their country to keep the country safe," said Currier, 86, who never remarried and still lives in the same house in Exeter, N.H. "They were pushing things to the limit."

For the families, the silver lining is that subs are now safer. The Navy accelerated safety improvements and created a program called "SUBSAFE," an extensive series of design modifications, training and other improvements.

People involved in the SUBSAFE program are required to watch a documentary about the Thresher that ends with an actual underwater recording featuring the eerie sounds of metal creaking and bending as a U.S. Navy submarine breaks apart with the loss of all hands.

"Every job we do, we need to have in the back of our minds that we have the lives of the sailors in our hands. It's that critical and it's that literal," said O'Connor, president of the Metal Trades Council.

Hundreds of family and friends of the Thresher's crew, along with sailors who previously served on the submarine, will gather Saturday for a memorial service in Portsmouth, N.H. A day later, neighboring Kittery will dedicate a flagpole that stretches 129 feet high in remembrance of the number of lives lost.

Because of their tender ages, and the lack of a body or proper grave site, children like Vivian Lindstrom, who lost her father, Samuel Dabruzzi, a Navy electronics technician, were unable to grieve properly.

Thanks to the reunions, they at least know they're not alone, said Lindstrom, of Glenwood City, Wis.

"We've experienced the same things, felt the same things," she said. "We feel like family. We call ourselves the Thresher family."

___

Follow David Sharp at http://twitter.com/David_Sharp_AP

Gomez appears to be testing 2 messages – focusing on his plan to reform Congress and his lack of political experience.

An internal poll paid for by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez’s campaign is testing two messages – focusing on his plan to reform Congress and his lack of political experience. The poll also suggests a more closely contested race than a previous non-partisan survey.

Gomez is facing former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan and State Rep. Daniel Winslow in the Republican primary. The Gomez campaign is working to counter the perception that the GOP election is a two-man race between Sullivan and Winslow. The Gomez campaign will release a memo outlining the poll results on Friday, but gave an advance copy to MassLive.com.

“The poll shows that Sullivan can continue to believe himself to be the frontrunner in this race at his own peril,” said Gomez spokesman Lenny Alcivar.

The poll was conducted April 2-3 by OnMessage Inc., a Republican campaign research and strategy firm that also worked for Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown. The firm advertises its polls as a way to test a campaign’s message and develop strategy.

The Gomez poll has Gomez and Sullivan tied (24 percent for Gomez and 23 percent for Sullivan) with Winslow at 17 percent and 36 percent undecided. The poll of 500 likely Republican primary voters has a 4.3 percent margin of error. “This is a completely wide open race,” Gomez pollster Wes Anderson said in an interview.

In contrast, a non-partisan WBUR poll done March 19-21 found Sullivan with a clear lead, with support from 28 percent of respondents, compared to 10 percent for Winslow and 8 percent for Gomez. A University of Massachusetts-Boston Herald poll found Sullivan with higher favorability ratings than the other two, though the poll did not conduct a Republican primary matchup.

Gomez’s poll still found that Sullivan had the highest favorability ratings, but by a tiny margin – 40 percent, compared to 38 percent for Gomez and 25 percent for Winslow. Sullivan also had the best name recognition – 20 percent never heard of him, compared to 24 percent for Gomez and 34 percent for Winslow. Unfavorability ratings for the candidates were similar, though Gomez was seen slightly more unfavorably (8 percent, compared to 6 percent for Sullivan and Winslow).

Anderson said the WBUR poll, which reached 116 likely Republican voters, had too small a sample size. Gomez has also been the only candidate to pay for television advertising since then, with a small buy.

The Gomez poll was weighted by county to reflect historic Republican voter turnout. It was conducted by random digit dial and included cell phones and land lines. It polled voters who said they were definitely or very likely going to vote in the Republican primary, and the sample included 80 percent Republicans and 19 percent unenrolled voters.

Polls of this type are typically meant to test messaging. One question asked respondents whether they are more or less likely to vote for Gomez based on his proposed congressional reforms – passing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, withholding congressional pay when Congress fails to pass a budget on time and instituting congressional term limits. Sixty-nine percent said they were more likely to support Gomez and 9 percent were less likely.

“(Voters are) still in an angry, upset mood and want to see a higher level of accountability in Congress,” Anderson said.

Another question tested perceptions of Gomez’s lack of political experience. Gomez is a private equity investor and former Navy SEAL. The poll asked: “Do you prefer a candidate that has never been in politics but has experience in the military and private sector, or do you prefer a candidate that already has political experience in the state legislature or local office?”

Half the respondents preferred a candidate who has never been in politics; 29 percent preferred political experience.

In his memo, Anderson said the results show “that the Gomez message and his strategy of non-stop campaigning in concert with his TV advertising is working well.”

Anderson said the firm conducted additional messaging questions, which were not released, indicating the results may have been less favorable to Gomez.

The Gomez Campaign's Polling Memo

The United States accepts that a diminished but resilient Taliban is likely to remain a military threat in some parts of Afghanistan long after U.S. troops complete their combat mission next year, the top U.S. military officer said Sunday.

This image made from AP video shows Afghan National Army soldiers rushing to the scene moments after a car bomb exploded in front the PRT, Provincial Reconstruction Team, in Qalat, Zabul province, southern Afghanistan, Saturday, April 6, 2013. Six American troops and civilians and an Afghan doctor were killed in attacks on Saturday in southern and eastern Afghanistan as the U.S. military's top officer began a weekend visit to the country, officials said.  

By ROBERT BURNS

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — The United States accepts that a diminished but resilient Taliban is likely to remain a military threat in some parts of Afghanistan long after U.S. troops complete their combat mission next year, the top U.S. military officer said Sunday.

In an Associated Press interview at this air field north of Kabul, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he is cautiously optimistic that the Afghan army will hold its own against the insurgency as Western troops pull back and Afghans assume the lead combat role. He said that by May or June, the Afghans will be in the lead throughout the country.

Asked whether some parts of the country will remain contested by the Taliban, he replied, "Yes, of course there will be."

"And if we were having this conversation 10 years from now, I suspect there would (still) be contested areas because the history of Afghanistan suggests that there will always be contested areas," he said.

He and other U.S. commanders have said that ultimately the Afghans must reach some sort of political accommodation with the insurgents, and that a reconciliation process needs to be led by Afghans, not Americans. Thus the No. 1 priority for the U.S. military in its final months of combat in Afghanistan is to do all that is possible to boost the strength and confidence of Afghan forces.

Shortly after Dempsey arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday, the Taliban demonstrated its ability to strike.

It claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed five Americans — three soldiers and two civilians, including Anne Smedinghoff, a foreign service officer and the first American diplomat killed overseas since the terrorist attack Sept. 11 in Benghazi, Libya.

A fierce battle between U.S.-backed Afghan forces and Taliban militants in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan left nearly 20 people dead, including 11 Afghan children killed in an airstrike, Afghan officials said Sunday.

There are now about 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. That number is to drop to about 32,000 by February 2014, and the combat mission is to end in December 2014. Whether some number — perhaps 9,000 or 10,000 — remain into 2015 as military trainers and counterinsurgents is yet to be decided.

Dempsey spent two days talking to senior Afghan officials, including his counterpart, Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, as well as top U.S. and allied commanders.

He also visited a U.S. base in the volatile eastern province of Paktika for an update on how U.S. troops are balancing the twin missions of advising Afghan forces and withdrawing tons of U.S. equipment as the war effort winds down.

Paktika is an example of a sector of Afghanistan that is likely to face Taliban resistance for years to come.

Bordering areas of Pakistan that provide haven for the Taliban and its affiliated Haqqani network, Paktika has been among the more important insurgent avenues into the Afghan interior.

While the province has a functioning government, Taliban influence remains significant in less populated areas, as it has since U.S. forces first invaded the country more than 11 years ago.

"There will be contested areas, and it will be the Afghans' choice whether to allow those contested areas to persist, or, when necessary, take action to exert themselves into those contested area," he said.

Dempsey said he is encouraged by the recent development of coordination centers, including one in Paktika, where a wide range of Afghan government agencies work together on security issues. He called it a "quilt" of government structures that links Kabul, the capital, to ordinary Afghans in distant villages.

In some parts of the country, Afghan villagers have shown their dissatisfaction with Taliban influence by taking up arms against the insurgents, even without being pushed by the U.S. or by Kabul. This has happened in recent weeks in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, a traditional stronghold of the Taliban. The Andar district of Ghazni province has seen a similar uprising.

"We should encourage it, but we shouldn't be seen as hijacking" these local movements, he said.

Dempsey said he discussed the uprisings with Karimi, the army chief, and the Afghan defense minister, Bismullah Khan Mohammadi. They told him they "appreciated that they should allow this to occur (and) they should probably nurture it. They don't necessarily feel at this point as if they should tangibly support it."

The Afghan government's concern, Dempsey said, is that influential warlords could embrace these local movements and eventually leverage them to threaten the armed forces of the central government.

In a separate interview Sunday with al-Hurra, the Arabic-language satellite TV channel funded by the U.S. government, Dempsey was asked whether he worries that Syria, in the midst of a civil war, could become another Afghanistan.

"I do. I have grave concerns that Syria could become an extended conflict" that drags on for many years, he said.

The top U.S. military officer said Sunday the Pentagon had bolstered its missile defenses and taken other steps because he "can't take the chance" that North Korea won't soon engage in some military action.

A South Korean army soldier sets up a barricade at Unification Bridge near the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Monday, April 8, 2013. A top South Korean national security official said Sunday that North Korea may be setting the stage for a missile test or another provocative act with its warning that it soon will be unable to guarantee diplomats' safety in Pyongyang. But he added that the North's clearest objective is to extract concessions from Washington and Seoul.  

By ROBERT BURNS

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — The top U.S. military officer said Sunday the Pentagon had bolstered its missile defenses and taken other steps because he "can't take the chance" that North Korea won't soon engage in some military action.

Heightened tensions with North Korea led the United States to postpone congressional testimony by the chief U.S. commander in South Korea and delay an intercontinental ballistic missile test from a West Coast base.

North Korea, after weeks of war threats and other efforts to punish South Korea and the U.S. for joint military drills, has told other nations that it will be unable to guarantee diplomats' safety in the North's capital beginning Wednesday.

U.S. Gen Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who just wrapped up a visit to Afghanistan, was asked in an Associated Press interview whether he foresees North Korea taking military action soon.

"No, but I can't take the chance that it won't," he said, explaining why the Pentagon has strengthened missile defenses and made other decisions to combat the potential threat.

Dempsey said the U.S. has been preparing for further provocations or action, "considering the risk that they may choose to do something" on one of two nationally important anniversaries in April — the birth of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and the creation of the North Korean army.

U.S. Gen. James Thurman, the commander of the 28,000 American troops in South Korea, will stay in Seoul as "a prudent measure" rather than travel to Washington to appear this coming week before congressional committees, Army Col. Amy Hannah said in an email Sunday to the AP.

Thurman has asked the Senate Armed Services Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, and the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense to excuse his absence until he can testify at a later date.

Dempsey said he had consulted with Thurman about the rising tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Dempsey said both Thurman and South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Jung Seung-jo, decided it would be best for them to remain in Seoul rather than come to Washington. The Korean general had planned to meet with Dempsey, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, in mid-April for regular talks.

Dempsey said that instead of meeting in person with Thurman and Jung in Washington, they will consult together by video-teleconference.

The Pentagon has postponed an intercontinental ballistic missile test that was set for the coming week at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a senior defense official told the AP on Saturday.

The official said U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel decided to put off the long-planned Minuteman 3 test until April because of concerns the launch could be misinterpreted and exacerbate the Korean crisis. Hagel made the decision Friday, the official said.

North Korea's military said this past week that it was authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. North Korea also conducted a nuclear test in February and in December launched a long-range rocket that could potentially hit the continental U.S.

The U.S. has moved two of the Navy's missile-defense ships closer to the Korean peninsula, and a land-based system is being deployed to the Pacific territory of Guam later this month. The Pentagon last month announced longer-term plans to strengthen its U.S.-based missile defenses.

The defense official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the Minuteman 3 test delay and requested anonymity, said U.S. policy continues to support the building and testing of its nuclear deterrent capabilities. The official said the launch was not put off because of any technical problems.

Dempsey said he was not familiar with details of the Minuteman decision because he was traveling in Afghanistan.

But, he said, "it would be consistent with our intent here, which is to do what we have to do to posture ourselves to deter (North Korea), and to assure our allies. So things that can be delayed should be delayed."

A South Korean national security official said Sunday that North Korea may be setting the stage for a missile test or another provocative act.

Citing North Korea's suggestion that diplomats leave the country, South Korean President Park Geun-hye's national security director said the North may be planning a missile launch or another provocation around Wednesday, according to presidential spokeswoman Kim Haing.

In Washington, an adviser to President Barack Obama said "we wouldn't be surprised if they did a test. They've done that in the past."

Aide Dan Pfeiffer told ABC's "This Week" that "the key here is for the North Koreans to stop their actions, start meeting their international obligations, and put themselves in a position where they can achieve what is their stated goal, which is economic development, which will only happen if they rejoin the international community."

He told "Fox News Sunday" that "the onus is on the North Koreans to do the right thing here," adding that "they are the source of the problem and the only way to solve this is for them to take a step back."

If they don't, there will be consequences, Pfeiffer said.

"They will be able to further isolate themselves in the world, they will continue to further hurt themselves. The North Korean people are starving because of actions like the ones North Koreans are taking right now."

U.S. Sen. John McCain said the North's young leader, Kim Jong Un, is playing a game of brinksmanship.

"In the past we have seen this repetitious confrontation, negotiation, incentives to North Korea to better behave, hopes that they will abandon their nuclear quest — which they never will, otherwise, they'd be totally irrelevant," McCain told CBS' "Face the Nation."

"And so we've seen the cycle over and over and over again, for last 20 or 30 years. They confront. There's crisis. Then we offer them incentives — food, money. While meanwhile the most repressive and oppressive regime on earth continues to function," he added.

McCain said China "does hold the key to this problem. China can cut off their economy if they want to."

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, Philip Elliott and Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this report.

For many students, cursive is becoming as foreign as ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics

One school that still requires students to learn cursive writing is St. Francis International School in Silver Spring, Md., where penmenship is rated on report cards through eighth grade; here fourth-grader Samuen Nguyen practices cursive. Washington Post photo by Sarah L. Voisin  

The curlicue letters of cursive handwriting, once considered a mainstay of American elementary education, have been slowly disappearing from classrooms for years. Now, with most states adopting new national standards that don't require such instruction, cursive could soon be eliminated at most public schools.

For many students, cursive is becoming as foreign as ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. In college lecture halls, more students take notes on laptops and tablet computers than with pens and notepads. Responding to handwritten letters from grandparents in cursive is no longer necessary as they, too, learn how to use email, Facebook and Skype.

And educators, seeking to prepare students for a successful future in which computer and typing skills have usurped penmanship, are finding cursive's relevance waning, especially with leaner school budgets and curricula packed with standardized testing prep. So they're opting not to teach it anymore.

"It's seeing the writing on the wall," said Patricia Granada, principal at Eagle View Elementary in Fairfax County, Va. "Cursive is increasingly becoming obsolete."

Michael Hairston, president of the Fairfax Education Association, the largest teachers union in the county, called cursive "a dying art."

Pamela Romero shows off her signature at St. Francis Internatioal School. Washington Post photo by Sarah L. Voisin  

Since 2010, 45 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Core standards, which do not require cursive instruction but leave it up to the individual states and districts to decide whether they want to teach it. A report the same year by the Miami-Dade public school system found that cursive instruction has been slowly declining nationwide since the 1970s.

"The Common Core State Standards allow communities and teachers to make decisions at the local level about how to teach reading and writing . . . so they can teach cursive if they think it's what their students need," said Kate Dando, a spokeswoman for the Council of Chief State School Officers, which promotes the Common Core. "The standards define the learning targets that need to be met to ensure students graduate from high school prepared for success in college and careers. . . . The decision to include cursive when teaching writing is left to states, districts, schools and teachers."

Proponents of cursive say that many of the country's historical documents were written in the fancy script, including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They say that future historians who lack the ability to read cursive might not be able to study original historical documents.

Steve Graham, an education professor at Arizona State University and one of the top U.S. experts on handwriting instruction, said he has heard every argument for and against cursive.

"I have to tell you, I can't remember the last time I read the Constitution," Graham said. "The truth is that cursive writing is pretty much gone, except in the adult world for people in their 60s and 70s."

He said that today's teachers value typing more than handwriting and that by the 12th grade, about half of all papers are composed on computers.

"When you think about the world in the 1950s, everything was by hand. Paper and pencil," Graham said. "Right now, it's a hybrid world."

Graham said the argument for keeping cursive around centers more on tradition than practicality.

"What I typically hear for keeping cursive is how nice it is when you receive a beautifully cursive-written letter. It's like a work of art," Graham said. "It's pretty, but is that a reason for keeping something, given that we do less and less of those kinds of cards anymore?"

Deborah Spear, an academic therapist based in Great Falls, Va., said cursive writing is an integral part of her work with students who have dyslexia. Because all letters in cursive start on a base line, and because the pen moves fluidly from left to right, cursive is easier to learn for dyslexic students who have trouble forming words correctly.

"You will find people who say, 'Why teach cursive anymore because we have keyboarding,' " said Spear, who taught special education in Fairfax, Va., before starting her own business in 2009. "They'll say, 'Who cares if my kid can read Grandma's letters when Grandma is beginning to Skype anyway.' Yes, needing to read cursive is greatly diminishing in our society, but it's still very applicable as an instructional tool."

Several states have tried to resurrect cursive writing. California, Georgia and Massachusetts have laws mandating cursive instruction, and last month, legislators in Idaho passed a bill instructing the state Board of Education to include cursive in the curriculum.

Some experts contend that nice handwriting can lead to better grades in school.

Laura Dinehart, an education professor at Florida International University, recently conducted a study that found that children with neater handwriting developed better reading and math skills than their chicken-scratch peers.

According to a 2006 College Board report, SAT essays written in cursive received a slightly higher score than those written in block print. But only 15 percent of the essays were written in cursive.

At Broad Acres Elementary in Silver Spring, Md., students receive minimal cursive instruction, reading specialist Liz Fasulo said. The children spend more time learning to read it than write it.

"We don't want them to be boxed out of it," Fasulo said.

At St. Francis International School, which is across the street from Broad Acres, cursive receives more prominence.

"Cursive is traditionally a very Catholic school subject," Principal Tobias Harkleroad said, noting that penmanship is rated on students' report cards through eighth grade.

Nearly four decades later, Boston is still working to move forward from the legacy of the school busing crisis.

By BRIDGET MURPHY

BOSTON — Last fall, Ginnette Powell traveled from her home in Boston's Dorchester section to her old middle school in South Boston — a journey of just two miles, but one that covered a huge emotional distance. Finally, she was able to leave the painful past behind.

Powell endured the explosive battle over desegregation in Boston in the 1970s. Tears come to her eyes when she talks about how it took her decades to return to the place where she never felt safe as an African-American seventh-grader.

"It was scary because of what you were going into, getting bricks thrown at your bus. I remember the bus windows being broken," said Powell, now 48.

Nearly four decades later, Powell's native city also is still working to move forward from the legacy of the school busing crisis. Last year, Mayor Thomas Menino created an advisory group whose aim was to work toward putting students back in neighborhood schools. And last month, school officials agreed to do away with the last vestiges of the desegregation-based school assignment system, beginning in 2014.

But raw feelings remain from that divisive time. And to explore and mend the divisions, the nonprofit Union of Minority Neighborhoods has been holding public story circles across Boston where participants like Powell can open up about their own experiences.

Organizers hope the airing of voices will help people of different races and economic classes learn from the city's busing past so they can fight together for access to quality schools for all students. Project director Donna Bivens said the exercises are designed to be about listening and discussing, but not judging each other's stories.

"I think that we can't move forward, looking at how to improve our schools and access to our schools without looking at how the past impacted the present," said Elaine Ng, executive director of the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, which hosted the story circle where Powell described her visit back to her old school.

As the daughter of Chinese immigrants, Ng learned to speak English as a kindergarten student in a Boston public school. But after her family moved from Chinatown to a white neighborhood in 1976, students threw stones at her when she walked to school. Ng said one of her frustrations is that people don't recognize all the ripple effects busing had.

"It didn't matter whether or not you were on a bus," she said. "Racial tensions in the city were just really high."

The uproar started in 1974, when a federal judge imposed busing after a lawsuit claimed black students were getting lower-quality education than children who attended mostly white schools. Black students were bused to schools in white areas, and white students went to black neighborhoods. The National Guard was called in amid demonstrations and riots; school buses got police escorts.

The unrest continued for years. In 1976, a news photographer caught a white teenager attempting to spear a black man with an American flag during a busing protest outside City Hall. In 1979, 15-year-old black football player Darryl Williams was left paralyzed by a white sniper's bullet during a high school game.

Alexander Lynn, a 60-year-old African-American, was a young teacher at the beginning of the busing crisis. Later, he worked as a union organizer.

He was among several others, including Cassie Quinlan and Kevin Davis, who participated in the story circle with Powell.

Lynn said a white police officer once put a gun to his head and accused him of stealing a white child's bicycle after officers stopped him in a mostly white neighborhood. But when police found out he was a teacher, he said, they apologized and returned his bicycle.

He views the busing conflict as a struggle between people of different classes, not just races, and said he had the protection of whites as he lobbied for unions in South Boston in the same era.

Quinlan, who is white, drove one of the buses that took black students from the city's Roxbury section to high school in Charlestown. When she pulled up to the curb with a police escort, at least 100 white protesters would be lined up. Police would have to make a wall at the bus door so students could get into school.

"The black kids, they were nervous ...," said Quinlan, now 69. "I used to wish that somebody would smile and wave good morning. No, there was none of that."

Quinlan recalled returning to Charlestown in the early 1980s for a field trip. Then, she saw students of all races mixing together.

"I cried when I drove away, when I saw this, how much change had happened," she said.

Quinlan said her experiences opened her own eyes to black culture, and she became the first white member of a black gospel choir at a local university.

Davis, a 50-year-old African-American, said he was bused to Boston's Brighton section in 1976. Davis said neighborhood kids had paved the way at the mostly white school by then, and he didn't experience bias.

But as a substance abuse counselor in Roxbury near where he grew up, Davis said many clients have said busing-related trauma put them on a path to addiction. He's heard stories from black clients about how white police officers who were in schools called them names; others have confessed that they threw rocks at white students.

Some dropped out of school to avoid conflicts that came with busing.

"For a lot of people this has never been closed. This is still open. The pain that they feel has never been addressed," Davis said.

But for story circle participants like Powell, talking about busing has been healing, as was her trip to South Boston.

"It's sort of making myself whole ...," she said. "I had no control as a child being bused, but as an adult I can go into these spaces."

Every place with a snowy winter has its own version, but mud season occupies a special place in northern New England.

A car navigates the muddy roads April 2, 2013, in Calais, Vt. It’s known in northern New England as the fifth season. It’s mud. But the time when the thawing winter landscape turns dirt roads into mucky seas and highways into frosty roller coasters dotted with potholes doesn’t get featured on tourist calendars.  

By WILSON RING

MONTPELIER, Vt. — It's known in northern New England as the fifth season: mud.

But the time of year when the thawing winter landscape turns dirt roads into mucky seas and paved highways into frosty roller coasters sprinkled with potholes doesn't get featured on tourist calendars.

Every place with a snowy winter has its own version, but mud season occupies a special place in northern New England. It's the ugly mirror image to the picture-perfect foliage of September and October that draws millions to look at mountains painted red and gold.

From late March to May, many hotels offer rock-bottom mud-season rates to lure people in. In the popular Killington area, many restaurants that cater to tourists close between the end of skiing and the arrival of spring, defined not by the calendar, but by pale green buds and long days that make people want to visit again.

Despite its reputation as the season to forget, cultural chroniclers ranging from poet Robert Frost to novelist Howard Frank Mosher to political cartoonist Jeff Danziger have paid homage to the purgatory that begins in late March and can last into May.

"It's emblematic of everything that's bleak and horrible about being isolated at the end of a road that you just can't get out of," said Mosher, the Irasburg writer who has for decades written about the picturesque, exceptionally rural part of Vermont known as the Northeast Kingdom and who set a 1972 short story, "Burl," during mud season to highlight the desolation of his protagonist.

Mud season does provide recreation for the creative.

In Maine, forest rangers have to warn operators of all-terrain vehicles and four-wheel-drive trucks not to get carried away with slipping, sliding and spinning during mud season. In addition to damaging roads and private property, unauthorized "mudding" can cause uncontrolled runoff that damages fish habitat in streams and lakes.

David Lovewell is a mudding enthusiast and co-owner of Barnyard All Terrain in Livermore, Maine, created to provide a legal venue for people to go mudding, with events through the summer. These days, enthusiasts know better than to take joyrides in the woods or farm fields, he said.

"You can get in a lot of trouble now. If you get caught, you're going to get arrested. It's against the law, unless you own the property, to start turning up the woods," he said.

There are also more grave dangers — an MTV reality show star was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his SUV last week with two passengers, apparently after going "mudding" in West Virginia. The tailpipe may have been submerged in mud, allowing the gas to accumulate inside.

High-tech advances in engineering and all-wheel-drive vehicles have converted mud season from a time of true isolation decades ago to a mild annoyance today. Still, roads are closed, cars get damaged and some people park their cars far from home to avoid having to drive through mud.

When the season starts and how long it lasts varies by year and location. Yet it still sucks millions of dollars from state and local road budgets, be it for gravel to fill sinkholes or material used to fill potholes.

The verdict isn't in yet on how severe this season is going to be.

"We were anticipating it to be a really bad one," said Scott Rogers, the director of the operations division of the Vermont Transportation Agency. "We know everything is really wet underneath. A lot of it depends on what Mother Nature does to us over the next few weeks."

Mud season comes before the frost fully leaves the ground. Rather than meltwater seeping into the soil, it stays near the surface. That led Robert Frost in his 1934 poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time" to write, "The water for which we may have to look / In summertime with a witching wand, In every wheel rut's now a brook / In every print of a hoof a pond."

It's most noticeable on gravel roads, but the expansion and contractions of the frost can cause pavement to heave, which in turn cracks the pavement, leading to potholes, Rogers said.

In some ways, the solutions to mud season are emerging with modern technology.

In Brattleboro, the town has posted on its website a map, updated daily, that lists the conditions of the town's gravel roads, ranking them from good to closed, said local highway superintendent Hannah O'Connell.

"It's been very well received," she said.

Several years ago, the Vermont Transportation Agency commissioned a study by the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H., titled, "Improved performance of unpaved roads during spring thaw." The study found different systems can keep mud at bay using combinations of fabric and permeable material.

There are also pothole-fixing techniques that require cutting square edges from the holes and using emulsions that keep the fill in the hole, Rogers said.

The problem?

One patented solution identified by the 2005 Cold Regions study would cost as much as $444,000 a mile. A simpler solution, $143,000 a mile.

"The capital costs of these activities are often unpalatable to town officials and citizens," the report said.

So people find solutions where they can.

Danziger, a cartoonist who lived for years on a back road in Plainfield, Vt., once drew a cartoon that showed the glories of winter giving way to the promise of spring, but getting from one to the other required passing through an ominous cold-weather jungle called "mud season."

"It separates the wheat from the chaff and the boys from the men," Danziger said of the challenge of learning to drive on a mud-rutted road. "If you can figure out where to put the wheels, do you ride on the high part or the low part to stay out of the ditch? It's kind of a ballet, a pas de deux."

Still, some people give up and wait for the roads to dry.

Eric Oberg, of Calais, advertised online recently looking for a place to park his car near pavement during.

"Walking several miles a day would not do me any harm," his ad said.

It turns out that so far this year, though, that the mud hasn't made his road impassable.

"Lately, our road has been passable, but very rough; with ruts, potholes and washboard waves," Oberg said. "I do recall other times when I wouldn't cross the mud because it was too deep and might trap the car."

Associated Press Writer David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

When the 25-year-old Anne Smedinghoff was killed Saturday in southern Afghanistan — the first American diplomat to die on the job since last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya — her family took solace in the fact that she died doing something she loved.

This undated photo provided by Tom Smedinghoff, shows Anne Smedinghoff. Anne Smedinghoff, 25, was killed Saturday, April 6, 2013 in southern Afghanistan , the first American diplomat to die on the job since last year's attack on the U.S. diplomatic installation in Benghazi, Libya.  

By SOPHIA TAREEN

CHICAGO — Anne Smedinghoff had a quiet ambition and displayed a love of global affairs from an early age, joining the U.S. Foreign Service straight out of college and volunteering for missions in perilous locations worldwide.

So when the 25-year-old suburban Chicago woman was killed Saturday in southern Afghanistan — the first American diplomat to die on the job since last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya — her family took solace in the fact that she died doing something she loved.

"It was a great adventure for her ... She loved it," her father, Tom Smedinghoff, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "She was tailor-made for this job."

Anne Smedinghoff grew up in River Forest, Ill. — an upscale suburb about 10 miles west of Chicago — the daughter of an attorney and the second of four children. She attended the highly selective Fenwick High School, followed by Johns Hopkins University, where she majored in international studies and became a key organizer of the university's annual Foreign Affairs Symposium in 2008. The event draws high-profile speakers from around the world.

Those who knew Smedinghoff described her as a positive, hard-working and dependable young woman.

While a student in Baltimore, she worked part time for Sam Hopkins, an attorney near campus. He described her as ambitious "but in a wonderfully quiet, modest way."

Her first assignment for the foreign service was in Caracas, Venezuela, and she volunteered for the Afghanistan assignment after that. Her father said family members would tease her about signing up for a less dangerous location, maybe London or Paris.

"She said, 'What would I do in London or Paris? It would be so boring,'" her father recalled. In her free time, she would travel as much as possible, her father said.

Smedinghoff was an up-and-coming employee of the State Department who garnered praise from the highest ranks. She was to finish her Afghanistan assignment as a press officer in July. Already fluent in Spanish, she was gearing up to learn Arabic, first for a year in the U.S. and then in Cairo, before a two-year assignment in Algeria.

Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday at a news conference in Turkey that Smedinghoff was "vivacious, smart" and "capable." Smedinghoff had assisted Kerry during a visit to Afghanistan two weeks ago.

He also described Smedinghoff as "a selfless, idealistic woman who woke up yesterday morning and set out to bring textbooks to school children, to bring them knowledge."

Her father said they knew the assignments were dangerous, though she spent most of her time at the U.S. Embassy compound. Trips outside were in heavily armored convoys — as was Saturday's trip that killed five Americans, including Smedinghoff. The U.S. Department of Defense did not release the names of the others who died: three soldiers and one employee.

"It's like a nightmare, you think will go away and it's not," he said. "We keep saying to ourselves, we're just so proud of her, we take consolation in the fact that she was doing what she loved."

Friends remembered her Sunday for her charity work too.

Smedinghoff participated in a 2009 cross-country bike ride for The 4K for Cancer — part of the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults — according to the group. She served on the group's board of directors after the ride from Baltimore to San Francisco.

"She was an incredible young woman. She was always optimistic," said Ryan Hanley, a founder of the group. "She always had a smile on her face and incredible devotion to serving others."

Johns Hopkins officials mourned her death in a letter on Sunday to students, faculty and alumni. Smedinghoff graduated in 2009. In the letter, University President Ronald J. Daniels praised her work on the symposium, her involvement in her sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, and her involvement outside campus too.

"Her selfless action for others was nothing new," he wrote.

Funeral arrangements for Smedinghoff are pending.

Letter writer: As I drive down State Street and see the sad remains of the River Inn, I wonder how many people in the area remember what used to be.

Leonard Pitts hits nail on head

Amen! I couldn’t agree more with an editorial than I did with Leonard Pitts’ March 29 column in The Republican (“Is it too much to expect a human on the phone.” )

Having suffered through innumerable calls answered by robots – supposedly time-saving measures – I, too, miss the days when calls were answered by actual human beings. And the most infuriating phrase of all is “Please stay on the line – your call is very important to us.”

Leonard Pitts is fast becoming my favorite columnist!

– JEAN WALTHER, Russell

If you read the paper recently, you know Gov. Deval L. Patrick wants to raise the cigar tax again. It’s already 30 percent in Massachusetts. That, coupled with the 6¼ percent sales tax, makes it very tempting to buy on the Internet where there is zero tax.

My business was down about 35 percent last year, my worst year since 2003. What politicians don’t understand is that the higher they raise the tax, the less money they actually take in.

People aren’t as dumb as the politicians think they are. They will use the Internet, or drive to one of the surrounding states and buy their tobacco products. While they are there, they’ll probably have dinner, buy some gas, maybe go shopping for clothing or appliances or whatever. So, the surrounding states and the businesses there make lots of money, and the Massachusetts businesses and the Massachusetts government makes no money.

A few years ago, New Jersey raised its cigar tax from 25 percent to 45 percent, because the state “needed the money.” A year later, when the revenues had dropped in spite of the higher tax, officials were dumbfounded. “How could this be happening?” Fortunately, there were a few people in the Statehouse in New Jersey who understood what happened, and they lowered the tax, and, surprise, revenues went back up.

Unfortunately, Massachusetts politicians are not capable of lowering anything, so once they raise it. See how simple and logical this is? Guess what? The politicians don’t care one way or the other. They will say anything to get elected, and their primary focus is to get re-elected.

Have fun shopping in New Hampshire. Would the last person to leave this God-forsaken state please turn out the light.

– B.G. BERARD, Blue Collar Cigar and Pipe, East Longmeadow

Old inn falls into disrepair

As I drive down State Street and see the sad remains of the River Inn, I wonder how many people in the area remember what used to be.

I remember a wonderful Thanksgiving family dinner hosted by my aunt in the early ¤’60s at the Oaks Hotel which stood there for many years - across the side street from the Byron Funeral Home.

On that occasion – and at many other times – I recall my mother, Emma Geoffrion Bower, reminiscing about nurses training and graduating in 1915 from Hampden Hospital, which preceded the Oaks in that location. I fondly recall mother’s graduating class picture which proudly hung in her bedroom. There were about 15 graduates in their starched white uniforms and caps. Also, her class yearbook showing pictures of the hospital and its spare, bleak operating room.

I still have and cherish her gold engraved nurse’s lapel watch given her by her dad on graduation.

I hope others have happy memories of what was once a much nicer place.

– ELVA BOWER JENKINS, Springfield

Bing Arts Center worthy of support

The Bing Arts Center has many events of performing arts that are of interest to many people. Something for everyone.

I recently attended a show featuring the “GI Rambles.” This is a musical group led by singer Jim-Joe. They played and sang the real country music, and for anyone who enjoys this music it was a most enjoyable performance.

There are many interesting events coming up in the near future.

This arts center should be supported because of the intimate scenario is has presented to our great city.

Watch for the advertisements and attend the shows and events.

You will be glad you did.

– E. ANTHONY MOSIO, Springfield

The Essex House was once a hotel, but now deterioration is causing bricks to break off the building.

HOLYOKE -- Maria Ferrer has been in business for 15 years at 396 High St. and while bricks have broken off the adjacent Essex House before and dropped onto her roof, her concern is growing.

Bricks have been falling off of the Essex House at 400 High St., in Holyoke, which was once a hotel, according to a city official and nearby merchants. Greg Saulmon | The Republican

"It's been happening for a long time, maybe six months. But now it's getting worse," Ferrer said Friday.

The city is examining the Essex House at 400 High St. and expects a report on its condition this week after recent cases of falling bricks, Marcos A. Marrero, director of the city Office of Planning and Economic Development, said Friday.

Essex House was built in 1880. It is a blond-brick rectangle of eight stories that juts above nearby structures and once was one of the city's largest hotels. In 1969, it was rehabilitated into housing for the elderly. But it closed several years later and for about 20 years has been boarded up, home to pigeons and, from what local merchants said, deteriorating.

City online records list the property condition as poor. Signs with a white X on red have been posted on the building to alert firefighters that because of the uncertainty of the building interior's stability, fires must be fought externally unless someone is known to be inside.

Mike Plaisance, The Republican

The property owner is Essex House LLC, which is a limited liability company at 11 Story St. in Cambridge. Stephen Wolfberg of that address, who is listed as resident agent and manager in online records of the state secretary of state, couldn't be reached for comment Friday.

It was unclear when bricks broke off the building most recently. Ferrer, who owns MD Beauty Salon and Supplies and the building housing it, said she believed the most recent case of bricks hitting her roof occurred a few weeks ago.

She is scheduling a roofer to inspect her property for damage, she said.

"I'm very concerned because I'm concerned about my business and I'm concerned about my employees, not just me," Ferrer said.

She has seven employees, five who live here and two from Springfield, not to mention a clientele from the region as far away as Amherst and Pittsfield, she said.

Ferrer and other merchants are eager to see the city's findings on the Essex House, whether part or all of the building will have to be demolished and how that will affect their businesses.

Maria Ferrer, owner of MD Beauty Salon and Supplies and the building housing it at 396 High St. Mike Plaisance, The Republican

"Hopefully, the city is making a decision for the safety of everyone, but also, with a concern for the businesses. We pay taxes and we want to stay open. This is not our fault," Ferrer said.

Jose O. Bou, owner of Salsarengue Restaurant and Seafood at 392 High St., said he has noticed deterioration of the Essex House's exteriors.

"As business owners, we are concerned," Bou said.

City online records list 400 High St. as a mixed-use occupying less than an acre. The building has 121 rooms, including 49 bedrooms and 49 full baths, under a flat roof covered in tar and gravel within a frame of steel on a foundation of concrete.

The building is valued at $184,100 and the land at $325,000 for a total value of $509,100, according to city online records.

Greg Saulmon, assistant online editor at The Republican, contributed to this story.