UMass Memorial Health announced Wednesday afternoon that it will build a new standalone emergency department at a location yet to be determined to serve the Nashoba Valley region, replacing the Nashoba Valley Medical Center emergency room that was abandoned by Steward Health Care in August 2024.

The Addiction Abatement Funds Working Group held its first meeting Jan. 2 to begin reviewing and recommending proposals to spend the $620,000 the town will receive from the national opioid settlement funds. 

The 22 North Central Massachusetts towns served by the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission have some of the lowest average home and rental vacancy rates in the state and may need as many as 6,300 new homes to serve their growing populations within the next 10 years.

January in New England is not for the faint of heart, especially for Department of Public Works employees. As winter flexed its muscle over the past two weekends, Harvard’s DPW crews faced two distinctly challenging snowstorms.

Harvard Police Sgt. Aaron Cavanaugh, who recently received an award for saving a local man’s life in March 2024, saved another life just days ago while on vacation in Cancun, Mexico.

A FedEx driver making a delivery in Harvard last week was robbed in what police believe was a targeted attack. The robbery took place Thursday, Jan. 9, around midday. Four men suspected of the crime were arrested the following day in Rhode Island.

On Jan. 8, families with children in the Harvard schools received the unwelcome news that information about students here had been hacked in a massive cybersecurity breach at PowerSchool, whose software is used by some 18,000 school systems.