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We were pleased to learn that Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra has announced plans to run for reelection. We believe that Mayor Sciarra is a competent and compassionate leader, and we feel lucky and blessed to have her at the helm here in our unique and wonderful city.

There is important background information explaining Elon Musk’s Nazi salute at a Trump inauguration party. Musk’s grandfather was born in Canada of South African parents and emigrated back to South Africa in the 1950s. According to reporter Chris McGreal, writing in The Guardian Jan. 26, “that’s when apartheid had just started to kick in. South Africa had had discriminatory laws before, but you see the specific apartheid laws, which are much more aggressive, and in many ways reminiscent of the Nazi Nuremberg laws against Jews in the 1930s.”

By CHRIS LARABEE

SOUTH DEERFIELD — As protests against the Trump administration proliferate across the U.S., a new group of voices is rising in South Deerfield, on the corner of Route 116 and Sugarloaf Street.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — More than a half-dozen restaurants in Hampshire County are partnering with survival centers in Northampton and Amherst to provide free meals to those facing food insecurity in the region as part of a larger initiative taking place statewide.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Best-case scenarios for the Amherst elementary and Amherst-Pelham Regional schools, in which the budgets are around $2 million short of providing level services for the 2025-2026 school year, are leading a member of Amherst’s Town Council to suggest town officials find a way to get more money to local public education.

By SAMUEL GELINAS

HOLYOKE — Some 16% of the city’s properties are exempt from paying property taxes — a potential source of revenue Mayor Joshua Garcia is looking to tap into next fiscal year via a new payment in lieu of taxes policy.

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — About 3.1 million people in Massachusetts already have a Real ID-compliant driver’s license or identification card and demand for the Registry of Motor Vehicles appointment required to get one is high ahead of a long-awaited May deadline.

By COLLIN BINKLEY and CHRIS MEGERIAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday calling for the shutdown of the U.S. Education Department, according to a White House official, advancing a campaign promise to eliminate an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

NORTHAMPTON — On an early March weekend, as numerous musicians took the stage at venues across the city for the Back Porch Music Festival, some spent a portion of their downtime at Mill River Music and Guitars, relaxing on the store’s couches, surrounded by hundreds of acoustic and electric guitars displayed on the walls.

AMHERST

NORTHAMPTON — The Northwestern district attorney has made promotions and other staffing changes following the departure of three prosecutors for legal positions in other state and federal agencies.

By DR. JULIA FISCHER

By ERIN-LEIGH HOFFMAN

GREENFIELD — The more than 700 people who attended a town hall event with U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern on Tuesday relayed an expansive mandate for him to take back to Congress: Defend federal institutions, create a stronger coalition of Democrats and be a voice of resistance to the Trump administration.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says: “Few budgetary concepts generate as much unintended confusion and deliberate misinformation as the Social Security trust funds. The trust funds are invested in Treasury securities that are just as sound as all other U.S. government securities, held by investors around the globe and regarded as being among the world’s safest investments.”

Talk is cheap. It is clear to many that there are only two ways to stop Trump. One is the courts, the other is massive civil disobedience.

I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Ward 3 City Councilor Quaverly Rothenberg for her unwavering accessibility and dedication to vulnerable residents like myself.

As a resident of Ward 3 for a dozen years, I have had a number of City Council representatives and frequently watch the Thursday evening proceedings. In all of that time I have rarely met a public servant as dedicated to her constituents as Councilor Quaverly Rothenberg.

In her March 11 sports column “Leadership lessons from women’s basketball,” Jess Lapachinski listed some of her favorite coaches active in women’s basketball today. All of them are deserving of accolades. But right here at Smith College we have a coach equally deserving.

A wonderfully entertaining production of “Finding Nemo Jr.” at the Northampton Academy of Music last week would have been even better if the audience could have heard all the performers and not just the leads. Without consistent sound, those who hadn’t seen the film “Finding Nemo” might have found it difficult to follow the story.