■Fontaine Brothers of Springfield have been selected as contractors for the new $15.3 million Fine Arts Center to be erected at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Construction on the massive, multipurpose center is slated to get underway within the next few weeks with completion scheduled for the fall of 1973.
■Friday will be a great day in Northampton. For the first time in the city’s history, there will be an official courthouse Christmas tree lighting ceremony complete with choral selections, guest presentations and a visit from a well-known Christmas character.
■A Thanksgiving Day fire that destroyed four buildings in Holyoke’s industrial area probably was set, fire officials said. Flames broke out around 4 p.m. Thursday in the Acoustical Partition and Sound building on Race Street, and quickly extended to Central Auto Supply on Main Street before reaching six other buildings.
■Sensing a growing financial disparity between themselves and other city employees, full-time workers at Forbes Library have formed a bargaining unit with the hope of winning larger pay increases. Members of the new bargaining unit say their differences do not lie with the library’s board of directors, but with the city, which pays the employees’ salaries.
■All three partners at the law firm of Lesser, Newman & Nasser have been named Super Lawyers for 2010 by Boston Magazine. Thomas Lesser was recognized for his representation of plaintiffs in personal injury lawsuits, William Newman for his work in the field of civil rights and the First Amendment, and Merry Nasser for her family law and mediation practice.
■Promising fares as low as $1 and a promotional giveaway of 1,000 free tickets, Megabus is starting daily service next month from Hartford to Manhattan and Amherst, Mass. The company will start with a daily schedule of five trips each way between downtown Hartford and midtown Manhattan, and two each day to Amherst.