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By CHRIS LARABEE

WHATELY — Eighty-six residents approved all but one of the 25 articles on Tuesday’s Annual Town Meeting warrant, rejecting a petition that would have added a “Marijuana Product Light Manufacturer” to the town’s table of use regulations.

By Lily Reavis

GRANBY — Hundreds of family members, friends, former teachers, and loved ones filled the Granby Junior Senior High School gymnasium on Saturday morning to celebrate the school’s Class of 2025.

By Lily ReAvis

WESTHAMPTON — Hampshire Regional High School graduated 103 seniors Friday evening in its 53rd annual commencement ceremony, an unexpectedly indoor event that celebrated the class’s school spirit, perseverance, and unity despite differences.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — After concluding her valedictory remarks reflecting on the last weeks of senior year, Daniella Sherman suggested taking a final high school selfie, which she did by taking out her cellphone and posing alongside her five fellow valedictorians and the full 190-member class on stage at the Tillis Performance Hall at the Bromery Center for the Arts.

By CAROLYN BROWN

EASTHAMPTON — As thunder rumbled outside, 93 Easthampton High School seniors prepared to take the next step into adulthood.

By RYAN AMES

The first batch of UMass hockey recruits were announced this past week as three names are confirmed to be joining the Minutemen for the 2025-26 season.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — The City Council on Thursday postponed a vote on the $145 million city budget for the 2026 fiscal year, in the hopes of avoiding the more contentious budget process that took place the previous year.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

NORTHAMPTON — Only steps away from where ambulances will be bringing patients to Cooley Dickinson Hospital’s expanded Emergency Department are two dedicated resuscitation rooms.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — The 90-degree weather heated the sea of camping chairs and umbrellas that covered Belchertown High School’s Stadium Field Thursday evening, and people were doing their best to keep cool.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — At a parent’s home by the Montview Conservation Area, Brant Jones gathers the group of 14 high school students who have assembled that morning before they embark on their planned four-day adventure.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals has maintained a previous court injunction that blocked the Trump administration from enacting significant layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education, part of a lawsuit whose plaintiffs include the Easthampton School Committee.

By EMILEE KLEIN

GRANBY— Town Meeting attendees will consider a $27.5 million operating budget, a new stormwater bylaw and the future of West Street Building during the second half of the annual Town Meeting on Monday.

By LARRY CERVELLI

Here in western Massachusetts, we pride ourselves on taking care of each other. But right now, too many of our friends and neighbors are suffering — not from a lack of medical care, but from a health insurance system that puts profits ahead of people and just costs too much. Some companies that provide health insurance in Massachusetts plan increases of 10% or more, increasing what many pay for coverage. I really appreciated Cynthia Chamberland’s recent letter in the Gazette supporting the Massachusetts Medicare for All bill, but with the situation in Washington, now we really need this bill passed.

By REV. MARK SEIFRIED

How safe are you? I ask that question because I met with church volunteers last week and we talked about the fact that it’s not just immigrants who are unsafe in our community, it’s also transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people who will likely lose their gender-affirming, life-saving health care if the Republican regime leading the federal government has their way. In short, the current administration in the nation’s capital wants to eradicate anyone who cannot or will not conform to white-dominant, heterosexual, able-bodied standards.

The Gazette published a propagandandistic hit piece on April 30 targeting a member of our community for offering a prayer, as ordained clergy do, for those enduring history’s first live-streamed Holocaust. While the plea for a toothless, liberal movement that includes the line “Hands Off NATO” and attracts members of Congress to speak to their crowds of clapping seals is about as likely to include the cause of Palestine as a virgin is to give birth (forgive me, Father Scalia), it’s interesting that milquetoast commentary invoked such vitriol from someone who claims to “hate war.”

By LARRY CERVELLI

Here in western Massachusetts, we pride ourselves on taking care of each other. But right now, too many of our friends and neighbors are suffering — not from a lack of medical care, but from a health insurance system that puts profits ahead of people and just costs too much. Some companies that provide health insurance in Massachusetts plan increases of 10% or more, increasing what many pay for coverage. I really appreciated Cynthia Chamberland’s recent letter in the Gazette supporting the Massachusetts Medicare for All bill, but with the situation in Washington, now we really need this bill passed.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

HADLEY — Among the ways Hadley officials recognize farming as the backbone of the town is by charging much lower rates for water used for agricultural purposes than municipal water provided to homes and businesses.

By MICKEY RATHBUN

John Smith likes it when people stop outside his house, a lovely Carpenter Gothic on a quiet street in Florence, to peek at his garden through the fence. “I tell them, ‘Come on in and have a look around,’” he said. On June 14, Smith will invite the public to come in and look around his eye-catching garden. It’s one of six local home gardens on this year’s Northampton Garden Tour.

By CAROLYN BROWN

Lewis Carol’s story of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is more than 150 years old, but a group of local teen performers is reimagining it with a modern twist.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

A tradition for 28 years, the Taste of Amherst for most of its run brought restaurants to the Town Common in mid-June, with select menu items offered from various tents that attendees could enjoy while listening to live music.