Worcester

The whirring sounds of a metal 3D printer fill a small factory floor. Just blocks away are the boarded-up brick mill buildings in an old industrial neighborhood of Worcester, once the home of some of the country’s leading manufacturers.

Worcester must decide by the end of the year how it will spend its remaining $44.3 million in federal pandemic relief money. With that deadline looming, some local nonprofit leaders are criticizing the city for inequitably dispersing some of the money in prior grant rounds — and urging officials to do better.

With second-place finish, Khrystian King becomes first Black vice chair of Worcester City Council