Here are today's headlines:

Memorial Day events in Florence, Amherst: 'The war dead cannot and will not be forgotten'

NORTHAMPTON - As the names of the city's veterans who have died over the past year were read aloud at Park Street Cemetery in Florence Monday morning, members of the Junior Girl Scouts Troop 64642 placed flowers at the gravestones for several soldiers.Though scaled back and more lightly attended by...

Another serving of ice cream at Tasty Top in Easthampton

EASTHAMPTON - After surviving a planned demolition and seven years sitting vacant, Tasty Top ice cream is back under new management for the summer.Over the years, the 93-99 Northampton St. property's future has been uncertain, with a Stop and Shop plaza and a marijuana business previously propose...

Gazda named director of region's educational resource center

NORTHAMPTON - Todd H. Gazda, the new executive director for the Collaborative for Educational Services, got a somewhat late start in education, as he first worked as a contract attorney after earning a law degree in the mid 1990s.But the Middlefield native later became a social studies and English...

Business, solar bylaws on the table for annual Town Meeting in Deerfield

DEERFIELD - A proposed bylaw requiring chain stores to consider "rural character in their designs" will be among the articles to come before voters at the June 12 annual Town Meeting.Articles 17 through 19 will seek to implement a new "formula-based business" bylaw, which would apply to chain stores...

Kouji Ishida's HR lifts Hopkins Academy past Belchertown, 9-5

BELCHERTOWN – Kouji Ishida stopped at second base and asked Belchertown shortstop Eli Sayball-Wimmer. He'd never hit a home run over the fence before - not just in high school, in his whole life - and the Hopkins Academy senior wanted to be sure it went over the fence."I got a first-pitch fastball...

Guest columnist Bob Nagle: No questions asked - take your medication

An exhortation that is asked daily by our loved ones. The perturbation is overwhelming when we are experiencing agosognosia, the humiliation of being told to take a medication that you don't believe you need is infuriating.Although my loved ones are resolute with solicitude, they are palpably overwh...

Columnist Joanna Buoniconti: Learning to embrace the unknown

Since I consider you all my friends, I feel obligated to be open with you about something: I'm a Type A person who takes pride in having my next steps planned out. And for the majority of my almost 22-year life, I have been able to follow the path laid out for me when I was born, relatively seamles...

Book Bag: 'Teaching English to Refugees' by Robert Radin; 'Out of Order' by Howard Faerstein

Teaching English to Refugees by Robert Radin; Ibidem Press Robert Radin, the director of citizenship and immigration services for Jewish Family Service in Springfield, has worked with immigrants and refugees from some of the most troubled places in the world: Somalia, The Democratic Republic of Cong...

Earth Matters: Hummingbirds part of intricate web of relationships

Many of the 349 glistening species of hummingbirds have gemological labels, with amethyst, emerald, garnet, jewel, gem, ruby, sapphire and topaz mounted in their English names. These gems are alive, the names reflecting their iridescent colors, and they provide illustration of biological principles....