■Violent thundershowers accompanied by high winds and hail tore through this area yesterday afternoon, toppling giant trees and utility poles and leaving damaged crops and widespread power outages in its wake. Streets, particularly in Easthampton which took the worst beating from the storm, were littered with trees, branches, leaves and tangled electrical wires, as winds gusting to 63 mph swept through the town.
■No one wants to take credit or blame for fluoridating the city’s water supply and action on the matter has successfully been postponed until September at the earliest. Last week the City Council postponed action on a resolution introduced by Councilor William C. Ames supporting fluoridation, as the Council asked for more time to study the matter.
■Before the new Visitor Center was put up at Look Park, people needing answers, and duck food, had one resort: the Picnic Store. The store, which no longer sells picnic supplies like paper plates, remains a busy summer hub in the park’s more than 150 acres.
■The buzz around town these days among some politically minded people interested in the public schools is that no one has come forward to run for the Ward 1 seat on the School Committee which Susan J. Adelson will be vacating come January. “Know anyone in Ward 1 who’d be interested in running?” was a question overheard among people at Summerfest this week.
■Darrell K. English of North Adams plans to open a Holocaust museum in the coming weeks, displaying as many as 400 artifacts tied to the persecution of the Jews and others by Nazi Germany leading up to and during World War II. English has collected World War II artifacts since childhood and has tried for years to open a space to house his full collection.
■State officials are in talks with Holyoke Gas & Electric to purchase a sprawling section of the Mount Tom ridge after a federal agency rejected the utility company’s plans to build five 500-foot-tall wind turbines on the property.