Athol

The coronavirus pandemic has been not only a health challenge to hospitals in Central Massachusetts and beyond, but also a financial one. Fortunately for the larger Central Massachusetts hospitals, they came into 2020 with healthy financials.

The recession has erased roughly 24 years of job growth in the Worcester area. Some neighborhoods, particularly in Worcester and Fitchburg have been hit especially hard, with unemployment rates estimated at 30% or more.

Hospitals across Massachusetts showed significant financial losses in the first quarter of the year, capturing a time mostly before the coronavirus pandemic hit in full force, according to new state data released Thursday.

A San Diego real estate investment trust serving the cannabis industry has bought a sprawling Athol pot-growing facility at the former site of the Union Twist Drill Co. for nearly $27 million.

Central Massachusetts is projected to have among the biggest shortfalls in the number of available beds in the country, virtually no matter how hard the coronavirus pandemic hits.

Check out the latest Central Massachusetts professionals getting hired and promoted.

One bill filed last year by Sen. Jason Lewis (D-Winchester), would require any public company headquartered in Mass. to have at least one female board member by the end of 2021.

A 2019 WBJ investigation into the gender breakdown of the leadership at 75 Central Massachusetts prominent business organizations found 35% were women, an increase from 33% in 2018. This year, the percentage went backward.

A Duxbury-based convenience store and gas station operator, has opened two locations in Central Massachusetts. A 5,000-square-foot station has opened in Athol and a Citgo station in Bellingham has been replaced with a Shell station.

The Athol property on which the Quabbin Valley Healthcare nursing home sits has sold for $10 million.