■Five cars of a 58-car Boston & Maine freight train derailed here late last night on tracks behind the MacDonald’s restaurant on King Street. Railroad workmen said that most of the cars were carrying coal. The derailment occurred in the middle of the train.
■Sen. John D. Barrus and Rep. Louis Morini have demanded that the state Department of Natural Resources take steps to improve the safety of the Ox Bow area after the death of a 24-year-old Northampton man in a boating accident recently. Included in the plan is the dredging of the channel that connects the Ox Bow with the river.
■Looking exhausted but supremely satisfied this morning, a Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce official proclaimed success, as workers continued the mammoth task of cleaning up after the Taste of Northampton. Though numbers aren’t available to tell the story, Suzanne Beck, executive director of the chamber, said all the ingredients that organizers hoped for were present for the four-day food event.
■An airborne fungus called the “blue mold” is making its way north and threatening to destroy tobacco crops up and down the Connecticut River Valley. The blue mold is threatening more than 2,000 acres of unharvested shade and broadleaf tobacco.
■Despite what they concede was a slow start to construction, leaders of the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech say a suite of classrooms at Leeds School will be ready to receive 30 students in Clarke’s K-8 program when school starts in September.
■The largest war reenactment Look Park has hosted to date will take place today and Sunday, when hundreds of participants in the garb of Union and Confederate soldiers will gather to recreate a battle between the two troops and hold historical demonstrations and activities.