Whitinsville News

Families and friends have given a formal send-off to a Massachusetts National Guard unit heading for Afghanistan to help prepare for the departure of U.S. troops.

At this weekend's season-opening Icebreaker at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, the hood of Stan Mertz's Sunoco Modified will pay tribute to Edward Walsh and Michael Kennedy, the two Boston firefighters killed in the line of duty last week.

The area director in charge of the office handling a case involving a missing 5-year-old Fitchburg boy will no longer oversee one of the two Department of Children and Families offices under her supervision, according to a spokesman for the agency.

A Whitinsville chiropractor's license was suspended indefinitely by state regulators last week after he failed to respond to charges that he ran an unclean and unsafe practice, engaged in unprofessional and dishonest practices, did not provide requested information to regulators and practiced after his license expired.

Milford Regional Medical Center representatives, elected officials and local business leaders smiled for the cameras as they held shovels full of dirt for the ceremonial groundbreaking Friday of the medical center's new outpatient facility at E.O. Osterman Commerce Park on Church Street in Whitinsville.