MIDDLESEX - With the last redevelopment plans torpedoed by the Great Recession more than a dozen years earlier, Stoneham’s citizens acted last spring to revive plans to redevelop portions of an underutilized industrial zone near the Woburn line into housing.

MIDDLESEX - It’s the controversial policy that many communities continue to wrestle with: To mask or not to mask.

After graduating Framingham State in 2018, Sarah Lyn Norton got accepted into the Peace Corps in Nepal and expected to head out in January of 2019. Unfortunately, things fell through, leaving Norton, a 2014 graduate of Woburn Memorial High School, with no job, living at home and feeling hear…

MIDDLESEX - A little over five years ago now, superintendents representing a dozen school districts in the Middlesex League urged their home communities to delay the start of classes for adolescents until at least 8 a.m.

Cities and towns involved in the Resilient Mystic Collaborative applauded the doubling of annual funds for the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Grant Program to $21 million in the Baker Administration’s FY2022 Capital Plan.

WILMINGTON - With local farmers once cultivating one of the largest hops crops in the United States, many major brewers and beer makers long ago crowned the Town of Wilmington with the nickname of “Hop Town.”

State Senator Barry Finegold (a Democrat who represents Tewksbury in the Second Essex and Middlesex District), Representative Natalie Higgins (D-Leominster), and Conrad Roy’s mother submitted testimony last week to the Joint Committee on the Judiciary in support of Conrad’s Law (S.1032/H.164…

MIDDLESEX - Officials from a Lowell-based addictions treatment center just recently sold a previously skeptical Reading public on the merits of moving a one-of-a-kind substance abuse recovery facility into a quiet residential neighborhood by the town’s public library.

MIDDLESEX - A number Stonehamites and town officials believe a changing climate could worsen area flooding hazards, including by Montvale Avenue and within neighborhoods by various streams.

The springtime season brings much to New England: sunny skies, warmer temperatures, flowers, and of course trash. Wait, what?

MIDDLESEX - For decades now, Woburn and Wilmington officials have plugged the reconstruction of a New Boston Street bridge as critical to refueling the region’s already-humming economic engine.

STONEHAM - Nearly 20-years-ago now, an environmental attorney hired by a private citizen first argued the Town of Stoneham had achieved a 1.5 percent land mass "safe harbor" that protected the community from adverse Chapter 40B developments.

MIDDLESEX - With the movie theater sector collapsing over the past year, the South Carolina firm responsible for the makeover of the old Woburn Mall site off of Mishawum Road recently found itself with a major development desert right in the middle of its new 23-acre lifestyle center.

With the project’s cost estimates ranging between $245 and $300 million, Northeast Metropolitan Technical High School officials’ ambitious proposal to erect a brand new three-story facility on a hillside opposite the existing vocational school might sound like a tough sell.

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic that hit the United States last winter and remains a public safety crisis, officials canceled the 2020 Boston Marathon (and related events) and moved the 2021 Marathon to October. This means many people missed out on the excitement of either competing profe…

MIDDLESEX - Decades after a handful of Wilmington families began sounding the alarm over an apparent spike in childhood cancer diagnoses, federal authorities earlier this month unveiled plans to cleanup contaminated soils and subsurface pollution plumes at the Olin Chemical Superfund site by…

On March 16, eight people including six women of Asian decent were shot and killed in three separate shooting incidents in Atlanta, Georgia, all by the same shooter. He has since been arrested and charged with eight counts of murder. The eight victims were Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Gran…

Asa Sheldon probably did not know much of his father’s role in the American Revolution. Born five years after the end of the war, he knew little of his father, who died when Asa was 15.

State education officials’ insistence on sticking to the rite of administering MCAS examinations to children for the 2020/2021 academic year continues to rankle already frustrated rank-and-file administrators and educators.

MIDDLESEX - It could become a recreational village in the heart of Reading.

Shayne and Megan Gaffney received quite the surprise when their daughter was born two years ago at Winchester Hospital with a medical condition called congenital cytomegalovirus, the leading viral cause of birth defects and developmental disabilities in children. Now, the couple hopes to hel…

MIDDLESEX - The transformation of Reading Center into a smart-growth district continued earlier this month after town officials approved a much downscaled redevelopment of the old Reading Chronicle property off Main Street.

MIDDLESEX - Ever since the coronavirus first crippled operations at Woburn’s historic library last spring, a roiling brouhaha raged largely out of the public eye over the management of the multi-million dollar facility.

13 projects down, one to go.

MIDDLESEX - Two-and-a-half months. That’s how long Stoneham Theatre has been able to keep its doors open over the past year.

MIDDLESEX - Former State Rep. Tim O’Leary would spurn any hero references, but a recent review of his new whodunit novel could just as aptly be summarizing the Wakefield resident’s story since his disastrous political collapse back in the early 1990s.

It’s been almost a year since the coronavirus reached American shores and in that time more than 400,000 died and millions more became infected. Even with multiple vaccines at the ready, COVID-19 cases continue to surge. This pandemic forced many businesses to either close or operate at a di…

MIDDLESEX - Corporations and big businesses may pull all the strings in Washington D.C., but come tax classification time around The Middlesex East’s coverage area, local officials obsess almost exclusively about financial impacts on individual homeowners.

It’s a puzzling paradox: Reading’s citizenry loves its bagels, but yet the community can’t stand the traffic gridlock created on Main Street while obtaining such delightful treats.  

Tewksbury’s Police Department just added a new officer, though unlike most of the other ones this one walks on four legs (and barks).

MIDDLESEX - Ever since Horace Mann established the roots of the state’s modern education system back in the mid-1800s, children across Massachusetts have eagerly anticipated New England’s infamous winter season in the hopes of getting a surprise day-off from school.

MIDDLESEX EAST - He just couldn’t sleep. That’s the explanation of how a 27-year-old from Woburn managed to secure some 15,000 medical-grade and high-end fabric masks and launch a grassroots charity that donated every single one of them to area hospitals, businesses, and non-profits.

Although 2020 has been a difficult year for so many, one family in Wilmington has much to be thankful for this year. After two years, Matthew and Kate Ertsos officially and legally became the adoptive parents of three young children: seven-year old Lily, five-year old Russell and two-year ol…

The role of concerned individuals and groups like those supporting the Middlesex East Santa has never been more important than during this time of COVID-19 concerns.

MIDDLESEX - Friday, March 13…That’s the ominous day the music stopped for Reading resident Dr. Rick DiMuzio.

MIDDLESEX - Losing hope that the state would ever respond to Stoneham's asks for financial assistance to help with the construction of a new high school, town leaders in late 2016 briefly questioned whether it would be better to go it alone on the project.

For many, 2020 can’t end fast enough as the coronavirus pandemic has ruined just about everything including but not limited to attending sporting events, concerts, the theatre and movies, hosting large gatherings, graduations, proms and other school-related activities, and fundraisers.

MIDDLESEX - Reading officials recently cited the controversy as a quite ironic example of a communications breakdown over a plan to maintain the community’s physical communication networks.

MIDDLESEX - When a community that dubs itself as the “Witch City” steps into the public limelight to effectively cancel Halloween, something pretty terrifying must be afoot.

Joyce Deliyiannis is one busy lady. The Burlington resident and founder of the non-profit Help Me Help Someone, Inc. was a finalist for the Peter J. Gomes Service Award handed out by Congressman Seth Moulton. Deliyiannis was nominated by State Representative Ken Gordon.

MIDDLESEX - In a no-holds-barred traffic analysis, consultants looking to improve connectivity between downtown Reading and the shores of Lake Quannapowitt explored everything from adding new bike lanes and roundabouts to realigning major intersections by Route 28 through land takings.

MIDDLESEX - A little over a year ago, Lynnfield’s voters stunned developer Angus Bruce by handing his proposed “Woods at Lynnfield” elderly housing complex a lopsided defeat at Town Meeting.

If you’ve turned on your TV in the past month, you’ve no doubt seen a commercial for Question 1 on the November election ballot, Right to Repair. What you may not have seen, though, is a commercial for Question 2, Ranked Choice Voting. In fact, this article right here may be the first time y…

MIDDLESEX - It’s a question increasingly fielded these days by town and city clerks: Where is my mail-in ballot for the presidential election?

Northeast Metropolitan Technical High School officials could be just months away from recommending a final plan to address the litany of space and building system issues within the half-century-old complex in Wakefield.

For travelers in Winchester, Woburn, Stoneham, and Wilmington (or anyone who uses the commuter rail to head south toward Boston or north toward Lowell) expect changes and shutdowns to the Winchester Center MBTA station sometime in the next five months.

MIDDLESEX - A little over two years ago, Woburn residents caught a glimpse of a phenomenon that hadn’t been recorded for generations: The return of Atlantic Ocean herring to Horn Pond.

MIDDLESEX - With even veteran central office administrators appearing dazed by an ever-changing influx of state guidelines and mandates, it’s little wonder that some residents are confused about what the start of the 2020-2021 school year will look like in area communities.

Huntington’s Disease, a fatal genetic disorder that causes a progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain, doesn’t get the attention that Parkinson’s Disease and ALS receive. Then again, those diseases have/had famous spokespeople such as Michael J. Fox for Parkinson’s and Pete Frates, …

MIDDLESEX - Utilizing an extensive contact network built up during the course of a 20-plus year career in wildlife photography, Woburn resident John Harrison travels extensively around New England to capture shots of large raptors and other rarely seen bird species.