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By MADISON SCHOFIELD

Local author, naturalist and former boxer Vanessa Chakour is leading a women’s boxing class at Franklin County’s YMCA.

By MOLLY PARR

Today’s recipe comes double recommended. The moms I did a meal train for wrote to ask me for the recipe. That same week, my husband asked what was in the noodles that made them so good.

Easthampton newcomer Julie Slavet made this roasted cauliflower, feta, onion and date salad. “The Valley’s fresh vegetables and cheeses really inspire creativity,” Slavet said, adding that “the food here seems almost as welcoming as the people we’ve met in our first month.”

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Site work related to construction of a five-story, mixed-use building at the corner of Amity Street and University Drive is expected to begin before summer, following final approvals from the Planning Board last week.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — A series of fee increases for school-related activities, which cover participation in athletics and parking at the high school, are being considered by the Amherst Regional School Committee.

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

There are many ways to describe and to analyze what is happening in the federal government since Donald Trump was inaugurated. But the clearest and most consistent pattern is that the billionaires have taken over and have started to destroy anything that interferes with them becoming richer and richer. Their greed appears to know no bounds. I find this truly frightening.

By THOMAS JOHNSTON

It’ll be a rematch in the NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball National Championship game. 

By RYAN AMES

AMHERST — A week of rest and recovery should help the No. 2 Amherst College women’s hockey team in its quest for the Division III NCAA Tournament Championship title, which begins with a quarterfinal round matchup against No. 8 Colby on Saturday at Orr Rink.

By RYAN AMES

AMHERST – Freshman Yahmani McKayle’s triple-double powered the UMass women’s basketball team past Stonehill, 86-40, during the opening round of the WNIT on Thursday at the Mullins Center.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

NORTHAMPTON — Though Massachusetts is not one of at least six states that will lose out on $500 million in food deliveries promised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the leader of the region’s largest food bank remains concerned about future cuts.

EMILEE KLEIN

NORTHAMPTON — Cities and towns in Hampshire County are facing spikes in health insurance costs between 10% and 20% for fiscal year 2026, an increase in a normally stable cost that promises to eat into bottom lines during an already tight budget season.

By SAMUEL GELINAS

HOLYOKE — The city’s population this weekend is expected to go from 50,000 to half a million, as the Irish, and those who are Irish for the weekend, get ready to run, march, and drink in honor of Ireland’s patron saint.

At 4:30 in the morning, my husband was drinking his first cup of coffee, yes, really that early. He heard a sound that wasn’t part of the normal din of an old house. So he went down to the basement to investigate. He found water spraying all over from the outside water service line. It had a hole ahead of the shutoff valve, so there was nothing he could do except seek help.

I was glad to see Sen. Ed Markey visit Northampton, while many of his Republican peers avoid contentious town halls. While both Sens. Markey and Elizabeth Warren have been vocal in opposing the lawlessness of the Trump administration, there is more that can be done.

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.”

I appreciated Rutherford J. Platt’s Feb. 24 column on evil as called out by Rep. Jim McGovern [“Applause for calling out ‘evil’”]. The evil cited was “America’s role as a responsible world power is being diminished: Foreign aid has been thrown into chaos, endangering lives worldwide.”

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.