Officials try to stop informal ‘fight club’

Worcester development officials have approved a plan to build a medical plant-growing facility on a brownfield site in the city. The Planning Board this week gave the go-ahead for PharmaSphere LLC to break ground as the first tenant in South Worcester Industrial Park. The Telegram & Gazette newspaper reported that Pharma- Sphere intends to build a 50,000-square-foot bioprocessing facility. PharmaSphere will cultivate medicinal plants at the facility for sale as active pharmaceutical ingredients. Earlier this year, the $16.9 million project received a key financing component when the City Council granted a $2.5 million, eight-year loan to PharmaSphere. The project is expected to create about 60 full-time jobs. (AP)

A New Hampshire woman charged with killing a man with her car says she was terrified after being taunted for having a New York Yankees decal on her car and didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Testimony ended Friday in the second-degree murder trial of 45-year-old Ivonne Hernandez, who is accused of killing 29-year-old Matthew Beaudoin in a Nashua parking lot in May 2008. The Nashua Telegraph reports that Hernandez broke into sobs several times during her testimony. She said she was scared, not angry, that night because Beaudoin and others harassed her about her Yankees sticker and pounded on her car when she made a comment about how many World Series they had won compared with the Boston Red Sox. She denied telling police she drove at Beaudoin to scare him. (AP)

A Green Mountain College student has filed a lawsuit over the lack of single-sex bathrooms in the her co-ed residence hall. Nineteen-year-old Jennifer Weiler filed a civil complaint last week against the Department of Public Safety, which enforces building and plumbing codes she says were violated. All seven of the school’s residence halls are co-ed. According to the lawsuit, Weiler and others are uncomfortable with the flimsy curtains on shower doorways and men using toilets without closing the door. A college spokesman declined to comment. (AP)

For the first time since he took office in 2003, Governor John Baldacci of Maine has canceled the holiday receptions held each year at the Blaine House. The first family traditionally welcomes various groups and the news media to the mansion for hors d’oeuvres, tea, coffee, and punch. But David Farmer, deputy chief of staff, told the Kennebec Journal that it would be inappropriate to hold the receptions given the state budget crisis. (AP)

An alert driver may have saved the life of an East Barnstead, Vt., man whose car flipped over into an icy brook. Randy Leavitt was driving home late Thursday night when he noticed tire marks cutting through a snowbank on a dark country road in South Royalton. He stopped and found a car overturned in Broad Brook and the driver trapped with only his head above water. He and a friend wrenched the door open and hoisted David Martineau to the roof before authorities arrived. Martineau was released from the hospital Friday. (AP)

Lawmakers want to hear how Rhode Island’s court and higher education systems plan to cut costs to deal with a growing state budget deficit. The House Finance Committee has scheduled hearings starting tomorrow on how these agencies will scale back spending to help reduce a $220 million budget shortfall. Judiciary and higher education officials will appear before lawmakers tomorrow afternoon. Lawmakers have scheduled a hearing Tuesday with officials from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (AP)