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By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

SPRINGFIELD — Massachusetts will receive $108 million in federal funds to support improvements to east-west passenger train travel between Springfield, Worcester and Boston, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal and Gov. Maura Healey announced Friday.The money comes...

By ANDREA AYVAZIAN

Our granddaughter Fiona was about a year and a half old when she was playing with my husband and me in our backyard and a bug began circling around her. Her language skills were still quite limited at that time, and so we were surprised when she...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

SPRINGFIELD — Preservation of historic buildings in rural communities, including some in Hampshire County, will be supported through a $750,000 grant from the National Park Service.The federal agency announced on Thursday that the Pioneer Valley...

By JOSH SCHIMMEL

With the passage of many public fiscal year budgets, it is a good time to reflect on what these budgets support and the values they reflect. As we do so, consider what could be more central to our quality of life, public health, economy, agriculture,...

By ANDREA AYVAZIAN

Every joke, stereotype, and snide comment you have ever heard about 50th college reunions is true. I should know, I attended my 50th Oberlin College reunion in Ohio in May. It really was a bunch of old people in awful outfits with large nametags...

By THE REV. ANDREA AYVAZIAN

I remember the stomach-churning jitters I felt on the flight from Seattle to Anchorage. And that was before I had laid eyes on the big mountain — before I saw how it dominated the landscape both vertically and horizontally, before I had stared down...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

SPRINGFIELD — Operating rooms that are double the size and provide space for the necessary technology for surgeries with smaller incisions, allowing patients to recover faster, are opening at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield this week.The...

By ANDREA AYVAZIAN

Every day around noon, my husband Michael, a political scientist and prolific writer, stops writing at his desk and walks to downtown Northampton for lunch. He always goes to the same place, BalaganCafé, and orders a sandwich and café latte. The...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

NORTHAMPTON — A longtime editor and writer whose career in journalism for the past 35 years has spanned much of the Pioneer Valley and the Berkshires will begin leading the newsroom at The Republican in Springfield later this month.Larry Parnass, who...

I was recently interviewed on a local radio program about my reflections on the state of the peace and justice movement in the Valley and around the country. At the end of the show, the host asked: “So Andrea, what keeps you going? What gives you...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

BELCHERTOWN — A 35-year-old South Hadley man charged with the September killing of his father in Hampshire County’s second homicide of the year, pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted arson of a dwelling in Eastern Hampshire District Court on...

By BERA DUNAU

BELCHERTOWN — A Belchertown man was arrested on a murder charge Monday in relation to the 2021 shooting death of Charleen Figueroa in Springfield. According to a release from the Springfield Police Department, Victor Oquendo, 25, was arrested in...

By LARRY PARNASS

SPRINGFIELD — The former district court judge who lost his job over what he terms a consensual sexual affair has settled a lawsuit against him, seeking “to close this ugly chapter in my life and to focus on the future.”Thomas H. Estes, who formerly...

By DUSTY CHRISTENSEN

SPRINGFIELD — As Bunny Croteau drove home one day in the early 1970s, she noticed a vehicle drive by in the other direction, the driver looking an awful lot like her 11-year-old son, Danny.So, when Bunny got home, she looked around for Danny, but he...

By DUSTY CHRISTENSEN

SPRINGFIELD — Almost 50 years after police discovered the body of 13-year-old Danny Croteau floating in the Chicopee River, Hampden County’s top prosecutor said his office concluded Croteau’s killer was former Catholic priest Richard Lavigne, a...

By MICHAEL CONNORS

SPRINGFIELD — A former Easthampton attorney who admitted to defrauding clients, commercial lenders and an investment firm over the last several years was ordered by a judge Friday to forfeit more than $2 million, pay $2.6 million in restitution and...

By MICHAEL CONNORS

SPRINGFIELD — The lawyer for a city man accused of stabbing another man to death in Holyoke last July is saying his client acted in self-defense after he pleaded not guilty in Hampden Superior Court to the murder on Thursday.Samuel Rosario-Calderon,...

By BERA DUNAU

SPRINGFIELD — MGM Springfield, the first casino in state history, will open for business Friday at 11 a.m. — and western Massachusetts may very well never be the same again.“It’ll be an experience unlike any they’ve ever seen,” said MGM Springfield...

It should come as no surprise that the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority was forced to make service reductions on bus routes as it faced a $1.2 million budget shortfall heading into the new fiscal year. For one, the state has failed to meet a...

There’s an old saying that a leader always should try to leave a place better than he or she found it. That’s exactly what Mary MacInnes did as longtime administrator of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority — and then some.MacInnes, who retired April...