Worcester City Council After 529 days: We’ll tell you nothing

The unofficial launch of the 2027 Worcester City Council campaign began on Tuesday, October 20, at around 10:25 PM.

How does the controlling majority of this city council kick off the early campaign season? A totally misguided, dishonest loyalty pledge to the most extreme voices at the police department. Obviously.

Nearly four hours after the Worcester City Council meeting began that night, District 5 City Councilor Jose Rivera requested to remove item 14f from the table. (An item “put on the table” means the item stays on the council’s agenda, but the council takes no action on it unless first “taken off the table.”)

Not only is the council giving another free pass on accountability at the police department, but they did it in a way that avoids having to listen to the public. The item no longer appears on the agenda, which prohibits residents from speaking about it during the public participation portion of the meeting.

A motion to file, if approved by a vote of the council, disposes of the item without further action.

The text of item 14f:

COMMUNICATION of the City Manager transmitting informational communication relative to how the U.S. Department of Justice’s report on the Worcester Police Department differs from the account of the municipality.
(Held Under Privilege – King April 29, 2025 and May 6, 2025 and Tabled – King May 13, 2025)

Councilors voted to take the item off the table, which allowed debate on it. Rivera said the following.

“So basically, I want to take this off the table. Mr. Chair, because I think, as we all know and we’ve heard and we’ve discussed this so much, DOJ decided not to go forward. You’ve also had many meetings and many communication with, chief of police and all of the stuff they’re doing with the police department and the direction the city’s moving forward.

So with that said, I just want to move to file this item.”

In other words, Rivera decided that although taxpayers paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for private legal counsel to represent the city in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation of the Worcester Police Department, you should never get to know what in the DOJ report the city does not dispute.

As Rivera mentioned, the DOJ closed the investigation into the WPD as the Trump Administration abandoned three decades of precedent in conducting these investigations.

However, this order had nothing to do with the investigation itself, but the report the DOJ produced. Here is Councilor Khrystian King asking for the report on March 25, 2025.

“I would like to make a motion requesting, that the differences that are had, as mentioned, with this report are provided to us in a report from the administration. I also want in that report, areas where what was said is confirmed and necessary. I think we want fairness. I mean, your report, you know, sounds reasonable.

This is civilian oversight happening right now in real time. And of course, there’s always two sides, but absolutely. I want to say, fairness.”

On April 16, 2025, the Worcester Police Department released a 4,998-word statement titled “Worcester Police Analysis of the DOJ Report,” Not a single word of it acknowledged anything the police department views as accurate in the DOJ report.

When the city council next met on April 29, City Manager Eric Batista’s administration provided this same “analysis” to councilors.

King explained during the April 29, 2025, meeting why he chose to hold the item, and two meetings later raised a motion to place it on the table (an item can only be held to the next meeting twice).

“Appreciate this response to my order. And I just want to kind of speak on the spirit of the order that I filed. That particular order, was a request in search of fairness. We had a city council meeting. Chief, Saucier had indicated there were some discrepancies. And they weren’t outlined or identified.

And I think, as I mentioned, I think every stakeholder in this wants fairness and accountability. Well, fairness. I’m not sure about accountability, but we shall see. But everybody wants fairness from their perspective. And I think this is part of that. My concern is that this particular document does not include the rest of the order.

The order was asking for a report detailing any instances where the account within the DOJ report concerning WPD differs from the account of the city. Further request that that report include instances when the accounts of the DOJ had been confirmed. By the city. And, I’m not sure we’re at in that process, Mister Chairman, but it’s certainly not in this document.”

During questioning during that same April 29, 2025 meeting, Chief of Police Paul Saucier repudiated what he described as a media narrative that the department is totally against the DOJ report.

He also appears to indicate that he had already compiled things he agreed with in the report.

“Yes. And I know the media has put out there that we’re just going out, you know, saying the whole reports garbage. I’ve never said that publicly, ever. I talked to reporters. They did not put it in the paper. I don’t know why. Because this this seems better to have the Worcester police come out here and say, oh, we’re just against this.

We’re not totally against it. We understand that, you know, we are human beings. We’re not robots. We make mistakes and we go out there and do the best job we can with what we have. I have two pages of things that I agreed with in that report. Not once has anybody ever asked me what were those things.”

The city manager’s administration ignored the order for those “two pages of things” for 529 days until Oct. 20, when Rivera and seven other councilors voted to tell you that you don’t need to know.

Of the eight who decided you don’t need to know, seven received the endorsement of the NEPBA Local 911, the union that represents patrol officers at the WPD, during the last campaign (Bergman, Economou, Mitra, Rivera, Rosen, Toomey, Petty). John Fresolo also voted to file the item.

Taxpayers paid $825,000 for a settlement this summer for the unhinged behavior of some during the June 2020 George Floyd protests on Main Street where the police department says its personnel violated no laws or policy. Taxpayers paid $258,000 as of January 2025 to the private attorney representing the city in the DOJ investigation.

But Mayor Petty and his majority coalition in the city council have no time to seek answers. They have loyalty pledges to police union interests to take, as they dutifully did on Oct. 20. After all, there is an election next year.

Just shut up and pay, pleb.

Four charged after Southbridge narcotics search finds cocaine, fentanyl

Southbridge police arrested four people and seized crack cocaine, fentanyl and nearly $2,000 in cash early Monday, Oct. 26, during a search of a Langlois Avenue home, according to the department.

Detectives and patrol officers executed a narcotics search warrant at 12 Langlois Ave. at about 1:37 a.m. The department’s K9, Vice, and a K9 team from the Webster Police Department assisted.

Officers seized about 48 grams of suspected crack cocaine and about 9 grams of suspected fentanyl, both packaged for distribution, police said. They also found prescription pills that police believe were meant for sale, digital scales, $1,987 in cash that police suspect came from drug sales and other materials used to package and distribute drugs.

Charges

Eddie O. Rivera, 42, of 12 Langlois Ave., faces charges of trafficking 36 grams or more of crack cocaine, possession with intent to distribute Class A fentanyl and conspiracy to violate drug laws. Police said Rivera also had an outstanding warrant for failure to register as a sex offender, subsequent offense.

Darilys M. Maldonado, 41, of 517 Charlton St., faces the same charges as Rivera. According to police, she also had two outstanding warrants. One stems from failure to comply with the terms of a drug distribution case involving Class B substances, and the other involves a probation violation.

Keith R. Howe Jr., 47, of 12 Langlois Ave., faces charges of possession of Class A fentanyl, possession of Class E clonidine and conspiracy to violate drug laws.

Miguel A. Alicea, 36, of 41 School St., Apt. 1, faces a charge of possession of Class A fentanyl.

Police also charged a 45-year-old woman with multiple drug-related offenses. She will receive a summons to appear in court at a later date, police said.

Howe and Rivera each face $50,000 cash bail. Alicea’s bail stands at $1,000 cash, and Maldonado remains held without bail.

All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Judge strikes Trump rule narrowing Medicaid work exemption for medically frail

A federal judge in Boston on Thursday, Oct. 29, struck down a Trump administration rule provision that would have made it harder for medically vulnerable Medicaid recipients to win an exemption from new federal work requirements.

U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns ruled that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services overstepped federal law when it narrowed who counts as “medically frail,” according to the court’s decision. Stearns vacated the disputed language and issued a permanent injunction barring the federal government from enforcing it.

The judge also gave states a six-month stay of enforcement on medical frailty decisions to absorb errors or delays as the work requirements roll out.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell announced the ruling Thursday. She co-led the lawsuit with California Attorney General Rob Bonta and New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport on behalf of a coalition of 24 attorneys general and two governors.

“Today the court ruled that the Trump Administration’s attempt to impose new, burdensome requirements on medically vulnerable Medicaid recipients is unlawful and effectively blocked these harmful rules from taking effect,” Campbell said.

“This victory protects access to healthcare for residents with serious illnesses and disabilities and ensures their care won’t be interrupted due to unlawful red tape,” she said.

What the rule required

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed July 4, 2025, requires some adult Medicaid recipients to complete 80 hours a month of work or community service, or enroll at least half time in an educational program, starting Jan. 1, 2027.

Congress exempted people who are “medically frail” and listed five types of conditions that fall under that label, among them substance use disorders and serious or complex medical conditions.

CMS published an interim final rule June 3 that added a test: a person’s condition had to significantly impair their ability to comply with the work requirement. Stearns found that Congress set the five categories as a floor, leaving CMS no authority to shrink them.

The six-month stay applies to any determination of whether a person qualifies as medically frail. The Jan. 1 start date stays in place, and the states did not ask the court to change it.

The states lost two other challenges. Stearns upheld a 12-month claims look-back provision and a limit of one self-attestation per enrollment period, finding the government offered a sufficient rationale for each.

What it means for MassHealth members

About 360,000 MassHealth members may face new work and education reporting requirements starting in January, according to Gov. Maura Healey’s office.

As of Friday, Oct. 30, MassHealth’s online guidance for members tells people with certain disabilities or an addiction that they may need to show their condition significantly impairs their ability to work. That language mirrors the standard the court struck down. Campbell’s office did not say how the ruling will change MassHealth’s exemption process.

Medicaid, the nation’s safety-net health program for low-income Americans, runs on joint state and federal funding, with Washington covering at least 50% of the cost of services.

When the coalition filed suit in June, it argued that the rule added reporting burdens likely to strip coverage from eligible people. Campbell’s office said earlier Medicaid work requirement programs showed that added paperwork pushes eligible people off the rolls, which strains safety-net providers and emergency rooms and drives up costs.

Attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin joined the case, along with the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

State troopers to offer free car seat checks at Worcester State Nov. 7

Massachusetts State Police troopers will inspect and install child car seats for free from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, at Worcester State University, 486 Chandler St.

Worcester State is partnering with the state police and the Heart of New England Council, Scouting America, on the family safety event, which is free and open to the public.

Certified troopers will check that each seat fits the child and sits securely in the vehicle. Organizers encourage families to bring their vehicles and child safety seats.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that nearly half of all car seats have installation errors. A correctly installed seat cuts the risk of fatal injury in a crash by 71% for infants and 54% for toddlers, according to the agency.

Massachusetts car seat law requires children to ride in a federally approved car seat or booster seat until they turn 8 or grow taller than 57 inches. Children who outgrow a booster must wear a properly adjusted seat belt until age 13.

State police will also bring their rollover simulator, a hands-on demonstration that shows riders why seat belts save lives. Troopers plan to display specialized equipment they use in their public safety work.

Scouts and volunteer leaders from Worcester packs and troops will help run activities and talk with families interested in joining.

“This event represents the power of community partnerships,” said Jason Pigg, Scout executive and CEO of the Heart of New England Council.

Pigg said the partnership lets organizers “provide an important public service while introducing families to the positive impact Scouting has throughout our communities.”

The council serves about 4,000 young people in more than 60 central Massachusetts communities. Families can learn more on the Heart of New England Council website.

Families who cannot attend can find year-round help through the state’s list of free car seat inspection sites. For event details, contact Leslie Parady at 508-752-3769, ext. 104.

Mass. joins multistate suit to restore federal business ownership reporting

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has joined 20 other attorneys general in a federal lawsuit that seeks to restore rules requiring most companies to tell the government who owns and controls them.

The coalition filed the complaint Tuesday, Oct. 27, in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. The suit targets a Financial Crimes Enforcement Network rule that exempts nearly every U.S. company from reporting its owners under the Corporate Transparency Act. Campbell’s office announced the state’s participation Wednesday, Oct. 28.

“Financial transparency is essential to fighting fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes,” Campbell said in a statement.

Campbell said shell companies make it harder for law enforcement to follow the money and hold wrongdoers accountable.

“This rule strips away critical reporting requirements that Congress put in place to prevent that kind of abuse,” she said. “We’re suing to protect these important safeguards and ensure the law is enforced.”

What the rule changed

Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act to help investigators trace shell companies that hide money laundering and other financial crimes. The law directs businesses to disclose the people who own or control them to FinCEN, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department.

FinCEN first narrowed the requirement through an interim rule in March 2025. The agency made those exemptions permanent with a final rule published in the Federal Register on Aug. 14.

Under the rule, the only remaining filers are foreign companies registered to do business in the United States, and those companies no longer have to list owners who are U.S. persons. FinCEN posts the current requirements on its beneficial ownership information page.

The states allege the domestic company exemption alone removes more than 99.9% of the entities the law covers.

Records set for deletion

The final rule also announced that FinCEN would delete ownership information already on file for companies that now qualify for the exemptions. According to the complaint, the agency plans to erase those records in a single sweep on or about Feb. 10, 2027.

Campbell’s office said the deletion could eliminate records relevant to ongoing and future investigations. The complaint also cites an Illinois regulator’s request for access to the data this month, which FinCEN denied.

Legal claims

The lawsuit names Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Acting FinCEN Director Jenna Casanova, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin as defendants, along with the Treasury Department and FinCEN.

The states argue FinCEN violated both the Corporate Transparency Act and the Administrative Procedure Act by skipping required legal steps and offering no reasonable explanation for the change. They also contend the agency failed to properly consult Blanche and Mullin before exempting nearly all businesses.

A separate count claims the deletion plan violates the constitutional separation of powers because it undercuts a law Congress passed.

The coalition asks the court to strike down the rule, block the deletion and preserve both the reporting requirements and the existing database.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul lead the coalition. Massachusetts joined Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

Massachusetts gets $5.7M in GM settlement over sale of driver data

General Motors will pay $5.7 million under a $220 million multistate settlement that resolves claims the automaker sold drivers’ location and driving data without their consent, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell announced Thursday, Oct. 29.

Campbell and 35 other attorneys general reached the agreement with GM. It requires the company to get drivers’ express consent before it collects or shares that data.

“Massachusetts drivers deserve to know their personal information and driving history will be protected,” Campbell said.

According to the attorney general’s office, GM enrolled millions of drivers in Smart Driver, an OnStar feature that tracked driving habits, from 2016 to 2024. GM promoted the program as a way to improve driving safety. The company also told customers it would not share their data with insurers unless they gave express consent.

The states allege that GM sold the data to third parties, including data brokers, and the brokers resold it to insurance companies. Insurers then used details such as trip start and end times, hard braking, rapid acceleration and speeding to adjust premiums. GM never told drivers about the sales, the attorney general’s office said.

Most drivers signed up for Smart Driver at dealerships while they bought vehicles, through an enrollment process the feature shared with OnStar. The states allege that dealership employees accepted the terms on customers’ behalf without their consent. They also allege that GM used bonuses and rankings to push dealers to maximize OnStar enrollments.

The OnStar app told 370,000 drivers they were not enrolled in Smart Driver even though they were, according to the attorney general. GM later unenrolled those drivers without telling them, and their data stayed with brokers and insurers.

GM ended Smart Driver after The New York Times reported on the practice.

The settlement requires GM to “make significant improvements to its data use, disclosure, and transparency practices,” Campbell said.

Under the proposed consent judgment, GM must run a data privacy program and limit the driving data it collects. The company must also train dealership staff so customers can review privacy disclosures before anyone enrolls them in OnStar, and it must submit to internal and outside reviews of its privacy practices.

Drivers can ask GM for a copy of their data or ask the company to delete it. GM must also destroy driver data it held before Jan. 16, 2025, within 180 days, with limited exceptions.

The terms take effect Nov. 30, and GM must pay the states within 30 days of that date. Massachusetts will receive $5,704,273. The judgment lets Campbell use the money at her discretion, including for the state’s General Fund or the Local Consumer Aid Fund. It does not include direct payments to individual drivers.

GM admits no liability or wrongdoing under the agreement.

The state settlement follows a Federal Trade Commission order finalized in January. That order bars GM from sharing drivers’ geolocation and driving behavior data with consumer reporting agencies for five years. For its full 20-year term, the FTC order also requires GM to get consumers’ consent before it collects or shares connected vehicle data.

Image Credit: James Marvin Phelps from USA – GM World Headquarters, CC BY 2.0, Link

Sen. John Cronin joins new state commission on veterans employment

State Sen. John Cronin, a Fitchburg Democrat and Army combat veteran, took a seat Wednesday, Oct. 28, on a state commission that will study the barriers veterans face in finding work.

Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll swore in Cronin and four other members of the Veterans Employment Opportunities Commission at the Edge4Vets fall workshop at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Gov. Maura Healey’s office announced.

Senate President Karen E. Spilka appointed Cronin, who represents the Worcester and Middlesex District. According to his legislative biography, the district covers Ashby, Clinton, Fitchburg, Groton, Lancaster, Leominster, Lunenburg, Shirley, Townsend and Westford.

Cronin served as an Army infantry officer in the war in Afghanistan and left the service as a captain in 2018. Before his 2020 election to the Senate, he worked as a veterans advocate at a legal services center in Boston.

“As a veteran, I know how important it is to ensure that those leaving military service have opportunities to build meaningful careers,” Cronin said. “I am honored to work alongside fellow veterans and experts in the field to support that transition and expand economic opportunity for those who have served.”

What the commission will do

A 2004 state law calls for the five-member commission to investigate whether employers discriminate against veterans because of their military status. The commission must deliver its findings and recommendations to the state’s veterans services secretary by March 1 each year.

The administration said the panel will also examine broader workforce challenges. According to the state, about 200,000 service members leave the military nationwide each year, and many struggle to find jobs that match their skills.

“From day one, we’ve been committed to making Massachusetts the best state in the nation for veterans and military families,” Healey said. “That means supporting them at every stage of their lives, including making it easier to find good jobs.”

Who sits on the commission

Four other members joined Cronin:

• Tom LaRose, the commission chair, directs the state’s Veteran Education, Employment and Training Office and served in the Army. Veterans Services Secretary Eric Goralnick appointed him.
• David Abdoo, chief of staff and chief administrative officer at MassDevelopment, previously served in the Massachusetts Army National Guard. Economic Development Secretary Eric Paley appointed him.
• Joseph B. Fuller teaches at Harvard Business School and co-leads its Managing the Future of Work initiative. House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano appointed him.
• Jooyi Ryan, an employment coordinator with the VA Boston Veteran Readiness and Employment Program, served in the Coast Guard and Coast Guard Reserve. Healey appointed her.

Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Lauren Jones named Christopher Mills, a MassHire local veterans employment representative and Massachusetts Army National Guard veteran, as an ad hoc member. The administration plans to name more ad hoc members later.

“We all hang up the uniform at some point, and we want to ensure all our veterans find that second meaningful career when they make the transition,” LaRose said.

Businesses sign on

The administration also said 32 Massachusetts companies have earned certification or pledged to join its Veteran Ready Business program, a free state certification that encourages employers to hire veterans and their spouses.

Companies commit to the program for two years at no cost. In return, the Executive Office of Veterans Services shares their job openings with veterans and sends them information about veteran hiring events.

Healey has also expanded hiring incentives. The HERO Act, which she signed in 2024, raised the Vet-Hire Tax Credit to $2,500 for small businesses that hire chronically unemployed or low-income veterans.

Clark study ranks Massachusetts among top 10 states for share of forest lost

Massachusetts ranks among the 10 states that lost the largest percentage of their own forestland to development and farming from 1990 to 2017, according to a new report from researchers at Clark University in Worcester.

A Clark team headed by Christopher A. Williams and Natalia Hasler of the university’s School of Climate, Environment, and Society produced the report for the Forest Carbon Data Partnership, a coalition of conservation groups led by the Open Space Institute. Clark posted the working paper, “The U.S. Forest Monitor: Establishing a Historical Baseline for the Drivers and Climate Impacts of Permanent Forest Loss,” to its Digital Commons repository, which lists a publication date of Thursday, Oct. 29.

The partnership says the report’s data on permanent forest loss and its climate effects can help decision-makers aim conservation spending where it will have the greatest impact.

The report finds Massachusetts permanently lost more than 2.6% of the forestland it had in 1990. That ranking measures each state’s loss against its own forest cover. Delaware and New Jersey joined Massachusetts as the only northeastern states in that top 10. Southern states filled the other seven spots, led by Georgia, which lost more than 4%.

State environmental officials count about 3 million acres of forest in Massachusetts, or 57% of the state’s land, according to a 2024 presentation by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

The report identifies 46 hotspots where development drives concentrated forest loss and 15 where cropland expansion does. Clark researchers collaborated on an interactive tool, now available at USForestMonitor.org, that lets the public explore those hotspots and forest loss patterns in their own region.

Nearly 10 million acres nationwide

Across the country, about 9.8 million acres of forest gave way to development or cropland during the 28-year study period, according to the report. The researchers put the pace at up to 350,000 acres a year, or roughly one football field every two minutes.

Cropland expansion accounts for about half of the national loss and spreads widely across rural areas. Development-driven losses cluster around growing cities and suburbs.

Measured by total acreage, the picture shifts south. Eleven states in the southeastern and south-central U.S. account for about 70% of the national loss: Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Arkansas, Alabama, Virginia, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina and Tennessee. Massachusetts falls outside that group. Some counties lost as much as 40% of their 1990 forests, and the three counties with the highest percentage losses all sit in Virginia.

Climate costs

The researchers estimate the lost forests committed about 2.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent to the atmosphere. That figure counts carbon released during clearing along with carbon the trees would have absorbed in later years. Cleared land reflects more sunlight than forest canopy, which offsets about 15% of that climate burden, according to the report.

Each year of U.S. forest loss carries a climate cost equal to about 1% of the nation’s annual fossil fuel emissions and about 8% of the carbon that remaining U.S. forests absorb each year, the report found.

Development-driven losses fell after the 2008 recession, but the researchers found evidence that forest loss rates have started to climb again.

How the monitor works

The team built the U.S. Forest Monitor on annual land-cover maps from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection program, which classifies land in 30-meter squares of about a quarter acre each.

To separate permanent conversion from temporary clearing such as timber harvests and wildfires, the researchers counted land only if it became developed or cropland and stayed that way for at least five years. That approach leaves out forest converted to pasture, which satellite data often confuse with shrubland, and it means the data trail real-world conversion by about five years. The report also notes that the team has not yet completed a formal accuracy assessment of the mapping.

What comes next

Over the coming year, the researchers plan to extend the data through 2024 and shift to the USGS National Land Cover Database as their source. They are also exploring an early warning system to flag likely conversions sooner, and the report says the online tool will add information on other forest benefits such as clean water and wildlife habitat.

Williams, a professor in Clark’s Graduate School of Geography and interim director of the university’s George Perkins Marsh Institute, presented his forest-loss tools at a Climate Week NYC session with the Open Space Institute.

The Trust for Public Land, The Nature Conservancy, the Land Trust Alliance, American Forests and Clark also belong to the Forest Carbon Data Partnership, which maintains the monitor. A $1 million lead grant from the Doris Duke Foundation supports the work through March 2028.

The researchers say state-level briefings built from the data could help land trusts and policymakers decide where forest protection would do the most good. The report includes a sample briefing for Pennsylvania.

Driver dies in head-on crash involving 3 vehicles on Route 20 in Shrewsbury

A driver died after a head-on crash that involved three vehicles on Route 20 in Shrewsbury Monday, Oct. 26, police said.

Shrewsbury police and firefighters, along with Worcester EMS paramedics, responded at about 11:51 a.m. to Hartford Turnpike at its intersection with Edgemere Boulevard for a report of a crash with injuries, according to a statement from the Shrewsbury Police Department.

Officers found three vehicles at the scene. A 2011 Honda Accord had been traveling west, and a 2019 Ford F-250 towing a trailer had been heading east. A 2005 Kenworth oil tanker truck sat in the eastbound lane, waiting to turn left onto Edgemere Boulevard.

The initial investigation found that the F-250 and the Honda collided head-on. The tanker truck took secondary damage after the first impact, police said.

Responding officers found the Honda’s driver unresponsive with serious injuries and immediately began lifesaving measures. The driver died later at a local hospital. Police did not identify the driver.

The department’s statement did not say whether anyone else suffered injuries or whether investigators expect to file charges.

Shrewsbury police Officers Charland and Fleury continue to investigate the crash with members of the Central Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council Crash Reconstruction Team and Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office.

The regional crash team, known as CEMLEC, provides reconstruction services to 77 cities and towns across five counties, according to a June 2025 state grant presentation from the unit. Its fully certified members each have about 375 hours or more of specialized training, and more than 91% of the 58 crashes the team investigated in 2024 involved serious injuries or deaths, the presentation said.

“The Shrewsbury Police Department expresses our condolences to the loved ones of the victim of this tragic crash,” the department said in the statement.

UMass Chan lands $4.1M to study whether metals affect Alzheimer’s risk

Researchers at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester will use a $4.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study whether exposure to metals affects a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Honghuang Lin, a professor of medicine and co-director of the Program in Digital Medicine at UMass Chan, leads the project, the medical school announced Wednesday, Oct. 28.

Lin and his colleagues will analyze blood samples and health records from more than 3,000 participants in the Framingham Heart Study. They plan to measure 18 metals, among them cadmium and zinc.

The team will look for links between those metal levels and signs of cognitive decline, including changes in brain structure. Researchers will also track which participants went on to develop Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia.

“Some metals are known to affect the nervous system, while others are essential for normal brain function,” Lin said.

“What we don’t yet understand is how metal exposure and the body’s processing of metals interact with genetics and other biological factors to influence cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease risk,” he said.

The Framingham Heart Study began in 1948, when researchers recruited 5,209 men and women ages 30 to 62 from Framingham, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Participants return every two to six years for physical exams and lab tests, and the study has since enrolled the children and grandchildren of its original volunteers.

Because the study has followed some participants for more than seven decades, Lin’s team can test whether metal levels measured earlier in life connect to brain health in later years.

Lin has drawn on Framingham data in earlier dementia work, including a 2025 UMass Chan study that used regularly updated cognitive measures to predict a person’s Alzheimer’s risk.

Other NIH-funded work has tied metals to brain health. The 2026 NIH Alzheimer’s research progress report described a study in which higher iron levels in the brains of cognitively healthy older adults predicted mild cognitive impairment and faster decline.

An estimated 7.4 million Americans 65 and older live with Alzheimer’s in 2026, and that number could reach 13.8 million by 2060 without medical breakthroughs, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. More than 135,000 Massachusetts residents have the disease, the association reports.

As the population ages, Lin said, the findings “could help guide future efforts to protect brain health and reduce the burden of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Image courtesy of UMass Chan Medical School