■Shorn of its recommendation for a relocation of Route 9, the final summary version of the Northampton Master Plan has been delivered to City Hall. The $50,000, two-year study by consultants Metcalf and Eddy presents Northampton with the choice of controlling or not controlling its own growth.
■Art students at Smith College will have a new place to “do their thing” this year. The seven-million-dollar Fine Arts Center, the contemporary building on Elm Street next to College Hall, will open this fall. The three units of the center will house the art department, the Smith College Museum of Art, and the art library.
■Tougher entrance standards are shaping a smaller, but better corps of incoming students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, school officials say. They said Thursday that the estimated 7% drop was expected with the advent of the new standards.
■The University of Massachusetts at Amherst is one of the most expensive state schools in the country — but overall, it’s also one of the “best buys” nationwide, academically speaking, according to Money magazine.
■U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal of Springfield joined the chorus of Democratic critics of presumptive Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan during an editorial board meeting with the Gazette on Tuesday, labeling the Wisconsin congressman’s signature budget plan “outside the mainstream of contemporary American political thought.”
■Southampton is one step closer to transforming a former rail bed into a bike path, after Gov. Deval Patrick approved $500,000 for the creation of the rail trail. The proposed greenway would stretch from the end of the Manhan Rail Trail on Coleman Road to the intersection of Route 10 and Valley Road, near the Westfield line.