Wayne Miller is known around Claremont for his work on addiction. He runs a local recovery center, and he has been instrumental in keeping support services in the community for those struggling with opioid use.

You may not realize this, but when you get that financial aid letter from a college, nothing is set in stone.

Around 80 students from China have spent the summer in Chester, New Hampshire, practicing their English and learning more about American culture.

In Connecticut, third- and fourth-graders study the history of their state. In many schools, students choose to research one person or event from an approved list. The people on that list have been mostly men, and all white. But because of an unusual collaboration, it now includes Native American, Latino and African-American men and women.

Walk down the hallway at Holyoke High School and step into room 319, the student support room, and you’ll see a dozen chairs arranged in a broad circle. There are plants in the windows.

At her home studio, embroidery artist Sarah Benning stitches together one of her pieces. It’s a sun-filled room at this time of the morning. The artist’s finished work spills into the space around her with dozens of circular canvases bubbling up onto the walls. There are also plenty of house plants around.