■Smith’s Vocational and Agricultural High School will begin its 64th year Sept. 6 and there will be more pupils, new teachers and a continued overcrowding of existing facilities. Enrollment figures remain an educated guess but a 10 percent increase over last year is being anticipated. The 500 students who have already registered is 45 more students than in 1971.
■Judge Edwin P. Dunphy announced today that because of a recent Supreme Court ruling which takes effect Sept. 1, his son Donal T. Dunphy will terminate his association with the firm of Stevens and Dunphy as of that date. The ruling prohibits anyone who is practicing criminal law from being associated in the same office with a Special Justice of the District Court.
■An Emily Dickinson manuscript that the Jones Library purchased from Sotheby’s Auction House in June is a fake. It is believed to be the work of a convicted murderer considered by some the most skilled forger in U.S. history, according to the library’s curator of special collections, Daniel Lombardo.
■Police Chief Russell P. Sienkiewicz says he does not expect to see a significant increase in crime, should an emergency homeless shelter open on Hawley Street in November, as expected. As for concerns some residents of the Ward 3 neighborhood have expressed about their safety, Sienkiewicz said, “I think it’s more perception than truth.”
■A new environmentally friendly taxi company has arrived in Northampton. GoGreen Cab Co., which opened for business last month, uses only hybrid vehicles to transport passengers. “I am a vegan vegetarian, a decision I made partly for environmental reasons,” said co-owner Justin Wentworth of Florence. “I wasn’t willing to sacrifice those values in my business.”
■Amherst Town Manager John Musante Monday inked a 25-year deal with developer BlueWave Capital of Boston to purchase electricity generated by solar panels at the old landfill off Belchertown Road. “Today is a milestone in our efforts to have Amherst become leader in our region in renewable energy,” Musante said.