Midday Magazine on WAMC

A new $45 million dollar emergency and trauma center opened at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield this morning.  The state of the art facility will treat critically injured and ill people from throughout western Massachusetts.  WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill reports.

The new emergency department at Baystate Medical Center’s main campus in Springfield’s North End was opened to receive patients beginning at 7:30  Monday morning. The new facility is 72,000 square feet, 55,000 square feet larger than the old emergency room.

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET. A CHRISTMAS CAROL (the 1938 and 1951 versions). CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT. THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER. THE BISHOP’S WIFE. A CHRISTMAS STORY. These are among the holiday perennials: the movies that we savor watching and enjoying, the films that are the equivalent of a warm fire on a cold night and the automatic smile that comes when you are handed a steaming cup of hot apple cider.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is in the Nation's Capitol today to make a 42-Billion dollar pitch to Congress for storm aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.

A natural gas drilling company is suing state regulators and a western New York town where it has operated for decades over a local moratorium that threatens to put the company out of business. Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.

We listen to what you had to say this week in these highlights from this week's WAMC Listener Comment Line.

Just in time for World AIDS Day -- held every year on December 1st to remember the nearly 30 million people who have died since the epidemic began in the late 1970s -- the US Preventative Services Task Force has released new guidance on routine HIV testing. This is first time since 2005 that the Task Force has updated its HIV testing recommendations.

Several environmental nonprofits in the Berkshires have been awarded funds to encourage outdoor and environmental education. WAMC’s Berkshire Bureau Chief Lucas Willard reports….

The Berkshire Environmental Endowment Fund recently announced over fifteen thousand dollars in grants that will benefit seven nonprofit organizations in the Berkshires. The fund, managed by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, is focusing on expanding youth environmental education on land and water conservation.

The mayor of  Holyoke Massachusetts earlier this week, shockingly, opened the door to a casino development in his city.  Now a plan to build a resort casino on a golf course is being revived.  But is Holyoke too late in the casino game in western Massachusetts?     WAMC”s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill reports.

It is astonishing to see Ban-ki-Moon and Hillary Clinton, among others clamoring for a truce between Israel and Hams-led terrorists.  One wonders where these diplomats were when more than a thousand missiles rained over Israel without retaliation.

The great Ancient Greek philosopher/poet Dionysius has written:  “Let they speech be better than silence, or be silent.”  There is a new sort of silence now being ordained in this land, where speaking truth to power was once finally given voice --- it was thought, forever.  But those ordaining this silence believe theirs is a much more effective gag; tied more tightly and held in place by fear.  All the more compelling reason, to speak out against it.