December's jobless figures hit home with a sickening thud. Now, comes January's report.

Experts say December was only the beginning. With the holidays behind us, the economy appeared to be sliding deeper into recession, along with additional layoffs in the months ahead.

Within two weeks of moving into their new home in North Attleboro, one of the first things Bill and Michele Clark did was scope out the sunniest patch in their back yard and plant a vegetable garden.

Other than taking pride in home ownership, the primary reason the Clarks have dug into vegetable gardening is the growing price of produce.

SEEKONK - Seekonk High School senior Andrew Ledoux survived the worst ordeal of his young life last summer, when a stroke left him paralyzed on one side of his body.

While working at a local pizzeria, Andrew experienced a loss of feeling in his leg. A week later, he was at his job when he felt numbness in his arm.

All politics is local. And local politics is personal, especially when it comes to posts on local Internet chat sites.

On a Mansfield online forum recently, a member of the board of selectmen was referred to as a "nut job."

At some of its most visible sites - like in downtown Attleboro - the Ten Mile River appears to be a dirty stream, often browned or greened with vegetative growth, its bed and banks littered with bikes, tires and strewn trash.

And even though it is part of the smallest watershed in the state, it reaches throughout the Attleboro area and has played a big role with the potential to become more central to the health and betterment of the city, let alone a number of neighboring communities. And over the years, people have tried to draw attention to its predicament and redevelopment as a natural resource by which other improvements, like bicycle routes and parks, could flow.

ATTLEBORO - The latest addition to the city zoo is expected to make a regal debut Tuesday.

While he's not quite king of his own little jungle at Capron Park Zoo yet, a rare 2-year-old male white lion, is set to emerge about 3 p.m. from his den into the exhibition, where he and two more common, tawny-colored, female lions will be available for viewers well into the future.

On his 50th birthday in 1987, John Lepper announced to his wife Joan that he was going to run for Attleboro City Council.

Before then, he had never thought about getting involved in local politics. The decision would lead him to become a state representative - a Republican in a Legislature dominated by Democrats.

When Norton Town Manager James Purcell looks at the budget situation in his town and others across the state, he sees "a perfect storm."

Health care costs are skyrocketing. State aid - which makes up more than a third of Norton's budget - has been cut dramatically. The economy is in a downturn, further reducing tax revenue. Voters are weary of property tax overrides and skeptical of local officials crying poor.

REHOBOTH - For most of his life, Ben Sammis lived to fly. But the dream that eventually led him to become a heroic Marine Cobra helicopter pilot actually began on the water.

A chance meeting with a naval aviator during a sailing trip when he was about 10 years old fired the young boy's thirst for aviation and dreams of flying jets, his father recalled.

ATTLEBORO - At the ramshackle end of its life, the Sugarman Building, which once housed jewelry and box-making companies on South Main Street in the heart of the city, was nothing more than a warehouse for coffins - a somber and potent symbol for the death of an era where the mix of numerous factories and stores downtown created a vibrant center and a vibrant city.

But the Sugarman Building, its coffins and the insidious decay it represented, are long gone, something Mayor Kevin Dumas said residents might easily forget in the rush of daily events coupled with the seemingly plodding pace of seemingly endless efforts at city renewal.

ATTLEBORO - At 10:04 a.m. on March 4, 1998, a boom echoed across Attleboro and beyond.

It was heard and felt miles away. Residents reported their windows rattled and their houses shook.

FOXBORO, February 24, 2008 - Dogs are finally having their day.

Parks where they can romp and run unleashed with canine consorts while their owners yip and yap with each other have popped up in area towns like Foxboro, Sharon and Medway and are being planned in Attleboro and Somerset.

I feel a lot older today.

The Triboro Cinemas is now mostly a pile of rubble, a victim of changing times and multiplex theaters that attract enormous crowds.

ATTLEBORO, February 17, 2008 - Only a short distance from Providence, Brockton and New Bedford - cities with documented street gangs and problems with youth violence - Attleboro has mostly avoided a rising tide of drive-by shootings, rampant drug dealing and petty crime. But the city's image as a gang-free environment is changing.

In the past several months, there have been growing instances of graffiti or "tagging" on public property, homes and businesses with gang insignia and messages, along with sporadic crime in which gang influence is suspect.

NORTON - Last August the lives of Danielle Cann, 16, and her 13-year-old sister, Brittany, hung in the balance.

Shortly after the girls and their mother, Elizabeth, returned to their home from a Tweeter Center concert, Elizabeth's former boyfriend, Robert McDermott, entered their home near Norton Reservoir and shot and critically wounded the three women and killed their dog. Elizabeth, 44, died.

Mention the Blizzard of '78 to most people and the memories come rushing back - of stranded cars and shuttered schools, sky-high snowbanks and futile searches for milk.

But for those in the under-30 set, the notorious nor'easter might as well be mythology.