WORCESTER, MA — Worcester City Manager Eric Batista has been at the helm at City Hall for about two years, but he only completed his first full calendar year on the job in 2023. This week, city councilors provided their first reviews of Batista’s first year on the job after hiring him in 2022 to…
SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, PA — Parents are in uproar in Springfield Township after disagreements over the little league schedule led to a hired airplane “flyover” carrying a banner meant to embarrass a critic. The drama stems from concern that was expressed by some parents about the little league’s decision to cut short the regular season to…
SAYVILLE, NY — First responders rescued a driver trapped inside a wrecked vehicle after two vehicles collided at the intersection of Lakeland Avenue and Sunrise Highway Service Road Monday night, the West Sayville Fire Department told Patch. According to Suffolk County police, one driver was headed eastbound on the Service Road, while one was driving…
SALEM, MA — The Salem Teachers Union rejected a one-year contract offer it said would have provided most members with a 4.25 percent wage increase for next year, saying that the short-term deal would not solve “the problems facing our district and our members.” “The big issues that our union is fighting for need long-term…
LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA — As the invasive spotted lanternflies emerge from eggs and threaten the wine industry and other local agriculture, volunteers who made a dent in the insect’s population received recognition. Last week, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors presented a resolution to honor volunteers with the first Scrape for the Grape event. The…
On the final day of High End Munich, a couple of hours before closing time, I sent the visiting Stereophile crew a message about the new speakers in the YG Acoustics room: “Should you have time and you haven’t visited yet, go listen. Both the passive and active systems there sound phenomenal.” It’s true: the…
In December 2023, I took the train from New York to Los Angeles to attend the Los Angeles & Orange County Audiophile Society’s 30th annual Gala. I took the trip because it is both stimulating and satisfying to spend an afternoon in the company of more than 200 audiophiles and music lovers; I also wanted…
High End Munich continued to unveil new (at least to me) names in the world of hi-fi; amplifier manufacturer hARt Labs was another fascinating discovery. hARt Labs products are made in Greece, and the company is helmed by the three-man engineering team of Nondas Gaveras, Kostas Trovas, and Nikos Fanakis. hARt Lab’s largely static display…
Stockholm — This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Swedish scientist Svante Pääbo for his discoveries on human evolution. Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Committee, announced the winner Monday at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Paabo, 67, has spearheaded research comparing the genome of modern humans and our…
SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)… AEW Dynamite on Wednesday (6/19) drew an alarmingly low total average viewership of 502,000. That’s sharply down from 681,000 last week, which was one of the lower viewership numbers in series history already. Since the start of 2002, the lowest viewership number was 609,000. The…