LOCAL NEWS

JP divided over new Whole Foods Market

In an ongoing fight against gentrification, Jamaica Plain residents are increasing resistance to the planned opening of a Whole Foods Market in Hyde Square. Last week, a small group of activists hand-delivered a petition with more than 1,000 signatures to the Whole Foods regional office in Cambridge, calling on the chain to stay out of their neighborhood. More »

SJC: Bristol County inmates owed $1 million in refunds

Prisoner advocates are racing against a tight deadline to find thousands of former inmates, who together are owed nearly $1 million in refunds for fees unlawfully collected by the Bristol County sheriff for rent, medical services, GED exams and overpriced haircuts. More »

Expired school food prompts outrage

Earlier this month, City Councilor At-Large John Connolly discovered expired food in several Boston Public Schools cafeterias. In one kitchen, he found cheese a year past its expiration date, and in another, he found frozen beef from November 2009. More »

Census: Mass. rural, suburb minority population up

Public schools in Randolph, Mass. report a jump in enrollment from Haitian students. A North Central Massachusetts city along to the New Hampshire border elected the state's first Asian American mayor. And next to a W.E.B. Du Bois mural in Great Barrington, Mass. sits a Latino grocery store and Mexican Restaurant that specialized in food from Oaxaca, Mexico. More »

New NAACP seeing more gay, diverse chapter leaders

WORCESTER, Mass. - The NAACP's newly revived Worcester chapter elected a 28-year-old openly gay black man as its president this month. In New Jersey, a branch of the organization outside Atlantic City chose a Honduran immigrant to lead it last year. And in Mississippi, the Jackson State University chapter recently turned to a 30-something white man. More »

School lunch program under renewed spotlight

More than 30 million kids line up in their school cafeterias, Monday through Friday, trays in hand, for a federally subsidized lunch. School lunches are notorious for being bland, dry and unappetizing - but how did they get this way? More »

W. Mass. pols: Don't take away Congressional seat

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - A stream of political leaders from western Massachusetts on Saturday told the lawmakers charged with redrawing the state's political map that their region can't afford to lose the clout of either of its two Congressmen. More »