Search Results

Keyword search: belchertown ma

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Revised regulations on the sale of tobacco products in Amherst drafted by the Board of Health, including restricting oral nicotine pouches to adults-only tobacco stores, is winning both praise and criticism from the public, with advocates for curtailing access to tobacco calling for the town to bolster the rules by adopting a nicotine-free generation measure.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — The School Committee is pushing back against a potential $2.1 million cut to its proposed $36 million level-services school budget that would result in the loss of more than 20 positions, a blow to the schools after the committee’s proposed budgets have been cut $4 million in the past five years.

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — A new project called Branding Belchertown aims to overhaul the visual identity of the commuter community in hopes of distinguishing Belchertown as a destination for tourism and business.

Here’s a bit of history: Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the reincarnated incarcerated H. Rap Brown, was a consequential figure of the 1960s Black Liberation Movement and author of one of the most iconic aphorisms to emerge from this period. During a 1967 media interview, Mr. Al-Amin declared, “Violence is a part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie.”

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — A New Hampshire timber company has closed on a massive land buy of nearly 2,400 acres in seven communities in Hampshire and Franklin counties, acquiring five parcels for more than $20 million from Amherst-based W.D. Cowls Inc.Including 1,050...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — Three artists will transform the Belchertown Transfer Station’s brown recycling containers into works of art that incorporate opinions from residents in the design and execution of the murals.A collaboration between the Creative Economy...

This Christmas Day, I did not want to read any of the mostly terrible news happening in this country and the world, but I was only too happy to read Andrea Ayvazian’s Dec. 21 column “A blessing while weeding a cemetery in the desert.” Such a moving...

On Friday, Dec. 20, about 5:30 p.m., I was driving home east on Route 9 from South East Street in Amherst. It was terrifying. My good snow tires had zero traction on the icy surface. Vehicles were going 10 mph yet still skidding.At one point I saw a...

BELCHERTOWN — The body of a 27-year-old Belchertown man, last seen by his family two days earlier, was discovered in a wooded area of town Thursday morning, according to the Northwestern district attorney’s office.Belchertown police officers and...

What do Sisyphus of Greek mythology and UMass football have in common? Let’s see. Sisyphus was a troublesome king and an unceasing provocation to Zeus. Consequently, Zeus dispatched Sisyphus to the underworld, where Hades deemed that Sisyphus would...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — The Board of Health has approved regulations prohibiting the sale of nicotine products within the town’s limits to anyone born after Jan. 1, 2004, making Belchertown the first municipality in western Massachusetts and the 11th in the...

By EMILEE KLEIN

SOUTH HADLEY — South Hadley Police Department’s newest officer has arrived at the station, bringing all his excitement, energy and fur with him.The South Hadley Police Department will launch its comfort dog program with Office Murphy, an 8-week-old...

On Dec. 3, 1860, President James Buchanan delivered his State of the Union address justifying the fugitive slave laws, denying the right of the territory of Kansas to abolish slavery, and blaming Northern abolitionist agitators for inciting slave...

By MICHAEL CAROLAN

Richard McCarthy’s column “Tortured artists’ deaths no blaze of glory” (Gazette, Nov. 2) concerns the self-destructive lives of two writers, both of whom I taught for a decade at Clark University. Unlike them, I escaped my tortured-artist days, so...

By CAROLYN BROWN

Decades ago, it was common for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities to be kept in inhumane conditions inside horrific institutions. With the release of his new book, “Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952,”...

Before entering the Mos Eisley spaceport seeking an interplanetary Uber to Alderaan, Obi-Wan Kenobi cautioned Luke Skywalker, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” Evidently, Mr. Kenobi had never been to Washington, D.C.,...

By EMILEE KLEIN

BELCHERTOWN — The town’s Board of Health will vote to draft a generational nicotine sales ban on Wednesday, preventing anyone born after Jan 1, 2004 from ever purchasing tobacco products in town.Board members, along with Director of Public Health...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

NORTHAMPTON — Pedestrian safety and utility infrastructure improvements totaling $4.4 million for an affordable housing development in Easthampton, $1.94 million to build a new roundabout in Amherst at the edge of the University of Massachusetts...

By Melissa Karen Sances

“And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” — Friedrich NietzscheI have never liked ghost stories. But when I heard about Half-Hanged Mary of Hadley, I was spellbound. Not that long ago, and not that far from here, a...

The writer Alice Roosevelt Longworth once quipped, “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.” Could she be Donald Trump’s muse? Seeing that he is a Juilliard-trained narcissistic prevaricator discharging daily geysers of...