News
by Advocate Staff | Sep 8, 2023 | Arts, Featured, Music, News, Podcast, Stage, Uncategorized
By STEVE PFARRERStaff Writer Musicians are always looking for another venue to play. Actors and playwrights search for a new place to stage a show. Dancers want another floor to move on. At Holyoke Media, they all can find room. The independent, nonprofit...
by Advocate Staff | Aug 25, 2023 | Arts, Featured, Music, News, Staff Picks, Stage, Uncategorized
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Joe Farnsworth was 10 or 11 when he got the chance to meet a drumming legend: Max Roach. It was at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in 1979, where Roach taught. Farnsworth, who grew up in South Hadley, remembers how one of his...
by Steve Pfarrer | Nov 2, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Uncategorized
Growing up in Springfield, Aprell May knew a few bits and pieces about her Native American ancestry. But it was not something that family members talked about much. In fact, May says that for years she thought of herself as a “Lost Bird” or a “Missing Feather”...
by Bob Flaherty | Aug 26, 2022 | Articles, Featured, News, Uncategorized
In short, there’s simply not A more congenial spot For happily ever aftering Than … here … in … OK, our little Happy Valley ain’t exactly Camelot, but it’s got a lot going for it. Even in the midst of quarantines and arguing over masks and...
by Dusty Christensen | Aug 26, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Uncategorized
Stephen Parmenter married his wife Nina on a special, palindromic date: Nov. 11, 2011. Read another way: 11/11/11. So as the couple’s 11th anniversary approaches, Parmenter knew his anniversary gift to his wife had to be special. Nina is originally from Vietnam,...
by Bera Dunau | Aug 26, 2022 | Articles, Featured, News, Uncategorized
Cafe Balagan, the Main Street coffee shop associated with the Balagan Cannabis dispensary next door, has opened for late-night service. Rachael Workman, one of the owners of Cafe Balagan and Balagan Cannabis, said that she and her fellow owners, who are all in their...
by Emily Thurlow | Aug 26, 2022 | Articles, Featured, News, Uncategorized
When she was 10 years old, a fourth-grade teacher asked Debora Bridges during a classroom lesson “what it felt like to be a slave” as a “little colored girl.” It happened in 1961. In Amherst. Although her mother and grandmother were able to scrounge up an apology...
by Dusty Christensen | Apr 28, 2022 | Articles, Featured, News
When police raided a house at 276 Amherst St. in Granby earlier this year, they described finding an “elaborate” marijuana grow operation with nearly 1,400 plants, an extensive lighting system for six grow rooms and a packaging operation. The person they arrested,...
by Dusty Christensen and Abigail Soukup | Feb 24, 2022 | Articles, Featured, News
The machines inside Analytics Labs seem like futuristic, esoteric devices. Workers in lab coats move around instruments with names like Agilent High-Performance Liquid Chromatography System, performing what seems like complicated science experiments. But the work that...
by State House News Service | Mar 2, 2021 | Articles, Featured, News
Freshly restocked with three new members, the Cannabis Control Commission is gearing up for a year that will include the implementation of recently-approved regulations that allow for home delivery of non-medical marijuana, continuing to press for legislation that...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
For a time, it really looked like the large-scale repudiation of President Donald Trump so many of us had hoped for would come to pass — the polls seemed to predict it and Democrats were racking up mail-in and early vote advantages across the board. But instead the...
by Chris Goudreau | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
All they want is a clean slate. After nine-plus months of dealing with the tumultuous life upheaval caused by the pandemic – on-again, off-again jobs, opening and closing of public schools and the overall anxiety posed by COVID-19 – Paige Spaulding and her husband,...
by Joanna Buoniconti | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
If things smell a bit skunky in the neighborhood, don’t automatically point the figure at those nocturnal creatures. That odor may be emanating from cannabis plants that have cropped up, so to speak, at homes throughout the Pioneer Valley. It’s been four years since...
by State House News Service | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, News
BOSTON — With the threat of legal challenges looming, state regulators gave final approval on Nov. 30 to new regulations that will reshape the legal marijuana industry to include home delivery businesses initially available only to social equity program participants...
by Chris Goudreau | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Across Court Square in the city of Springfield the words, “BLACK LIVES MATTER,” are painted on Court Street in 20-foot-tall, bright yellow letters — a powerful symbol of a movement that has taken on a new urgency nationally and in our own backyard in this chaotic year...
by Chris Goudreau | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
While Springfield grapples with the fallout of a highly critical U.S. Department of Justice report, other police departments throughout the Valley are implementing changes in the wake of a national wave of protests following the death of George Floyd. In Northampton,...
by Joanna Buoniconti | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Nearly two years after the first recreational marijuana sales began in Massachusetts, it’s safe to say the budding industry is contributing mightily to the state and regional economy, despite a significant hit to sales earlier this spring when the coronavirus pandemic...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
I remember when I first got into journalism covering community planning meetings with quaint names like “Vision 2020,” about what this year would be like. Now here we are, and I can honestly say I don’t think any amount of planning would have prepared us for the...
by Brigid Glackin | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
On the evening of Oct. 29, 1915, a group of 500 women of the Equal Suffrage League, dressed in white, and wearing, across their chests, gold sashes emblazoned with VOTES FOR WOMEN, gathered in the alleys around their headquarters on Center Street in Northampton. At...
by The League of Women Voters of Northampton | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
With the Nov. 3 General Election less and a month away, here are some key voting dates compiled by the League of Women Voters of Northampton: Voting timeline Sept. 14: Vote by mail applications are mailed to all voters for the election. Oct. 17-30: Early in-person...
by Steve Pfarrer | Apr 30, 2020 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News
Kris Delmhorst, holding an acoustic guitar in her lap, wore a hopeful smile as she sat recently in a room in her Shelburne Falls home and stared into a video camera. “I’m here,” she said. “Are you here? I think we’re here together, people … thank you for coming.” Like...
by Steve Pfarrer | Apr 30, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
As deadly as it has been, COVID-19 doesn’t have the historical track record of what has consistently been America’s second leading cause of death: cancer. Yet the novel coronavirus has certainly made matters more difficult for people struggling with cancer and for...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 15, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
It was October 2018 when Emily Collins of Holyoke, now 30, had her second child, Sebastian, who was born 12½ weeks premature. Sebastian lived for 15 days, then died at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. Collins’ friends and family, apart from her sister and...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 15, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
No farms, no food. That bumper sticker slogan feels more apt than ever in this time when government officials are determining what counts as an “essential service.” Could there ever have been a doubt that those growing the food to feed us pass the test?...
by Steve Pfarrer | Apr 9, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Andrea Hairston was already a pretty serious bike commuter, riding through most kinds of weather to her teaching job at Smith College, when she had an encounter several years ago with the late Frances Crowe of Northampton. It was a cold winter day, with snow coming...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 9, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
Now firmly in the second month of intense disruption caused by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, it’s getting clearer to see that information is among our most highly prized assets as we continue to shelter in place and undertake other efforts to flatten the...
by Chris Goudreau | Apr 1, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Schools across the state, country and the globe are closed amid the coronavirus pandemic. Here in Massachusetts, though schools are slated to reopen at the beginning of May, they’re now closed per Gov. Charlie Baker’s order. In the meantime, local educators in the...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Apr 1, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
I’m sad to report that I was among those laid off last week by Valley Advocate parent company Newspapers of New England, which also owns the Daily Hampshire Gazette and the Greenfield Recorder. As you can see, I’m still here writing the Advocate’s...
by Luis Fieldman | Mar 25, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Editor’s note: Due to the dangers facing those seeking asylum and their families in their home countries, as well as the sensitive natures of their legal cases, the Advocate is using pseudonyms Natty, Eva, and María for asylum seekers featured in this story and...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 24, 2020 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured, News
The most useful COVID-19 app yet Yes, we all know that toilet paper is in short supply as a result of coronavirus panic shopping, but here’s something new: an app that lets you know exactly how many poops you have left before your toilet paper stockpile runs out....
by Advocate Staff | Mar 20, 2020 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured
Today’s forecast: Droplets of iron Swiss and other European astronomers examining a hot, Jupiter-like planet 390 light-years away have discovered that rain falls there in an unusual form: iron droplets. The mega planet, called Wasp-76b, is so hot on its sunny side —...
by Luis Fieldman | Mar 18, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Editor’s note: Due to the dangers facing those seeking asylum and their families in their home countries, as well as the sensitive nature of their legal cases, the Advocate is using pseudonyms Valentina, Isabel, Ramon, and Santiago for asylum seekers featured in this...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Mar 18, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
As news pours in regarding the coronavirus, it is becoming clear the scale of how many people’s lives are affected in such dramatic ways. In terms of the Advocate’s function as the keeper of the community calendar, we’re having to reinvent as we go with the vast...
by Chris Goudreau | Mar 17, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
David Katz, a retired family practice physician from Northampton, arrived in Brownsville, Texas, on March 14 to help refugees across the border living in a camp in Matamoros, Mexico. He planned on arriving with two other physicians, one of which is also from...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 17, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News, Podcast
Staff writer Luis Fieldman speaks about the first part of his three-part series on asylum seekers coming to Western Mass. This part focuses on the stories of Ramon and Santiago, whose names we changed to protect their identities as they escaped violence in their home...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 13, 2020 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured
More Than Just Birdcage Liner At the Advocate, we’ve had our fair share of readers disagreeing with our coverage claim the only thing this paper is good for is lining their birdcages. Well, an Australian newspaper took things a step further, and printed extra blank...
by Luis Fieldman | Mar 11, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Editor’s note: Due to the dangers facing those seeking asylum and their families in their home countries, as well as the sensitive nature of their legal cases, the Advocate is using pseudonyms Ramon and Santiago for two asylum seekers featured in this story and...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Mar 11, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
This week, the Advocate begins a three-part series by Luis Fieldman about asylum seekers who have made it to western Massachusetts, and those who have helped to get them here. Political stability is something we in the United States take for granted. Even having the...
by Luis Fieldman | Mar 11, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Over the course of the Trump presidency, seeking asylum in the United States has become more difficult. Below are some policies implemented by the Trump administration that have placed additional obstacles before asylum seekers in recent years. Detaining asylum...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 5, 2020 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured, News
Gecko CPR A man from Australia might have saved a tiny gecko’s life after he fished the lizard out of his beer at a pub and then performed CPR on the animal when it seemingly stopped breathing. The man thought staff at the Amble Inn in Corindi Beach, New South Wales...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Mar 4, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
It’s Opposite Day in the Democratic primary. Super Tuesday was forecast to be a major victory for the progressive movement, culminating in a possibly insurmountable delegate lead for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, with moderates hopelessly divided. Instead, former Vice...
by Chris Goudreau | Mar 4, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
With countries across the world responding to the threat of coronavirus outbreaks, here in Massachusetts and, more locally, in the Pioneer Valley, local hospitals and municipalities are working to prepare and plan for a potential outbreak of the new respiratory viral...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Mar 3, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
I’ve watched with growing concern the reports about the coronavirus morphing from an outbreak local to a region of China into what health experts are warning could become a full-blown pandemic. It’s important to state up front that the risk of contracting the virus in...
by Luis Fieldman | Feb 27, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
A local man concerned about new rules proposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) affecting drone pilots is organizing a national protest in Washington, D.C., this weekend. Michael Duhl of Deerfield is the head organizer of “Help Save Our Hobby,” which will...
by Chris Goudreau | Feb 19, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
For three years, since China instituted stricter purity standards in the recyclable materials they accept, a single piece of paper has shielded most Western Mass communities from the higher price of recycling experienced in much of the country: a multi-year contract...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Feb 19, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
Tactical forces are descending upon Massachusetts. What is the existential threat that brought this about? A hunt for the undocumented among us. WBUR reported last week that “SWAT-like immigration officers” are in Boston, and possibly will be coming to other parts of...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 18, 2020 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured
The Bite of a Yogi A 46-year-old Maryland woman is charged in court with second-degree assault after she allegedly bit a man’s neck for peeing on her yoga mat in late January. The story appeared in the Baltimore Sun last week. Although there are still details to come...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 12, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
Democrats, and truly all Americans outside of the president’s devoted base, have now been spending years trying to think up who best to challenge Trump to vote him out of office. The editorial staff at the Valley Advocate is unanimous. Our choice is Vermont Senator...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 11, 2020 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured
You’ve Got (lots of) Mail In what we can only imagine was a scene reminiscent of Harry Potter’s acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a couple from Ohio received 55,000 identical letters. But the contents of those letters — and the reason there...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Feb 10, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
The Advocate took home four awards at this year’s New England Better Newspaper Competition, including a first place award for a front page design by Jennifer Levesque. The winning design of the March 28 Valley Advocate earlier this year featured the cover story...
by From Our Readers | Feb 7, 2020 | Articles, Featured, Letters from our Readers
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we now living under the rule of an authoritarian style government? Do we have a supreme leader who rules as a dictator want-to-be? Has our government become subject to fascism? Have we sacrificed freedom for a...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 7, 2020 | Articles, Bizarro Briefs, Featured
A Drug Lord’s Zoo There likely wouldn’t be hippopotamuses living in Columbia if it weren’t for Pablo Escobar. After his death in 1993, the drug lord’s abandoned zoo was dismantled, and while African animals such as rhinos and giraffes were given new homes, there...
by Andy Castillo | Feb 5, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
A little over a decade ago, David Manning, 81, retired from Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech in Northampton, where he worked for 45 years as a teacher and administrator. In retirement, with additional time on his hands, Manning dove headlong into the many...
by Luis Fieldman | Feb 5, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Bella Vendetta, who worked for Whately’s Club Castaway and planned to move forward with a line-up of queer and trans performers, said she left after three weeks following a dispute with ownership over those plans. “My original thoughts were sadness that it didn’t work...
by Sammy Croteau | Feb 5, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Amherst Cinema’s original film series, Bellwether: New Directions in Cinema recently received a $15,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Amherst Cinema’s General Manager, George Myers, Pioneer Valley-based filmmaker Luke Meyer, and...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Feb 4, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
In years past, there may have been times for me when the beginning of February was a time to look forward to the Super Bowl, or even the State of the Union with other presidents. This year, it was all about the Iowa caucus. After more than a year of anticipation, we...
by Dave Madeloni | Jan 31, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
For past 20-plus years I would head to downtown Northampton to run errands on Saturday mornings and smile at the small group holding anti-war signs in front of the courthouse on Main Street. A few weeks ago, I decided to join them. I have joined many a protest in the...
by Our Readers | Jan 31, 2020 | Articles, Featured, Letters from our Readers, News
Gambling research already underway In response to “Between the Lines: Problem gambling data collection is coming too late,” published Jan. 16-22, 2020. On January 15, 2020, the Valley Advocate published an editorial about the importance of problem gambling-related...
by Steve Pfarrer | Jan 29, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Plymouth, Massachusetts, is gearing up for a big anniversary this year: It was in December 1620 that a group of English Puritans, who came to be known as the Pilgrims, landed on the shore of eastern Massachusetts and began to build a settlement that would eventually...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Jan 29, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
With recent success in the expansion of North-South rail, in some ways it feels like there is momentum finally building for an East-West line. However, Gov. Charlie Baker seemed to throw some cold water on that last week during the opening of a handicapped-accessible...
