The City of Boston's bike coordinator Nicole Freedman has been keeping busy during the winter months with a number of projects aimed at making the city a better place for bicycling. One project though, gathering input for a bicycle route map for the city, has reached one of many draft stages but still lacks essential Dorchester details.  Read more

Whether it's a New Year's resolution to get fit in 2008, or the thought of donning a bathing suit in the next few months, fitness club owners in Dorchester say 'tis the season to start working out and getting healthy. Gym membership peaks in January, February and March, said Mark Jarvis, owner of Planet Fitness on Neponset Avenue and though she doesn't encourage "seasonal fitness," Christine Holmes, owner of Fitness Vibe on Blue Hill Ave., said if that's what brings people into her gym she will help them make a long-term lifestyle change.  Read more

Enrollment for the first-year of Pope John Paul II Academy is going well, according to the Archdiocese of Boston. The Catholic school, which will open in September with five campuses across Dorchester, will replace the current eight-school, parish-based system.

Enrollment has climbed to over 70 percent, said Archdiocese spokesperson Terrence Donilon on Tuesday.

"Which is phenomenal when you think most Catholic schools wouldn't even be approaching that number until the spring," he said. "We saw this in Brockton, but somehow I have a feeling it's happening a bit more here."  Read more

The main players in the wildest election of 2006, both running sticker campaigns and coming within 692 votes of each other, are back. Sonia Chang-Diaz announced last week she would again take on incumbent Senator Dianne Wilkerson for the second Suffolk seat. Local filmmaker Robert Patton-Spruill, who directed "Squeeze," a 1997 movie about youth gangs in Fields Corner, may also be in the mix.  Read more

An attorney defending a Dorchester man charged with murder and setting fire to a Port Norfolk Street home in 2001 lit into a top witness for the prosecution this week, accusing her of setting up the fire and lying to a grand jury investigating the case.

In a heated exchange on Tuesday, Robert Galibois, a Barnstable lawyer defending Eric King, on trial for the arson and murder, attempted to rip apart the testimony of Tamia Brown, who has pleaded guilty as an accessory before the fact to the murder of 53-year-old Shelby Caddell by directing King and others to the home.  Read more

Public health officials at both the local and state level are fretting over new statistics that show wide discrepancies in infant mortality rates between white and black Bostonians.

"It's been a concern of ours for a long time," said Maia BrodyField, chief of staff to the Boston Public Health Commission. "Specifically for infant deaths, it's that it really does serve as an indicator of a population as a whole."  Read more

The members of Boston dance crew Status Quo Joshua Green, Darius Rutledge, Jamal Weaver, Dwayne Hines and Ernest Phillips compete tonight in MTV's series "Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew." Courtesy of MTV/Chris Polk.

Six members of Boston's 15-person all male dance crew, Status Quo, are competing on MTV's new show, America's Best Dance Crew, and showing the world what true street dancing looks like.  Read more

Carolynne Warren plays a menopausal housewife in the hit production, "Menopause the Musical," but this award-winning actress is at the prime of her career and happy to be back to her Dorchester roots.

Warren, 46, who grew up in the Geneva Avenue neighborhood but now lives in Los Angeles, has returned with her off-Broadway cast to perform at the Stuart Street Playhouse.  Read more

During the week, Diane Staib can be found at Upham's Elder Service Plan in Dorchester, where she works as a geriatric social worker. On the weekends, she is usually roaming around the neighborhood, camera in hand, looking for the perfect shot that will become the latest addition to Under Dog Cards, a collection of greeting cards featuring local photography.

Diane donates about 10 percent of the proceeds from Under Dog Cards to the Boston Animal Rescue League, which she says is integral in creating responsible pet owners and preventing animal cruelty.  Read more

Local health center leaders are taking preemptive moves to stoke up public awareness of the Caritas Carney Hospital's importance after what many of them call concerning visits by one of Caritas Christi Health Care's hired consultants.  Read more

Plans to turn a large Uphams Corner industrial complex into a mixed-use building with 90 new affordable housing units seem to be derailed this week, and the city is moving to foreclose on the property instead.

Over $1.6 million in back property taxes, penalties and interest, is owed on 65 E. Cottage St., commonly known as the Maxwell building. But that isn't all.  Read more

Today he is hailed as one of the best players in the history of UMass Boston's men's basketball program. But, just a few years ago, Alberto "Amigo" Paniagua was heading down the wrong path.

"I never saw myself being in college," said Paniagua, 26, a Mattapan native who dropped out of school during his senior year at Dorchester High. "I took the path many misguided youth take and decided it was cooler to be doing my own thing."

Paniagua took a job at the Boston University food court. After three years, he decided to go back to school.  Read more