■Dr. Virginia Vail McDonald, pediatrician, has announced the opening of her practice at 264 Elm St. Dr. McDonald is a graduate of Wellesley College and the University of Chicago Medical School. She has practiced in Seattle, Galveston, Texas, and Rochester, N.Y.
■Principal John J. Feeney has announced that six seniors at Northampton High School have received Letters of Commendation for their high performance on the 1970 National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The six are: Mary Powers, David Tornow, Katy Robertson, Crissi Emerson, Marcia Lipski and Andrew Laband.
■Easthampton is one step closer to a new public safety complex, after Town Meeting members last night voted overwhelmingly for the $5.65 million project. The vote was 78-2 to spend $650,000 to buy 4.2 acres at the former J.P. Stevens Rubber Thread site at 26 Payson Ave.
■An office now being run on State Street by formerly homeless people is meant to serve as an alternative to the social-service system, and to provide entrepreneurial skills and job training for low-income people, organizers say. The Center for Better Living, as the new program is called, operates from office space at 218 State St.
■Cooley Dickinson Hospital expects to shed the equivalent of 60 full-time jobs over the next several months as it continues to grapple with a drop in demand for services and low reimbursement rates from insurance companies. This is the fourth time in less than two years that the city’s largest employer has had to lay off people and leave positions unfilled.
■The region’s top planning agency has been awarded a $4.2 million HUD grant to plan development of the so-called Knowledge Corridor. The federal Housing and Urban Development Regional Sustainable Communities Grant was announced Monday by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission.