Here are today's headlines:

The masks come off: Face coverings now optional for many area schools

WESTHAMPTON - Karen Tetrault's art classroom was fairly quiet Monday afternoon as students sat hunched over their desks, using pencils to practice shading inside of circular shapes on their drawing paper.It was the picture of a regular Hampshire Regional High School classroom, except for one major...

Down to the wire on delegates: 8 towns yet to organize a Democratic Party caucus

WORTHINGTON - Eight Hampshire County communities are in danger of not having a say in which Democratic Party candidates will run for a slew of statewide offices this year, after having failed - so far - to organize a caucus to send delegates to the Massachusetts Democratic Party Convention in June.A...

Ending mask mandate brings mixed views at Amherst Regional High School

AMHERST - With the state allowing school districts to decide whether they want to lift their mask mandates as of Feb. 28, students and teachers have mixed feelings about doing so at Amherst Regional High School.ARHS has a vaccination rate of over 85%, which means the mask mandate can be lifted whene...

Parts of Jones Library's Kinsey Memorial Garden moving to Kestrel HQ

AMHERST - A garden installed outside the Jones Library in 1999 that pays tribute to a late University of Massachusetts international education professor, is likely to have many of its plants and other elements relocated to a South Amherst site in 2023.With the project to expand and renovate the buil...

UMass women's basketball team sets focus on Atlantic 10 Tournament

All year long the refrain from UMass women's basketball head coach Tory Verdi has been the same – this is a team that wants to win a championship. They came heartbreakingly close last season despite a number of obstacles, making it all the way to the Atlantic 10 title game with just seven players on...

Guest columnist John Skibiski: As a war in Ukraine unfolds, remember that democracy is precious

Signs of further annihilation of Ukraine by Russia seem imminent. The world is viewing how desperate survivors of a despotic regime value democracy - by facing death rather than revert back to authoritarian governance. A repeat of the early events that led to World War II has taken place, as the wo...

Columnist Joanna Buoniconti: The disability representation movement has begun

A common truth among the disabled population is that people who have disabilities have the natural ability to make lemonade out of the worst possible lemons. Because more often than not, we make the conscious decision to take the harmful standards imposed upon us by society and make something posit...

Smith College, Amherst College punch tickets to NCAA D3 women's basketball tourney

March Madness will officially be invading Hampshire County this week.Both the Smith College and Amherst College women's basketball teams punched their tickets to the upcoming NCAA Division 3 Tournament on Monday, as the brackets were revealed for the 64-team field.Smith was an automatic qualifier fo...