■Fifteen members of the Lions Club Youth Exchange Program left Easthampton Tuesday afternoon with their chaperones for a 30-day trip to Europe during which time they will live with host families for 20 days and then tour five or six counties for an additional 10 days.
■Dr. Donald R. Freund will be joined in the practice of obstetrics and gynecology here by Dr. Samuel Topal on July 1. For the past year Dr. Topal has been a full-time junior attending obstetrician-gynecologist at the Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center.
■Construction of a 52,000-square-foot business and technology complex in the undeveloped research park off North Maple Street in Hadley now is scheduled to begin this fall, with completion expected next spring. The 77-acre park is north of Route 9, between North Maple and Route 116.
■Massachusetts’ presidential primary has been moved to March 5, along with four other New England states. The Bay State will join Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut to create the regional primary, which would offer a total of 151 Democratic and 95 Republican delegates — even with Florida but far behind California, Texas and New York.
■Former legislator and longtime assistant court clerk Nancy Flavin today takes over the role of clerk magistrate at Northampton District Court on an interim basis to fill the vacancy left by Jacklyn Connly, now a district court judge. Flavin, 59, of Easthampton, has been assistant clerk magistrate at Eastern Hampshire District Court since 2003.
■A magnitude-5.0 earthquake struck at the Ontario-Quebec border region of Canada on Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Resulting tremors were reported across Massachusetts in many cities, including Northampton, Springfield, Holyoke and Boston.