Here are today's headlines:

Formaldehyde spill at Florence plastics company draws state environmental response

NORTHAMPTON - State environmental regulators are investigating a spill of 100 gallons of formaldehyde solution on the grounds of the BI-QEM plastics company in Florence this week.On Tuesday at around 9 a.m., the Northampton Fire Department notified the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Prote...

Art Walk back on the circuit after two-year lapse in Easthampton

EASTHAMPTON - After a 25-month hiatus, the monthly Art Walk is returning to the city this Friday.The Art Walk was due to return originally last September and then in February, but with surges in COVID-19 variants delta and omicron the once-monthly event was put on hold out of concern for the safety...

Easthampton couple donates 78 acres of forest in Whately for conservation

WHATELY - An Easthampton couple has donated more than 75 acres of Whately forest to be conserved by the New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF).Robert and Susan Boone's 78-acre property in West Whately is broken into three parcels and will become a part of NEFF's Pooled Timber Income Fund, which plac...

A haunted past: Amherst writer's new novel explores the troubled life of a WWII refugee in 1950s America

Historical fiction writer David Gillham has written three novels set in the World War II era, an interest he traces to hearing stories about the war from his father, who served in the Army during the conflict, and his sense that the war and its aftermath - and the horrors of the Holocaust - still re...

Amherst's Delaney MacPhetres commits to play basketball at WPI

Anyone who's watched Amherst star Delaney MacPhetres knows her basketball skills were good enough to take her to the next level. MacPhetres made that official recently, committing to Worcester Polytechnic Institute to play Division III basketball for the Goats.MacPhetres was one of the Hurricanes'...

Whately's Christian Lane bridge to operate at one lane for at least 5 or 10 years

WHATELY - Residents can expect the Christian Lane bridge over Mill River to be reduced to one lane for "quite a few years," according to Highway Superintendent Keith Bardwell.Bardwell said that of the thousands of bridges in Massachusetts, several hundred are structurally deficient, which means the...

Around and About with Richard McCarthy: When a carrot is as sweet as chocolate

A woman I know is a performing arts instructor. One of the ways she plies her profession is by giving lessons at senior centers in eastern Massachusetts. She told me a story about a man and two women and a fork in the road.She said that a man who is a regular at one of the senior centers has a wife...

UMass spring football: OC Steve Casula building Minutemen's offense from the ground up

AMHERST – Steve Casula's résumé may as well have a line that says "architect."The UMass football team's new offensive coordinator has made a career of building and designing offenses from scratch. He helped Davenport (a Division II school) start its program in 2016. Casula aided Michigan's offensive...