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By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — A former Bernardston and Buckland police officer will spend the next four to five years in state prison after pleading guilty to eight child pornography charges in a change of plea hearing Monday.Jacob Wrisley, 42, pleaded guilty in...

By JAMES PENTLAND

NORTHAMPTON — Looking to strengthen and better coordinate the work of animal welfare professionals in Hampshire and Franklin counties, the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office is launching a task force to share information and provide training.A...

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — A local man facing 15 charges stemming from an alleged shooting at Energy Park and a separate alleged home invasion in Bernardston will remain held without bail, a Franklin County Superior Court judge ruled on Thursday.Gabe Adams, 21, has...

By BELLA LEVAVI

GREENFIELD — The Franklin Regional Transit Authority (FRTA) now offers weekend fixed-route transportation.With additional funds from the Fair Share Amendment, all free routes will run through the weekend, providing much-needed transportation access in...

By BELLA LEVAVI

On snowy weekends in the winter, groups of snowmobilers can be found at the tops of mountains and along the vast networks of forest trails connecting towns throughout Massachusetts and beyond. “To be outside in the winter doing something; that is the...

By CHRIS LARABEE

The 33rd annual Poet’s Seat Poetry Contest is now seeking submissions through the end of February, as the Friends of the Greenfield Public Library prepares to bring the contest’s awards ceremony to the new library.The Friends of the Greenfield Public...

By GARRETT COTE

A couple weeks ago, I sat inside Smith Academy’s Sherry Webb Gymnasium in Hatfield to cover a girls basketball game between the Falcons and Duggan Academy of Springfield. As the game progressed, the displeasure from supporters only grew louder – and...

By SHERYL HUNTER

With a new year comes new music, and 2024 looks like it will be an excellent year for both recordings and live music. Now that the holidays are over, some local musicians have dropped new singles in recent weeks as they gear up for full-length...

By EVELINE MACDOUGALL

Co-owners Kaihla Laurent, 25, and Jaydon Diamond, 27, chose the image of a bird for their Woodnote Coffee Company logo; a woodnote is a natural musical sound or song, like that of a wild bird. The allusion seems fitting, as the young company recently...

You might have noticed a few people dressed in bright orange jumpsuits on a recent Saturday in downtown Greenfield. Those orange suits are the uniforms worn by the prisoners at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.As of April 2023, the U.S. has...

Dear readers: you don’t need a geology course to visualize dinosaurs! Two hundred million years ago, the Connecticut River Valley was indeed “Jurassic Park” in a great rift valley similar to the famous ones of east Africa today. Podokesaurus, our new...

Another talented class of runners will be inducted into the Western Mass Runners’ Hall of Fame in March.The WMRHOF’s Board of Directors announced the inductees for the third class to enter the hall this week, with induction set for March 8 at the...

By MARY BYRNE

GREENFIELD — Thanks to a partnership with the Gill-Montague Regional School District, the aquatics programming at Franklin County’s YMCA can continue for the duration of renovation work on its 75-year-old pool.The YMCA’s pool closed on Jan. 1 for an...

Health New England awards $100K to local nonprofits SPRINGFIELD — Health New England has awarded nearly $100,000 in grants to nonprofits that address mental health and the opioid epidemic in western Massachusetts.The company’s Diversity, Equity,...

By MARY BYRNE

BUCKLAND — In partnering with the University of Washington, Franklin County’s YMCA plans to contribute to a study on the effectiveness of delivering a particular group exercise program remotely versus in person. The program, EnhanceFitness, is an...

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — The state Supreme Judicial Court has ordered a new trial for the former Greenfield man serving a life sentence for a 1994 murder.Elvio J. Marrero, 62, had his conviction overturned on Thursday, 28 years after being sent to the...

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — A Franklin County Superior Court judge has ruled that two men accused of beating another man nearly to death in Millers Falls the night after Christmas will at least temporarily remain held without the right to bail due to their perceived...

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — One of the five North Quabbin residents facing charges of kidnapping and other crimes stemming from an alleged incident last February has had nine of her charges dismissed while other charges, and all those of her co-defendants, remain in...

By DOUG SELWYN

I began this series of columns by sharing three questions I would pose to each entering class of teacher candidates: Why do we have school, what should happen at school and who should decide those questions. When I reviewed reader responses to the...

By CHRIS LARABEE

GREENFIELD — As the Franklin County Community Development Corporation takes the lead on two existing entrepreneurial programs, it is bolstering those programs with a new UPstart initiative.UPstart is the expansion of the already-existing Take the...