■Mother Nature played havoc on Mountain Street in Haydenville yesterday when a grey-funneled twister swooped four to five acres of pine trees up into the air and flattened them back to the ground, wiped out light service for two hours, smashed barns and left townspeople slightly dazed. No one was hurt.
■Two-hundred and sixteen deaf children began classes at The Clarke School for the Deaf on Monday to begin the school’s 105th year. Four of the youngsters are in the pre-school, while 212 are enrolled in the regular curriculum. Of the total, 158 are from Massachusetts and the remaining 58 are from 21 states, Bermuda and Canada.
■After a summer spent in crisis, healing rifts at the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School farm, Mayor Mary L. Ford plans to use her autumn differently — looking ahead. What she sees is a high school in dire need of renovation, a city budget deserving its final edit and the approach of winter forcing officials to consider once again how all the homeless in Northampton will be housed.
■The School Committee last night backed a plan to lease the former South Street School to a private, nonprofit group “whose mission is to serve the educational needs of children.” No actual group was specified, though one group that has stated an interest in the building is the Northampton Community Music Center.
■Area lawmakers are calling on the state to restore funding for the Department of Public Health’s drug analysis laboratory in Amherst, saying that closing it would jeopardize public safety in the state’s four western counties. The lab at the University of Massachusetts is the sole facility in this region that can weigh and test illegal drugs confiscated by police.
■Three new horse barns were dedicated Monday at the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton, the first and most visible part of a planned $36 million redevelopment project over the next decade or longer. The barns are designed to retain and grow the fairgrounds’ core business, which these days is horse shows and cultural events.