Welcome to You Asked...Patch Answers where we answer readers questions. We received several questions about the United States Postal Service's current financial situation. Patch readers want to know more about it, and what they plan to do to recover. Here's your answer. 1. Sorting facilities. Why has the USPS put so much money into the expansion of facilities and sorting equipment (like in North Reading) when mail volume has been decreasing?  The USPS put money into the expansion of the North Reading facility on Main Street to accommodate Flat Sorter Sequencing (FSS), which was designed to save Continue reading >>>

  Alan MacKinnon knows about how to treat the dead - and how the living need to treat themselves well, while alive.  MacKinnon, the owner of The Gardens at Gethsemane cemetery, donated $50,000 to support the renovation project at the West Roxbury YMCA. MacKinnon’s gift was a part of campaign to raise $1.5 million toward renovating the 60-year-old YMCA at 15 Bellevue St. “We are maxed out of space in West Roxbury,” said YMCA of Greater Boston CEO Kevin Washington. “Our facilities are not up-to-date with the needs of our 60,000 nearby households. We must prepare the Y for its next generation Continue reading >>>

December 8, 2011 Our View: Occupiers need to focus The Salem News Thu Dec 08, 2011, 05:00 AM EST Boston Mayor Thomas Menino was right on the money this week when he observed that the national Occupy movement is "aiming their fire at the wrong place." Menino's attempts to deal with the two-month-long Occupy Boston protest comes with some recognition that the movement has caught the attention of the struggling middle and lower classes. A recent poll showed that Bay Staters are evenly split regarding the movement, with part-time employees and the unemployed displaying Continue reading >>>

A network representing roughly 200 MetroWest Medical Center doctors and 1,300 other physicians in Greater Boston has signed a new deal with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, ending a contract dispute that could have caused Blue Cross customers to switch providers and businesses to switch carriers. The new three-year deal provides a 3 percent rate boost, on average, for the doctors in the New England Quality Care Alliance, as well as for the affiliated Tufts Medical Center. In turn, they have agreed to a contract that requires them to outperform other Blue Cross providers in checking Continue reading >>>

Editor's note: Information submitted by Rivers School. The Rivers School Conservatory will host several upcoming performances featuring Weston students. The first, a Young Artists Recital, will be held on Friday, Dec. 9 at 7:30 p.m. in Rivera Recital Hall inside Bradley Hall at 333 Winter Street, Weston.Students from around the Greater Boston area will perform a variety of pieces including music by Beethoven, Brahms, Heifetz, Ibert, Lalo, and Tchaikovsky. There will be performances by The Rivers School Conservatory’s Wind Quartet, Piano Trio, and Piano Quartet. Members of Wind Quartet include Continue reading >>>

(Taslim Sidi / Boston Globe file)Competitors in the older age divisions of Walter's Run participated in the 2009 race. By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent Walter’s Run, an 18-year-old 5K charity run, will race through West Roxbury streets this weekend. The event will kick off Sunday with a free, non-competitive youth race for ages 10 and under at 10:40 a.m. The less-than-1K Kid’s Race is overseen by Santa, and participants receive a ribbon and candy cane from the big-bearded jolly man in red. Formerly called Santa Scamper, the charity event organized by the neighborhood-based Parkway Continue reading >>>

Included on the list of possible closures is the Central Massachusetts Processing and Distribution Center in Shrewsbury, a 260,000-square-foot facility that employs nearly 600. The 20-year-old plant has seen its volume grow to 1,515,428,735 pieces of mail this year, up from 1,439,782,387 in 2008. The Shrewsbury site is among 252 of 487 mail processing facilities being studied to determine possible savings and service impacts by consolidation. U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, toured the facility in September and said it doesn't make sense to shutter the facility, a stance his Continue reading >>>

For more than a century, the piers that stud East Boston’s shoreline have rusted and crumbled, left as a reminders of a waterfront that once teemed with shipyards, factories, and trans-Atlantic ferries. Developers have long eyed the seaside property for apartment buildings and condominium towers with commanding views of the city skyline. Five projects waiting on the drawing board would add more than 1,800 housing units, along with restaurants, shops, and health clubs. But private financing has yet to materialize, leaving the plans to languish. Seeking to reinvigorate Continue reading >>>

Bob McCarthy has raised more money than his three opponents for state senate, but 70 percent of the people donating to him don’t live in the district he would represent. McCarthy, President of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts for 24 years, raised the most money in the six-week period since declaring his candidacy, $72,125, outstripping incumbent State Representatives Will Brownsberger  (D-Belmont), and Jon Hecht (D-Watertown), and Boston attorney Tim Schofield. However, $16,000 of McCarthy's money comes from a loan to himself. He also received a $10,000 from the International Continue reading >>>