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By MEAGAN GONZALEZ

It took me a little while to figure out how to use my voice in this instance. It’s not something I do often. It’s not something I’ve ever done publicly like this before. But when I was an undergraduate student at Smith College, I had a professor who went out of her way to support the start of my career. She did this for me if I promised that I’d use my voice to help another woman the next time I was in a position to do so. I’ve tried to live this way ever since, but now I have met a big chance to honor my promise.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Reparations Study Commission will ask the city to extend its operations for an additional year, amid contentious debate among members over whether additional public input from Black community members is needed before submitting recommendations to the City Council.

The Northampton Education Foundation had its 28th Annual Plant Sale on May 10 on the lawn of the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School. Each year hundreds of plants are donated from backyards across the valley, and volunteers spend the night before the sale getting everything ready. The day brought with it all the weather that spring can muster, and plant lovers came from all over to see what they could add to their gardens. Everyone joined in the countdown to the 9 a.m. start time.

Recently, nearly 200 donors, legislators and media representatives toured our Emergency Department (ED) at Cooley Dickinson Hospital (“Cooley’s new ‘front door’ on display,” Gazette, June 7). Our long-awaited project, which is being completed in phases, expands the ED by 40%. It features new equipment, more private rooms and a floor plan designed with patients in mind. Earlier this year, we opened a dedicated space to provide a calm, healing environment for those needing mental and behavioral health support. Additional ambulance bays await our region’s EMS teams as they bring patients to our ED. The new addition opens in July and renovations in the existing ED continue through early 2026. Our ED is open throughout the project.

By GARRETT COTE

After suffering its first regular-season loss in nearly two years, the Belchertown Post 239 Senior American Legion baseball team got back in the win column on Monday evening.

By BILL NEWMAN

Last Saturday, “No Kings Day,” saw large demonstrations in Northampton, Easthampton, Greenfield, Springfield, Sunderland, Cummington, Shelburne Falls, Pittsfield, Amherst, Granby, Williamsburg, Ashfield, Orange and Boston. They were among the more than 100 protests in Massachusetts and over 2,100 across the country in cities and towns, big and small. The common denominator? Devotion to resistance and the fervent hope, if not always the firm belief, that we can mitigate, if not totally prevent, the fascist takeover of the United States now in progress.

By GRACE CHAI

NORTHAMPTON — A majority of one of the largest remaining unprotected farms in the city is now conserved for agriculture and wildlife habitat, thanks to a unique conservation effort that taps into federal funding.

I am writing concerning the above-the-fold article titled “Panel not ready on assisted suicide proposal” (Gazette, June 5). The article references the current Massachusetts Bill H.2505, which is entitled An Act Relative To End Of Life Options. A close reading of this bill reveals that it supports medical aid in dying to terminally ill individuals, allowing them to enlist the help of medical professionals in order to end their suffering. Surely, journalists understand the power of words, and the emotional valence of the term assisted suicide brings to mind assisting a despondent, otherwise healthy individual take their own life. In contrast to this, medical aid in dying entails providing compassionate assistance to a terminally ill individual, allowing them to choose to end their suffering, in a well-informed and dignified manner. As the Gazette continues to cover this issue, I would encourage the editors to avoid coined terms and to refer to the proposed legislation as the end of life options bill.

Don’t go to Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark, and Norway) unless you want to be shocked by how advanced and better off they are than us, especially now. We just returned from a trip there. While I know there are big differences between our countries, and that they also have challenges too, we could still learn so much from them. Stockholm — no trash or dog poop anywhere to be seen. A person on our tour got sick and two hours later a doctor came to our hotel and wrote her an antibiotic prescription so she could rejoin the tour a couple days later.

By JOHN BERKOWITZ

I think it’s urgent that the current negotiations end the war in Ukraine soon, even if Ukraine has to make some territorial concessions and stay out of NATO. If we keep helping Ukraine escalate — such as its recent drone attacks on Russian bases housing nuclear-armed strategic bombers, and last year’s attack on Russia’s early-warning radars that damaged three out of a total of 10 — it will only bring even more suffering and devastation to Ukraine, while risking an unimaginably worse WWIII/nuclear war with Russia.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Less than week before the City Council is expected to vote on the city’s fiscal 2026 budget, Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra has secured an additional $217,000 for the school district, with funds planned to be used to restore two high school teacher positions as well as an elementary school gardening program.

By LILY REAVIS

Thousands of western Massachusetts residents rallied in the streets on Saturday to protest President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies, joining the nationwide “No Kings” movement against actions they called authoritarian. Many in attendance pointed to the administration’s recent immigration raids and Trump’s federalization of the military against protesters as key drivers for their attendance.

By GARRETT COTE

NORTHAMPTON — It had been quite some time since the Belchertown Post 239 Senior American Legion baseball team suffered its last regular season loss after going undefeated en route to the District 3 championship a summer ago, but Post 239 experienced that feeling on Friday evening at Arcanum Field.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

The number of calls to Northampton Fire Rescue has nearly doubled over the last decade, leading the city to expand department staffing in next year’s fiscal budget, which begins July 1.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — The city on Thursday closed a portion of the sidewalk in its central downtown after engineering consultants found that the section posed “an immediate risk of collapse.”

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Ever since moving to Florence 18 years ago, JoJo Howlett has had only one choice for where she fills her car with gas — the Citgo gas station in the village’s center, owned by Bob Gougeon and his family.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra has called for a public debate between her and the other two mayoral candidates in this year’s municipal election, proposing multiple public forums to be held before preliminary elections in September.

By SAMUEL GELINAS

HOLYOKE — Artist Michael Karmody knows a hard truth about concrete — that it is often associated with sidewalks and jails, not attractive things.

By OLIN ROSE-BARDAWIL

Two weeks ago marked 600 days since the war in Gaza began. Six hundred days and nearly 100,000 casualties later, many have woken up to the clear immorality of Israel’s assault on Gaza. However, there are still many Americans who cling to a few talking points that allow them to justify the brutality — talking points which, over 600 days in, seem just as tired and trite as the war itself.

The street fair Cultural Chaos, one of Easthampton’s biggest annual events, will return this year on Saturday, June 14, from 12 to 5 p.m. on Cottage Street in Easthampton.

Testimony I submitted to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary, June 3, 2025 in support of H.2052/S.1178: An Act to Reduce Mass Incarceration. Twenty-five years ago, when I began the Real Cost of Prisons Project, I naively thought if people understood the real costs of mass incarceration to people imprisoned, their loved ones and their communities and the hundreds of millions of dollars we pay yearly to keep people caged, they would see that this state-run, outrageously costly system harms, not helps, everyone involved.