■Mrs. Mary Cutter, 211 Elm St., grandmother of Capt. James Cutter, prisoner of war in North Vietnam, reported this morning that she has learned her grandson will be among the last prisoners to be returned to the U.S. “He hasn’t been there (as a POW) as long as some,” Mrs. Cutter conceded. “He’s only been there about a year.”
■The City’s Recreation Commission last night backed an effort by the Youth Hockey Association to have a skating rink built for Northampton. Recreation Director Patrick Goggins said today that this year’s unusually warm winter has not dimmed the association’s hopes for a new city rink.
■Forbes Library has a new look inside, after extensive renovations. And now, the library’s employees will receive long-awaited raises, following a City Council vote last night. The City Council voted to use the city’s free cash reserves to distribute $16,410 in negotiated raises for the 31 members of the Forbes Library Employees Association. Those raises cover both fiscal years 1997 and 1998.
■Elizabeth Dole, president of the American Red Cross, will deliver this year’s commencement address at Smith College, the school’s 120th graduation ceremony. In 1983, Dole was named by President Reagan as the first female Secretary of Transportation.
■A school theater production that retells the Book of Genesis with gay characters is drawing fire from critics who find it offensive to their religious beliefs, but officials at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Public Charter School say the show must go on. School officials have received hundreds of email petitions describing Paul Rudnick’s “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told” as a “blasphemous and hateful production.”
■Two downtown property owners, including former judge W. Michael Ryan, are suing the city and the Northampton Business Improvement District in federal court, saying a new state law that forces them to join the BID and pay fees is a violation of their constitutional rights.