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By CHRIS LISINSKI

BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey has proposed using nearly $300 million in one-time funds to infuse the state’s strained emergency assistance shelter system and close a tax revenue shortfall.Healey filed a more than $2 billion budget last week to close the...

By MADDIE FABIAN

EASTHAMPTON — Throughout the month, Easthampton residents and visitors might stumble upon bright-green-covered chapbooks spreading poetry throughout the city. On the cover of the booklets, a circle represents a doorway through which curious minds may...

By MADDIE FABIAN

SOUTHAMPTON — Growing up a Boy Scout, retired Lt. Gen. Scott Rice of Southampton learned to embrace core values including integrity, patriotism, respect and leadership at a young age.Now, he is one of only three western Massachusetts residents to...

Featuring a folk veteranand organizerAMHERST — Folksinger and songwriter Paul Kaplan, a longtime host of the Pioneer Valley Folklore Society’s Song & Story Swap, will mark 25 years of involvement with the event Sept. 2 when he plays as the featured...

By MADDIE FABIAN

EASTHAMPTON — In November, a local group of medical professionals and researchers will travel to Ghana to hold a training conference for Ghanaian midwives from rural health centers.The trip is an effort of the Midwifery Exchange in Ghana, a group that...

By MADDIE FABIAN

WESTHAMPTON — As farmers face increasing challenges due to climate change, labor shortages and rising costs, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern embarked on his 13th annual districtwide farm tour this week to hear directly from local farmers.His first stop of the...

By STEVE PFARRER

AMHERST — Adding to its collection of work documenting social change, the University of Massachusetts Amherst has acquired the papers of social activist and writer Al Weinrub, co-founder of the anti-imperialist organization Science for the People...

STAFF REPORT

Eversource will perform an aerial patrol of western Massachusetts transmission lines from Wednesday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.The flyover is a routine inspection of Eversource’s power transmission infrastructure to ensure the reliability...

By MADDIE FABIAN

EASTHAMPTON — A new sculpture to be installed next spring along the Nashawannuck Pond boardwalk will give residents and visitors the opportunity to reflect on volunteerism in the arts and cultural sectors of the city.The sculpture, called...

By MADDIE FABIAN

Five separate initiatives supporting veterans of all walks of life are included in the state’s $56 billion fiscal 2024 budget signed into law Wednesday.The budget includes around $1.7 million for programs championed by state Sen. John Velis,...

By MADDIE FABIAN

EASTHAMPTON — A decade ago, Highland Ambulance Services covered the Hilltowns with 48 EMTs and paramedics. Today, the company employs just 27, with only three of them full-time workers.“There’s a lot of overtime, and we’re very grateful, but that’s...

By Mercy Lingle

NORTHAMPTON — Kari Blood was living in upstate New York working at a publishing company when she decided to change careers.In 2010, she went back to school to get a degree in environmental studies and promptly spent time scrolling through the spotty...

By JAMES PENTLAND

AMHERST — Sharks have long been creatures of fascination, but having focused on them in his work for almost 10 years, UMass biology professor Duncan Irschick has found that most three-dimensional models are poor representations of the marine...

By DON STEWART

He is credited as the inventor of the comical, and quite enormous, gas-filled dirigible, since 1927 the symbol of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades. Called “the father of modern American puppetry,” his productions toured the country and his staff later...

By JAMES PENTLAND

WILLIAMSBURG — After seeing some of the area’s widespread flooding from a helicopter as she flew from Hanscom Field in Bedford to Northampton, Gov. Maura Healey stopped in Williamsburg Wednesday morning to learn more about flood-related damages...

By MICKEY RATHBUN

When I wrote a death notice in this column a few months ago for my three Little King river birches I was feeling pretty miserable. These nice young trees were forming the architectural spine of an evolving garden behind the house that had been a...

By IAN RHODEWALT 

In my household of two, together we hold $132,829.70 in student debt. On a bitter cold day in early March on the week the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments, at a student debt cancellation rally, 25 of us stood on the steps of the federal court...

By EMILY THURLOW

Whether he’s sporting villainous Maleficent-style horns, channeling his inner witch dressed as Winifred Sanderson, twirling in a red-and-black polka-dot a-line dress or lounging around in a raglan T-shirt, Aaron Johnson is still, “just Aaron.”Though...

By STEVE PFARRER

A Stranger in BaghdadBy Elizabeth Loudon; Hoopee/The American University in Cairo PressBritish author Elizabeth Loudon, who once lived in the Valley, also lived for several months in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1975 to 1976 when she was in her late teens, a...

By EMILY THURLOW

EASTHAMPTON — Whether it’s swastikas and “gas the Jews” messages appearing along the summit of Mount Tom, racist and antisemitic slurs spray-painted on trees at a conservation area, or racial comments on social media directed at a city councilor,...