Search Results

By GARRETT COTE

Beau Elson couldn’t feel a thing.

By JIM BRIDGMAN

An increase in Northampton’s property tax rate is inevitable next year, Mayor Sean M. Dunphy said Saturday. Dunphy said that he did not know where additional funds could be found to offset the budget rise. This year’s tax rate was $56 per thousand.

Monday afternoon’s game between the South Hadley and Southwick baseball teams quite literally was the definition of a pitcher’s duel. Tigers ace Justin Moskal and Rams ace Keith Drzyzga were flawless, as each pitcher went the distance and then some.

By JOHN STIFLER

BOSTON – Beautiful spring weather on Patriots Day is just fine for Boston Marathon spectators. Many runners, however, prefer lightly overcast days with moist air and temperatures in the low 50s. Somehow, Monday’s mostly sunny weather at the 129th running of this, the oldest annual marathon in the United States, seemed to satisfy both parties.

By GARRETT COTE

NORTHAMPTON — The Holyoke baseball team’s 4-0 lead all of a sudden disappeared. Northampton stormed from behind to tie the game at four and send it to extra innings, and after getting through the top of the eighth inning unscathed, the Blue Devils had a chance to win it.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Grow Food Northampton’s Tuesday Market returns for the season today, with the market’s manager Helen Kahn emphasizing the particular urgency of buying from local farmers this year.

By SAMUEL GELINAS

BOSTON — Eight months after she started working in a Holyoke marijuana cultivation facility in 2021, 27-year-old Lorna McMurrey died from an asthma attack after inhaling ground cannabis dust while on the job — a death that drew national attention as it was the first to be traced to dust and mold deposits found within marijuana workspaces.

By ALEXA LEWISand SAMUEL GELINAS

A wave of mourning rolled through the local Catholic community on Monday following the news of Pope Francis’ death at the age of 88.

BY CARRIE KLINE

Changes are coming so quickly these days that it’s hard to address anything that isn’t bleeding and burning. And yet, some issues that are urgent are largely silent, that is, until they explode. We are on the brink of disaster. Nothing can compare with the immediate decimation of life on earth as we know it. With this in mind, and motivated by the passage of resolutions in other cities and towns in our area and throughout our commonwealth, nation and world, I am bringing a Resolution in Favor of a Nuclear Weapons Freeze to the Sunderland Town Meeting on April 25.

By JACK CZAJKOWSKI

Five years ago, then Hadley Selectboard member Christian Stanley got approval for and began the Hadley Climate Change Committee (HCCC) in our town. The first few meetings took place just as the COVID pandemic began and with a handful of fellow citizens we joined together and began brainstorming what we could do to make our town buildings be more energy efficient.

It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Dr. Melvin Hershkowitz. In the relatively short time he graced us here in Northampton so many benefited from his experience, wisdom, and largesse. While originally coming to Northampton to be close to his beloved daughter Marie, we found him engaged with so many facets of Northampton and regional life.

At last Wednesday’s town hall with U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern at UMass Amherst, university community members asked specific, thoughtful questions; meanwhile, all McGovern’s answers were platitudes about the power we the people have and jokes about Russian influence. Enough. We know Donald Trump is a disaster and we are asking what Ywill do; all our elected representatives can offer is “Trump bad” and “we are holding a lot of town halls.” We need our elected leaders putting themselves on the line with real action, like Sen. Van Hollen traveling to El Salvador. Anything less is cowardice. At least McGovern admitted in response to what Congress is doing to protect due process: “not a goddamn thing.” And that’s what McGovern offered us in his town hall, too.

As Democrats resist President Donald Trump here in Franklin County and throughout the United States, those of us on the right try our best to ignore their hysteria. These activists can’t fathom Trump’s appeal and are hopping mad that he has returned to the White House with “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” The man is almost 80, but he’s still full of vim and vigour (and you’d swear he’s 20 years younger than Joe Biden). Kamala Harris, on the other hand, was just full of hot air. And, honestly, I will always feel immense joy over the fact that this unintelligible candidate failed to win a single battleground state in her doomed bid for the presidency.

Phone call from my frothingly irate, 84-year-old brother. “Trump is cutting off funding to Harvard. You can’t do that to one of the best universities in the world!” says this graduate of Stanford. “I’m sending a donation. What address shall I use?”

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Mental health organization ServiceNet has opened a new wellness center in the heart of Northampton, hoping to emphasize the link between physical health and mental well-being.

By SAMUEL GELINAS

WILLIAMSBURG — For the first time in its 254-year history, Williamsburg is creating a master plan to steer the town through the coming decade.

By EMILEE KLEIN

SOUTH HADLEY — April showers bring May flowers, but foliage isn’t the only thing blooming in South Hadley after a windy winter and early spring rain.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

HADLEY — Uncertainty around the costs for a new Department of Public Works headquarters, whether it is built to the preferred 23,000-square-foot plan or is reduced in size and price, is prompting Hadley officials to consider a four-month delay in bringing the project before voters.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

SHUTESBURY — In a change from customary practice, Shutesbury will hold its town election and annual Town Meeting on separate days, a little over a month apart.

By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, history’s first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change, died Monday. He was 88.

Northampton celebrated the start of the Bicentennial with a ceremony in Pulaski Park. Ardent bands of patriots gathered in the rain Saturday to hear the news — now 200 years old — of battles at Lexington and Concord and to proclaim the Revolution.