■“Tangled Branches” by Robert Strong Woodward and a portrait of Robert Breck, a 19th-century Northampton lawyer and clerk of court, are two paintings slated for restoration at Forbes Library. Emil G. Schnorr of 30 Graves Ave. will be in charge of restoring the two paintings.
■A sun-bathed autumn weekend with the scarlet and orange foliage at its peak attracted thousands of tourists and year-round residents to Hampshire County roads. Traffic throughout the county was heavy and at times on Sunday afternoon it was bumper to bumper along I-91.
■The University of Massachusetts made history last night with a fancy formal dinner to launch a comprehensive campaign designed to rival that of many an elite private institution. In a fitting transformation for the event, the Mullins Center had the feel of an intimate, high-priced restaurant.
■In the next few months, Victory Super Market on University Drive will install new pink signs that reserve convenient parking spaces for expectant mothers. The new signs will depict a stork, and they’re the equivalent of the familiar blue handicapped parking signs — except they’re for pregnant women.
■The Westhampton Public Library has won a gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program for the building’s environmentally friendly features. Among them are native plantings, preservation of open space, energy-efficient lighting and heating systems and the use of locally produced building materials.
■Former Northampton Mayor Clare Higgins has taken the wheel of the region’s antipoverty agency just as human service work has become a rockier road. But with 12 years in electoral politics in her rearview mirror, Higgins says she’s glad to be shifting gears to head the Greenfield-based agency Community Action.