Thursday may be Flag Day, but it is on Friday that the flag will fly again over Edward Everett Square.

Stricken down last summer in the middle of a violent thunderstorm, the old wooden flag pole has been teetering precariously for almost a full year. But on June 15 it will be taken down and replaced with a brand new 100-foot tall fiberglass pole, just in time for the unveiling of other square improvements. And in case lightening does strike twice, the Department of Conservation and Recreation will place a lighting rod in the middle of the poll to keep it safe.  Read more

Noontime. There is already a mist in the air by the Common Ground restaurant in Lower Mills. This reporter has the pleasure of riding in a shiny, bright blue Mustang convertible with three lovely girls, none other than Little Miss Dorchester 2007, Vany Cardoso, and runners-up Paige McEachern and Kaysea Ruffin. Excited and maybe a little nervous, we all practice waving to the early birds eagerly awaiting the beginning of the Dorchester Day Parade.

Across the street, politicians, war veterans, and police officers chat and tie up loose ends.  Read more

A plan to remodel the Li'l Peach convenience store on Neponset Avenue was met with some resistance from Popes Hill neighbors last week, largely because of a potential facet of that plan to add a Dunkin' Donuts counter and a drive-thru window to the store.  Read more

A key, unfinished segment of the planned Neponset River Greenway system must run between the current terminus of the bike trail at Central Avenue in Milton and Mattapan Square. While a master plan for phase two of the Greenway system, released last year by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, gives a good roadmap for how to bring the trail from the Blue Hills to Mattapan Square, the riverfront connection between Central Ave. and the square remains unresolved in the plan.

The key issue, to date: Which side of the river should the trail run down?  Read more

In a program designed to give second chances, Lena Park Community Development Corporation's Training, Education and Job Advancement Center (TedJac) has changed many lives. TedJac was created for the people who, for some reason or other, were not able to obtain a degree previously.

Over the past year there have been 23 graduates, ages varying from 21 to 66, with a 100 percent success rate of employment. On May 24, fifteen men and women graduated from the Construction and Property Management course in a ceremony held at Lena Park's headquarters on American Legion Highway.  Read more

Call it a do-over of sorts. Echoing a similar scene from nearly three years ago, Keith Motley last week returned to UMass-Boston to once again assume the chancellorship while surrounded by family and several of his mentors. This time, it's said to be permanent.  Read more

Eight year-old Vany Cardoso - the newest Little Miss Dorchester- was just one of the 28 girls who dazzled the judges and audience that gathered at the First Parish Church last Saturday, for the annual contest. The number one goal of the event, which has been part of the annual Dorchester Day celebrations for decades now, is to "have fun and help girls build confidence in public speaking," says Annissa George, the event coordinator.  Read more

Dr. Michael F. Collins will leave his post as chancellor of UMass-Boston this summer to become the interim chancellor of the UMass Medical School in Worcester. Collins, who has led the Dorchester campus for less than two years, will be replaced by Dr. J. Keith Motley, a UMass vice-president who served as UMass-Boston's interim chancellor prior to Collins's appointment.  Read more

The man who brutally stabbed 27-year-old Betina Francois to death in 2004 spent the last two-and-a-half years mounting a defense, in which he claimed to have killed his estranged girlfriend in self-defense. It took a Plymouth County jury less than an hour on Monday to reject his claims and send him to jail for the rest of his life.

Francois, a popular Mattapan Community Health Center employee, died at the hands of Pierre Cadet, her estranged boyfriend who stabbed her to death in her Brockton apartment when he feared that he might go to jail for repeatedly threatening her life.  Read more

After a lifetime spent advocating for her underprivileged neighbors in Dorchester, Doris Graham can look back on both challenges that she helped conquer, and problems that remain. Now, more than ever, she believes the solution to those problems is collaboration between energetic youth and knowledgeable senior citizens.

"The young and the old need to work together, and you will find the change," said Graham. Not all of this killing or any of that. You work together, and you will move ahead."  Read more

Fields Corner resident Michael Cote plans to run for the Boston City Council's second district seat in a race that will pit him against 14-year incumbent and current City Council President Maureen Feeney.

Cote has challenged Feeney previously, in 2005, and he says that while the issues facing the district and the city have changed in the two years since that election, his reasons for running and the priorities he would bring to the council have not.  Read more

A hungry crowd filled Florian Hall on Sunday evening to serve as judges in a chili cook-off that pitted 11 neighborhood civic associations against each other as each vied for recognition as Dorchester's top chili chefs. The event was a first-time fundraiser for the Dorchester Day Parade Committee, one of several new events being spearheaded by mayor of Dorchester candidate Craig Galvin and a group of "campaign" volunteers including Ashmont resident Nancy Anderson.  Read more