Fit to Play with Jim Johnson: Old-school football

Seven area towns to get $1M in state energy-efficiency grants

Seven Hampshire and Franklin county towns will receive a combined roughly $1 million in state Green Communities grants to fund energy-efficiency projects, including new heat pumps, windows and an electric vehicle. The grants, part of $8 million distributed statewide, will go toward projects in Plainfield, Goshen, Easthampton, Amherst, Leverett, Sunderland and Deerfield. Plainfield will use $96,368 for a new heat pump at Town Hall and energy-efficient windows at the library and police station. The heat pump will replace an aging oil furnace, said Planning Board Chair Peter Lapointe, who added that the total cost of the pump will be in the […]

Smoking materials blamed for two weekend fires in Amherst

AMHERST — Careless disposal of cigarettes is being blamed for causing a small porch fire at a Main Street home Friday night, as well as a fire that damaged a North Amherst restaurant and market and forced it to close Saturday afternoon, according to the Amherst Fire Department. The initial fire at 702 Main St., […]

Hadley board considers merging collector and treasurer roles

HADLEY — The Select Board is examining whether to merge the collector and treasurer’s offices at Town Hall, as officials look to hire a person to provide support for both departments. While no decisions are imminent for the future of the two offices, the Select Board at a late August meeting agreed to advertise for a full-time assistant treasurer and collector. The discussion of the possible changes is prompted by the recent retirement of Linda Sanderson, who was treasurer for more than 10 years and finance director for 2½ years, the anticipated retirement of Susan Glowatsky, who plans to step down […]

Columnist Joanna Buoniconti: Do I miss school?

September has fully arrived. The nights have a certain briskness that wasn’t there a few weeks ago. A certain level of sadness has settled into me upon the realization that the majority of summer is over. Because summer is the period of time that I get to leave the house the most and interact with […]

Guest columnist Ben Grosscup: I'm going to Cuba to get a new Alzheimer's drug for my mom

My dad took this image of my mom and me in June 2026, days before my mother received an early-stage dementia diagnosis, likely Alzheimer’s disease. I’ve always expected grief and devastation for families after this diagnosis. The drugs available in the U.S. don’t halt, let alone reverse, progression of this degenerative neurological illness. But my research […]