■Three persons were injured early today and 35 left homeless when a general alarm fire destroyed the Norwood Apartments, 31 Bridge St. A mattress fire which unknown occupants of the building thought they had extinguished earlier last night was given as the “tentative cause” of the blaze.
■Christmas decorations arrived in Northampton today and workmen from the Connecticut Valley Decorating Co. placed a high-rise Santa Claus over Main Street.
■Downtown Northampton has a new holiday look this season. Strings of lights woven through trees have been replaced with real balsam boughs and white lights hugging lamp posts. Budget restraints and the desire for a different look conspired to move holiday planners to create the new holiday decorations.
■In 23 classrooms throughout the Northampton public schools today, business owners, city officials and state legislators — Majority Leader William Nagle and state Sen. Stanley Rosenberg — replaced the regular teachers in an exercise designed to raise awareness of teachers’ difficult tasks.
■Despite pleas from several downtown shopkeepers who want the city to offer free parking on Black Friday, the Transportation and Parking Commission ruled against the idea Tuesday. Four business owners attended the commission’s meeting hoping to convince the 12-member board to waive parking enforcement for what some consider the start of the holiday shopping season.
■A new movie about the environmental movement over the past 50 years will get an advance screening at the Amherst Cinema next Tuesday. “A Fierce Green Fire” was produced, directed and written by Mark Kitchell, who lives in San Francisco and has family ties to the Pioneer Valley. The late Amherst architect Peter Kitchell was his father, and singer Sonya Kitchell is his niece.