Author's former estate averts foreclosure

The Mount, the financially troubled estate in Lenox that once belonged to author Edith Wharton, has temporarily averted foreclosure by securing a payment extension from its creditors. The estate announced yesterday that the Mount will have until Oct. 31 to make overdue payments. The Mount has undertaken a fund-raising campaign to raise $3 million that its trustees say is needed to restructure its debt. So far, the Mount has raised more than $875,000. The Mount opened to the public for the season last Friday, generating nearly $8,000 in revenue in three days of operation.

A 41-year-old school van driver from Roslindale is facing charges that include kidnapping and aggravated rape after allegedly assaulting an elementary school girl he was driving home. Israel Santiago allegedly assaulted the victim at 3 p.m. Friday in a parking lot at Larz Anderson Park in Brookline when he was supposed to be driving her home in his YCN Transportation van, Brookline police said in a statement. Santiago, who also faces charges of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, was arraigned yesterday in Brookline Municipal Court.

Governor Deval Patrick has appointed three people to the state's first-in-the-nation Board of Early Education and Care. Orlando Isaza of Northampton is senior program officer at the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts. As executive director of the Cape Cod Child Development Program, Mary Pat Messmer of Centerville oversees a nonprofit organization that provides Head Start, preschool, after school, family, and teen parent early education and care. Lynson Moore Beaulieu of Roxbury is director of programs and strategic leadership at the Schott Foundation for Public Education. Massachusetts is the first state to create a Department of Early Education and Care to coordinate education and human services focused on youth. (AP)

Boston's shipping industry is safe, the Coast Guard announced yesterday following an inspection last week of four high-traffic shipping points in the city. The Coast Guard, along with federal, state, and local agencies, inspected 105 cargo containers with contents that ranged from washing machines to cow hides. The cargo was inspected at weigh stations north and south of Boston on Interstate 95, Brighton Rail Yard, and Conley Marine Terminal. No safety or security violations were found in any of the containers.

The town's Downtown Crossing was evacuated yesterday after a gasoline-powered saw being used by an indoor construction crew released carbon monoxide into the shopping center. Two construction workers were taken to the UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester with high levels of carbon monoxide, said Captain Philip Kittredge of the Westborough Fire Department. Firefighters medically cleared about 40 people who were in the building when authorities responded at 7 p.m. to the scene on East Main Street. Kittredge said it took firefighters more than three hours to clear the building of carbon monoxide, which measured at 500 parts per million.

A Lawrence man convicted of arson has been sentenced to life in prison for a fire that killed a 26-year-old mother and her infant daughter. Harry Guzman was convicted by a federal jury in January in the 2003 fire that killed Matilda Medina and her 2-month-old daughter, Angelic Duran. Prosecutors asked for a life sentence, saying there was strong evidence Guzman set or participated in nine fires in Lawrence during a two-month period in 2003. Guzman's lawyer argued that the jury found Guzman acted as a lookout for another man, but did not actually set the fatal fire. Most residents in the apartment escaped the 3 a.m. fire. Medina and her daughter suffered fatal carbon monoxide poisoning in their third-story bedroom. (AP)

The US-Canadian border station at Van Buren, which was closed May 1 because of flooding, will reopen today to passenger vehicles. (AP)