Fitchburg

More than 14,000 Massachusetts residents have received checks for $205.52 each from Fidelity Bank of Fitchburg as part of a relief fund settlement reached last year with the state, Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin announced Friday.

A class-action lawsuit against Unitil Corp. over its handling of a crippling ice storm in 2008 has been allowed to proceed by a Worcester Superior Court judge.

Nurses at HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster have ratified a new, two-year labor contract that improves staffing ratios and adds new positions, according to their union, the Massachusetts Nurses Association.

The YMCA of Central Massachusetts will install improvements at its five branches, using money from the state's finance and development agency.

Richard S. Lapidus became the 11th president of Fitchburg State University Wednesday.

Alternative medicine, such as yoga and acupuncture, is catching on, with many consumers using some form of those types of therapies with traditional treatments.

Small businesses in the Fitchburg-Leominster area that need loans that banks won't give them will now be able to approach the North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce.

State transportation officials on Tuesday proposed roughly $3 billion in capital projects in fiscal 2016 for highways, smaller airports, the Registry of Motor Vehicles, freight tracks and the MBTA, including the governor's "winter resiliency" plan for the T.

Planned revisions to the proposed Kinder Morgan gas project mean the proposed pipeline will no longer affect several communities north and east of Worcester.

Former State Treasurer Steven Grossman, now CEO for a Boston-based nonprofit organization that aims to revitalize urban economies through business and job development, is leading the charge for business training in Massachusetts' 26 Gateway Cities, which include Worcester, Fitchburg and Leominster.