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By JOE CURTATONE

Massachusetts is facing a familiar crossroads: our climate is changing, our grid is under strain, and our communities are rightly asking tough questions about safety, cost, and accountability. This is what communities need to do, but those questions must be met with facts, not fear.

By JEAN IDA HOFFMAN

I was a student at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 when the National Guard murdered four students (including two of my friends) and wounding nine. This was the worst memory of my life and I experienced a visceral reaction this month as I watched Trump call in the National Guard to Los Angeles over the objections of the mayor of the city as well as the governor of California.

By THE REV. ANDREA AYVAZIAN

On May 25, 2025, a crowd gathered at the Sojourner Truth statue in Florence for a moving ceremony to honor six high school graduating seniors with the Sojourner Truth Social Justice Award for their leadership roles in their schools in Hampshire and Hampden counties. The Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee has tended the statue and garnered scholarships funds for 20 years.

By JON HUER

Liberals and Democrats are agitated out of their minds over Trump’s many transgressions. Virtually everything Trump does — so radically different from every presidential behavior we have ever known — aggravates them. They cry out: “Why isn’t he more like the other presidents?”

A new executive order by Donald Trump directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to eliminate two categories of patients from being protected from discrimination. For the first time, medical doctors, psychologists, physical therapists, chiropractors, and other health providers can refuse care to individual veterans based on their political affiliation, union activity, and marital status. The motivation for these changes can only be nefarious and is a threat to our democracy.

By RUSS VERNON-JONES

Every Palestinian life and every Jewish life is precious.

By TOBIAS BASKIN

“What do you teach?” I am asked when I say that I am a professor at UMass. I teach plant physiology. But the question misses the core of what I do: run a research lab. Few ask me: “What do you research?” or “Why is a college professor doing research?”

As a retired nurse, 47-year career, I am writing in support of the Cooley Dickinson Hospital nurses who are currently in contract negotiations. Having spent my entire career as a bedside nurse, my choice, working various hospital departments, I have seen the value a nurse brings to every department. There have been many advances and changes in health care but the one constant is the nurse who cares for each patient and their family.

Regarding John Berkowitz’ June 16 guest column calling for Ukraine to stop defending itself and capitulate to Putin’s criminal aggression [”Ukraine War — If we don’t face the music, it could blow up in our faces”]. Putin could unilaterally end this war today by calling a cease-fire, retreating to internationally recognized borders, and respecting self-determination in sovereign nations.

By MEAGAN GONZALEZ

It took me a little while to figure out how to use my voice in this instance. It’s not something I do often. It’s not something I’ve ever done publicly like this before. But when I was an undergraduate student at Smith College, I had a professor who went out of her way to support the start of my career. She did this for me if I promised that I’d use my voice to help another woman the next time I was in a position to do so. I’ve tried to live this way ever since, but now I have met a big chance to honor my promise.

By JOHANNA NEUMANN

This week marks National Pollinator Week. This annual celebration in support of pollinator health reminds Americans how essential bees are to our environment and our lives, and what action we can take to protect these remarkable winged insects.

A recent guest columnist asked your readers “What if this were your neighborhood?” (Gazette, June 13). I can provide an answer to that question because as long as I have lived in Haydenville, I have considered that it is my neighborhood. Am I to understand now that I was wrong — that South Main Street is exclusive to those who live on that one block on a road my family and I walk or drive on everyday?

Regarding the June 16 guest column response to Gazette columnist JM Sorrell’s recent column on the conflict in Gaza:

By JONATHAN KAHANE

Well all I can say is, “It’s about darn time!” Pete “Charlie Hustle” Rose, and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson have been “reinstated” into Major League Baseball after committing their “heinous” crimes. They are now both eligible to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF). It’s a shame that this didn’t happen while they were alive. Rose was banned, because he was caught betting on MLB games. Jackson was punished for purportedly being part of the “1919 Black Sox Scandal” where eight players were accused of throwing the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. (They were never found guilty.)

Recently, nearly 200 donors, legislators and media representatives toured our Emergency Department (ED) at Cooley Dickinson Hospital (“Cooley’s new ‘front door’ on display,” Gazette, June 7). Our long-awaited project, which is being completed in phases, expands the ED by 40%. It features new equipment, more private rooms and a floor plan designed with patients in mind. Earlier this year, we opened a dedicated space to provide a calm, healing environment for those needing mental and behavioral health support. Additional ambulance bays await our region’s EMS teams as they bring patients to our ED. The new addition opens in July and renovations in the existing ED continue through early 2026. Our ED is open throughout the project.

The Northampton Education Foundation had its 28th Annual Plant Sale on May 10 on the lawn of the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School. Each year hundreds of plants are donated from backyards across the valley, and volunteers spend the night before the sale getting everything ready. The day brought with it all the weather that spring can muster, and plant lovers came from all over to see what they could add to their gardens. Everyone joined in the countdown to the 9 a.m. start time.

By TOLLEY M. JONES

On Jan. 1, 1863, The Emancipation Proclamation became law in the United States. It declared that “all persons held as slaves … shall be … forever free and the …Government of the United States … will do no act … to repress such persons … in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”

By BILL NEWMAN

Last Saturday, “No Kings Day,” saw large demonstrations in Northampton, Easthampton, Greenfield, Springfield, Sunderland, Cummington, Shelburne Falls, Pittsfield, Amherst, Granby, Williamsburg, Ashfield, Orange and Boston. They were among the more than 100 protests in Massachusetts and over 2,100 across the country in cities and towns, big and small. The common denominator? Devotion to resistance and the fervent hope, if not always the firm belief, that we can mitigate, if not totally prevent, the fascist takeover of the United States now in progress.

By BETHANY ROCHON

I am writing in response to the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle our education system as we know it. Per the National Education Association (NEA), Donald Trump’s proposed education bill includes $4.5 billion in cuts to K-12 schools alone and $12 billion in cuts total to the Department of Education. While these cuts will do far more than reduce the number of mental health providers in schools (which is the very inevitable outcome), as a prior school counselor, that is the focus of my attention in this letter.

I am writing concerning the above-the-fold article titled “Panel not ready on assisted suicide proposal” (Gazette, June 5). The article references the current Massachusetts Bill H.2505, which is entitled An Act Relative To End Of Life Options. A close reading of this bill reveals that it supports medical aid in dying to terminally ill individuals, allowing them to enlist the help of medical professionals in order to end their suffering. Surely, journalists understand the power of words, and the emotional valence of the term assisted suicide brings to mind assisting a despondent, otherwise healthy individual take their own life. In contrast to this, medical aid in dying entails providing compassionate assistance to a terminally ill individual, allowing them to choose to end their suffering, in a well-informed and dignified manner. As the Gazette continues to cover this issue, I would encourage the editors to avoid coined terms and to refer to the proposed legislation as the end of life options bill.

Don’t go to Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark, and Norway) unless you want to be shocked by how advanced and better off they are than us, especially now. We just returned from a trip there. While I know there are big differences between our countries, and that they also have challenges too, we could still learn so much from them. Stockholm — no trash or dog poop anywhere to be seen. A person on our tour got sick and two hours later a doctor came to our hotel and wrote her an antibiotic prescription so she could rejoin the tour a couple days later.