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By TERESA AMABILE

By SCOTT MERZBACH

Amherst Global Village Festival, an event to celebrate cultural diversity and promote inclusivity in the community, will be held for the first time at the Amherst Regional Middle School, 170 Chestnut St., on Saturday.

I invite everyone to Western MA Tango’s Live Music Weekend on April 5-6 in Northampton. Whether you dance tango or not, these events will be of interest.

By CAROLYN BROWN

The total impact that humans have had on the environment may be hard to measure, but a new exhibition at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s University Museum of Contemporary Art, running through Friday, May 9, aims to show some of that impact and create conversations about how artists respond to it with their work.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — A memorandum of agreement reached between the town, Jones Library trustees and the Massachusetts Historical Commission is among the final steps for accessing $2.1 million in federal grants that will go toward the $46.14 million expansion and renovation of the library at 43 Amity St.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — State education officials were crystal clear with the Amherst Regional School Committee on Monday night, warning members that they are not to vary from an agreement that determines how much each of the district’s four member towns must pay each year.

I read the article, “Family inspires law for bus monitoring systems” [Gazette, March 29] about a bill allowing school buses to install cameras on their “stop” arms to record violators’ license plates as they pass. As a longtime local school bus driver, I have seen this dangerous behavior up close. It is can be frightening and potentially life-threatening. The challenge seems to be deciding who will fund these devices if town budgets and bus companies claim they can’t cover costs.

For many people right now, things look bleak. But the other day, a seemingly small act of generosity made a huge difference to our local high school students.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Potential layoffs of educators at K-12 schools across the state next fiscal year, which Massachusetts Teachers Association President Max Page said could be catastrophic, is prompting his organization to ask the Legislature to take a three-prong approach to addressing the problem — use Fair Share Amendment surpluses, find ways to increase corporate tax revenues and dip into the state’s reserves.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — The Amherst Survival Center’s largest fundraising event of the year is being held Saturday, at a time when demand for its food pantry is much higher on a monthly basis than during the COVID pandemic and as federal support is being slashed for food banks and food programs.

AMHERST — Amherst School Committee Chairwoman Jennifer Shiao and Deb Leonard, the committee’s secretary, will be speaking about issues facing local schools during a virtual program sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Amherst Wednesday at 7 p.m.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — A half-mile section of University Drive could become ripe for both mixed-use developments and apartment-style housing as the Town Council nears adopting a long-awaited zoning change.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — More stringent oversight of spending on salaries, capital projects and various non-personnel expenditures at the University of Massachusetts, and both reducing graduate admissions in some departments and notifying some prospective graduate students that they will not be able to study in Amherst, are underway, according to a letter sent to the campus from UMass Chancellor Javier Reyes.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — “Rough road” signs along West Bay Road, at the edge of the Hampshire College campus near the Eric Carle Museum, warn drivers about the worsening condition of the travel lanes, which feature broken pavement, ruts and cracks, and an endless series of potholes that have been patched, repatched and patched again.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — All current staff who work directly with students at Amherst’s three elementary schools, including teachers and paraeducators, would be preserved in a $28.59 million fiscal year 2026 budget being recommended by the School Committee.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Three sedimentation basins directly upstream from the reservoir at Atkins Reservoir, located in Shutesbury, will be dredged in the fall of 2026.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — A proposal to develop three four-story, mixed-use buildings on Hampshire College land near Atkins Corner is receiving mostly praise from members of the Planning Board, even as some residents who live nearby worry about the height of the buildings and the possibility that the apartments will be occupied by college students, rather than families.

As a 65-year-old woman who has lived in western Massachusetts for 47 years, I have seen my share of political crises in this country. But never — never — have I witnessed such a brazen, coordinated attack on our democracy and our communities as we are seeing today. This isn’t just about political differences; it is about the systematic dismantling of government institutions that serve and protect us all.

Recent discussion in the Gazette about the Main Street project causes me to think it may not be too late for me, a non-Northampton resident, to comment. I live in Amherst. I shop occasionally from a few stores in Northampton; more often, I go there to cultural events at the Forbes, or the Academy of Music, Look Park or Smith College.

Donald Trump makes Richard Nixon look like the pope.

By EMILEE KLEIN

HADLEY — U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service employee Jackie Stephens starts her day at the Cronin Aquatic Resource Center in Sunderland by checking her email to see if she’s been fired.