Our panel looks at the big stories in the news.

by: Susan Kaplan
Our panel looks at the big stories in the news.
by: Jill Kaufman
No one was seriously injured last Saturday night, after a tornado touched down in the rural Goshen and Conway, Massachusetts. But buildings collapsed, and personal belongings were destroyed. Friends — and strangers — have jumped in to help out. One “donation” happened just by chance.
As high volumes of migrants flee the United States to apply for asylum in Canada, one popular route into Quebec is just west of Lake Champlain. To get to the snowy illegal crossing, many are calling a cab. But there’s a catch: Some of those cabbies are coordinating with U.S. Border Patrol, and that practice has some civil liberties advocates concerned.
by: J Kyle Sullivan
The city of Pompeii was destroyed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Some may be familiar with the ancient site. It’s been a tourist destination for over two hundred fifty years. Not so familiar? Nearby Oplontis. That’s the focus of a new exhibition in Northampton at the Smith College Museum of Art.
by: Henry Epp
This week, Connecticut’s two federally recognized Native American tribes picked East Windsor as the site of a third casino in the state. It’s just a few miles from the MGM casino under construction in Springfield.
by: Jill Kaufman
More than a million Vietnamese refugees have come to the U.S. in the decades that followed their civil war; more than 65,000 Vietnamese make New England home. Syrians are another massive wave of people dislocated by war. These two very different cultures share a common experience, yet through literature and poetry, one Vietnamese refugee who grew up in Hartford is making the experience universal.