NORTHAMPTON — The Board of Health now advises “all individuals” in the city to wear masks in indoor public spaces to protect against COVID-19 infection.The mask advisory, passed by the board on Wednesday evening, will become more specific after the board works with the city’s Department of Health an...

Our new mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra has presented her first budget for Northampton. She has the audacity to suggest that her proposed 4.07% increase in the budget represents fiscal responsibility. Our mayor must be living in a bunker. Has she missed the roaring inflation, the worst in 40 years, runnin...

NORTHAMPTON — When Peter St. Martin and Maureen “Mo” McGuinness opened Sylvester’s Restaurant, the iconic Pleasant Street breakfast and lunch spot that will serve its final meals on Sunday, customers were hard to come by.“It was really slow,” St. Martin said Wednesday, reflecting on 39 years in busi...

50 Years Ago■Williston-Northampton School graduates its first class next week since the Williston Academy and the Northampton School for Girls merged last fall. In the last few weeks, the sudden resignation or retirement of four top administrators indicates that not all has gone smoothly with the co...

MIAMI (AP) — The Boston Celtics know the formula. They believe their defense, as has been the case time and again in these playoffs, will eventually wear down teams.Hard to argue.Jaylen Brown scored 25 points, Jayson Tatum added 22 and the Celtics are now one win from the NBA Finals. They ran away...

UVALDE, Texas — The gunman who massacred 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas warned in online messages sent minutes before the attack that he had shot his grandmother and was going to shoot up a school, the governor said Wednesday.Salvador Ramos, 18, used an AR-15-style sem...

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Piano music wafted from an apartment block on a recent spring evening in Kramatorsk, blending with distant artillery fire for a surreal soundtrack to a bomb-scarred neighborhood in the eastern Ukrainian city.Everywhere in Ukraine, the 3-month-old war never seems to be far away...

LONDON — An investigative report released Wednesday blamed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other senior leaders for allowing boozy government parties that broke the U.K.’s COVID-19 lockdown rules, and while Johnson said he took “full responsibility” for the breaches, he insisted he would no...

BOSTON — Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler has voluntarily entered a rehabilitation program, forcing the Boston-based rock band to cancel the first portion of its coming Las Vegas residency.Tyler, 74, has made no secret of his lifelong struggle with substance abuse.“As many of you know, our beloved br...

SOUTH DEERFIELD — Round three of the rivalry between the Frontier and Greenfield baseball teams played out in a similar fashion to the first two meetings of the season. Tyler Baranowski threw for the Redhawks, while David Carey was on the hill for the Green Wave during Wednesday’s Western Mass. Clas...

WESTHAMPTON — Sometimes, it’s easier to let your play do the talking.In the first inning of the Western Mass. Class B semifinal between No. 1 Hampshire and No. 5 Southwick on Wednesday afternoon, the Raiders and Rams traded a couple of messages on the field. Catcher Teresa Saltis threw a couple warn...

SOUTH DEERFIELD — After running a bed and breakfast for several years on River Road, two South Deerfield residents are foraying into the hospitality business again with plans to open a new bed and breakfast in their home.Tucked away at 60 Graves St., Bela Breslau and Stephen Billias are preparing to...

On Tuesday, the New York-based privacy group — Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) — released a chilling report detailing the digital surveillance threats facing pregnant women and trans people who seek abortion information and services, and how these threats could escalate dramatic...

Dear readers, I am tired of talk about “reasonable” gun control. I want gun control that will prevent people from shooting our children at schools, our Black and brown neighbors, and anyone who shops at a supermarket. We can’t be reasonable when the NRA, its most zealous adherents, and the politicia...

Here’s a question: If someone consistently espouses policies which lead to a certain result, can it be inferred that this result was desired by the proponent of those policies?Just about every Republican politician in the United States favors less regulation of firearms. The Supreme Court is probabl...

When I was in high school in the 1960s, several of my friends were members of the National Rifle Association. Each knew how to handle a shotgun and one or more types of rifle. Their families kept guns in their houses, safely locked away when not in use. Our school had a rifle team, still does.The wa...

There were no bullets when the Second Amendment was written by the founding fathers. There were no assault weapons and no National Rifle Association. So the Second Amendment is not an impediment to banning assault weapons or weapons that fire bullets.The Second Amendment may be useful to defend the...

NORTHAMPTON — One of Northampton’s longest-serving municipal leaders — a man the mayor described as “among the most influential government officials in Northampton history” — has announced he is retiring.Wayne Feiden, who has served as the city’s director of planning since 1997, will be stepping dow...

TURNERS FALLS — With the way the Frontier softball lineup has hit the ball this season, Lauren Ross knew she’d have to bring her ‘A’ game on Tuesday.The Franklin Tech senior pitcher did just that.Ross struck out six, scattered four hits and didn’t walk a batter. At one point, she retired 13 straight...

NORTHAMPTON — Public school students and staff could find out within days if the district’s reinstated mask mandate will continue despite a threat of legal action by a group of concerned caregivers.On May 10, Superintendent John Provost imposed a 10-day mask mandate in response to rising COVID-19 ca...

NORTHAMPTON — Less than a day after high winds tore off a section of roof on a building at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School, a fire caused extensive damage to the school’s forestry education building.No one was injured in the fire at Building E, which was called in shortly after 2 p.m....

Willie Landman smacked three hits, including a double, and Jerry Landman pitched well in relief but the Williston Northampton baseball team dropped a 9-2 decision to Salisbury in the WNEPBL championship game on Sunday in Salisbury, Conn.James Elliott had two hits and scored a run for the Wildcats,...

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia pressed its offensive in eastern Ukraine on Sunday as Poland’s president traveled to Kyiv to support the country’s European Union aspirations, becoming the first foreign leader to address the Ukrainian parliament since the start of the war. Lawmakers gave a standing ovation to...

INDIANAPOLIS — A military plane carrying enough specialty infant formula for more than half a million baby bottles arrived Sunday in Indianapolis, the first of several flights expected from Europe aimed at relieving a shortage that has sent parents scrambling to find enough to feed their children.Pr...

SYDNEY — Australians awoke on Sunday to a new prime minister in Anthony Albanese, the center-left Labor Party leader whose ascension to the nation’s top job from being raised in social housing by a single mother on a disability pension was said to reflect the country’s changed fabric.The 59-year-old...