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With change there will always be a resistance, and in some cases, rebellion. It is important to look at ourselves and see what we can improve on, but it is okay to look at ourselves and stand our ground.

For this year, WBJ readers weighed in more than 17,000 times in a record 54 categories to give you recommendations on topics such as the Best Web Design Firm (Worcester Interactive) and the Best Venue for a Corporate Event (Apex Center of New England).

Faced with declining patient discharge numbers and seeing a chance to pare costs that didn’t directly affect patients, UMass Memorial Health Care leaders in Worcester made a tough financial choice to cut much of its executive ranks.

Worcester county is one of three counties in Massachusetts and eight across New England to be hit by the broadest array of opioids: prescription opioids, heroin, and prescription–synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl.

Nearly one year after the Greendale Mall in Worcester was listed for sale, a Boston real estate development firm paid $7.1 million for the troubled shopping center on Dec. 23.

More retail stores are on the horizon, and their success will depend on being able to find enough shops to carve out a niche in an industry always increasingly dominated by Amazon and other giants.

As long as Central Massachusetts' economic growth continues, food and drink businesses will follow.

Central Massachusetts colleges and universities face a variety of pressures in the coming year, with shifting enrollment trends to new leadership to the need to impress incoming students.

They’re called deaths of despair – suicide and addiction, including alcoholism and opioids. They’re taking a major toll in Massachusetts and nationwide, and public health officials and lawmakers will continue their fights against these problems in 2020.

Potential homebuyers hoping for prices to ease and inventories to rise in 2020 will be disappointed.