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By ANTHONY CAMMALLERI

GREENFIELD — The FBI is searching for 47-year-old Yanrong Zhu, a fugitive Greenfield resident who allegedly conspired with six others to grow, transport and sell illicit marijuana in a ring that spanned Massachusetts, Maine and New York, and relied on labor from Chinese nationals who were smuggled into the country.

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — The man who purchased two local dealerships from McGovern Automotive Group about four months ago plans to open Greenfield Truck & Equipment on Beacon Street within the next couple weeks.

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — Carl Heebner has for about eight years enticed Circle K customers to donate to the Special Olympics in July by offering to cut or shave his hair. This time around, five of his coworkers have stepped forward to help with the cause.

By ANTHONY CAMMALLERI

GREENFIELD — After sitting vacant for more than a year, the roughly 1-acre parking lot at 53 Hope St. is one step closer to potentially becoming a housing complex.

Another big jump in water and sewer rates will continue to be a challenge for residents. Averaging 9% per year, the rates will double approximately every eight years! The Department of Public Works works hard and deserves appropriate raises and indeed cost of materials continues to climb. As evidenced by the constant construction and emergency water main repairs needed, much of our 100-year-old infrastructure had been neglected for quite a while; we can place blame squarely on the “rates never went up that much back in my day” folks!

By LUKE MACANNUCO

Piti Theatre Co.’s annual DinoFest is evolving into something larger this year: Dino Trail Week.

By ERIN-LEIGH HOFFMAN

GREENFIELD — Despite concerns circulating about the future of Baystate Franklin Medical Center after the passage of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act that cuts roughly $1.1 trillion in health care spending, Baystate Health’s chief financial officer advises the Greenfield hospital is not at risk of closure.

While shopping for plants recently at a local flower store, I saw a woman with ivy vines and a peony in her cart. She had been shopping in the discount area and had spent a long time looking for “the best of the rest,” some plants looking half dead. But she had found some lovely choices. After admiring her choices and a brief chat, she went to the checkout but came back quickly as she had lost her wallet. A short time later she returned with a smile and her wallet, and I told her she was lucky to get the last peony worth buying. I gave her a hug, wished her happy planting and she went on her way. After I found the best of the rest, I checked out, but when I got to my car … she had left me the last peony by our car! My heart melted! But she was gone, without a note. This is my “thank uou” note to her.

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — The end of the fiscal year coincided with the conclusion of a 39-year career at the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, as Donna Dudkiewicz retired as the organization’s chief financial officer on June 30.

During the 1940s and 50s, single-use items were just coming into vogue. Remember the advice given to Ben in “The Graduate?” Plastics? It was certainly taken seriously and now has become an almost insurmountable problem. The June 28 My Turn on reusable take-out containers is great [“It’s time for reusable take-out containers”]. But why wait for businesses to implement the practice on their own or worse, wait for government to pass yet another law. Do it yourself.

Hello MAGA people. I have a challenge for you. I want you to identify one good thing about the past six months that personally has touched you as a New Englander. For instance, anytime I drive down a newly paved road I think, “Thanks Infrastructure Act. Thanks Joe.” So what is it you can thank Donald for? Please don’t tell me about closed southern borders unless you have been to them. Whatever is happening 3,000 miles away has not touched you personally. Perhaps you know someone who has been deported locally. Has that improved your life? Did you get a job that the immigrant couldn’t? Maybe your boss gave you a raise now that those immigrants aren’t bringing wages down. Tell me about it please. Can you thank Donald Trump for cheaper or better health care? How about better policing so we can feel safer? Maybe it’s your gun collection, does that make you safer? But did Biden do anything to restrict your guns these past four years? I can’t think of anything. Has Trump provided you with less expensive food or housing? How about lower taxes? Exactly how much do you expect to get back from the Treasury? Is it more than those tariffs are costing you? I know I haven’t covered everything. So please help me understand what is something real and concrete that MAGA folks can point to, touch, and hold up that they are getting that they were not getting before. Thank you for your help.

As a 43-year-old stay-at-home mother of three and the first in my family to graduate high school, pursuing a college degree has been both a personal dream and a powerful act of transformation. For years, I put my children first, guiding them through life with love, sacrifice, and hope that they will have opportunities I never had. But somewhere along the way, I realized that my own dreams still mattered and that it wasn’t too late to pursue them. And coming from parents who did not graduate from high school, let alone go to college, I had no guidance in doing so for myself. I was left to figure life out while my friends’ parents took them on trips to visit campuses across the country.

By ERIN-LEIGH HOFFMAN

MILLERS FALLS — Continuing to build on a groundswell of support for Greenfield Fire Capt. John Whitney and his family following a brain cancer diagnosis, Element Brewing Co. is looking to raise money and awareness through a “Thankful Thursday” fundraising event on Thursday, July 10.

By CHRIS LARABEE

GREENFIELD — Three local entrepreneurs recently took the floor at the Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center, splitting $10,000 in the final installment of an annual pitch competition.

By LUKE MACANNUCO

The painted gaze of Littlefox, a Native American woman from Minneapolis, follows viewers who enter The LAVA Center to view the arts venue’s current exhibit, “Portraits in RED: Missing and Murdered Indigenous People” by artist and activist Nayana LaFond.

By DANIEL CANTOR YALOWITZ

The fight continues as the battle rages. In my lifetime, I have never seen nor experienced such bifurcation in politics and between and within our political “parties.” It all seems and feels unending, and who knows what (bad) news lurks just around the corner, pregnant and waiting for the release of the next news cycle? Am I the only one out there who feels exhausted and exasperated? The never-ending element of all this “news” has begun to feel like being forced to watch — and live — in that iconic Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day. Over and over we go, doomed in a way to recapitulate all that happened yesterday again today until, and if, we learn and integrate our lessons into our lives.

GREENFIELD — Just Roots community farm at 43 Glenbrook Drive will offer “The Care & Keeping of Flowers,” a workshop led by Ferron Dooley Fairchild of Fernie Floral, on Saturday, July 19, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m.

By MADISON SCHOFIELD

GREENFIELD — The city was bursting with pride and fireworks this weekend as hundreds gathered at Beacon Field for the annual Independence Day celebration

By ANTHONY CAMMALLERI

GREENFIELD — After announcing in March that the city’s new Fire Station used 250% more energy than anticipated, Director of Energy and Sustainability Carole Collins said teams have identified the problem and are working to solve it.

By ALLEN WOODS

In the movie dramatizing the Watergate scandal, a secretive informant meets a reporter in a dark parking garage and advises him to “follow the money” in order to unravel the mystery involving a botched robbery directed by Richard Nixon’s White House. The actual events (testimony from White House lawyers, a mysterious 18-minute gap in the Oval Office tapes when the crisis was discussed) might have been even more sensational than the movie, but the movie phrase had legs. It is now a directive for understanding controversial government and business actions.