■Wind gusts up to 51 miles an hour, drifting snow, and barometric pressure close to tornado recordings, are all part of the current weather scenes in our area. One of the oldest pine trees in the Bridge Street Cemetery fell to the wind sometime early Friday morning. It fell in the old part of the cemetery on top of graves dating to the late 1700s.
■The Youth Commission released a preliminary results of a drug survey today. Information indicates that approximately 29 percent of students attending schools in Northampton are currently using marijuana, while 62 percent are drinking alcoholic beverages and 39 percent are smoking cigarettes regularly.
■Northampton Outdoor Power, which sells outdoor power equipment such as lawn mowers and snowblowers, opened Friday at 10 Easthampton Road. Owned by William Campedelli of Worthington, the business employs one mechanic and three sales representatives.
■The Space-Crime Continuum bookstore at 92 King St. will offer mystery and science fiction hardcovers for rent while the city’s Forbes Library is closed for renovations, expected to take six months. Sixty different titles are currently planned and more may be added if demand warrants, according to co-owner Chris Aylott.
■Calling her time as mayor the best job she will probably ever have, Mayor Clare Higgins announced Friday that her current term as Northampton mayor will be her last. The mayor’s decision not to seek a seventh two-year term throws open the race for the job of the city’s chief executive after more than a decade of her leadership.
■A University of Massachusetts Amherst professor says he’s dropping his nearly decade-long fight to persuade the government to let him grow marijuana in bulk for medical research. Horticulturist Lyle Craker wanted to cultivate the marijuana to boost research into the plant’s potential medical benefits.