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By RUSS VERNON-JONES

There are many ways to describe and to analyze what is happening in the federal government since Donald Trump was inaugurated. But the clearest and most consistent pattern is that the billionaires have taken over and have started to destroy anything that interferes with them becoming richer and richer. Their greed appears to know no bounds. I find this truly frightening.

By RYAN AMES

AMHERST – Freshman Yahmani McKayle’s triple-double powered the UMass women’s basketball team past Stonehill, 86-40, during the opening round of the WNIT on Thursday at the Mullins Center.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

NORTHAMPTON — Though Massachusetts is not one of at least six states that will lose out on $500 million in food deliveries promised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the leader of the region’s largest food bank remains concerned about future cuts.

EMILEE KLEIN

NORTHAMPTON — Cities and towns in Hampshire County are facing spikes in health insurance costs between 10% and 20% for fiscal year 2026, an increase in a normally stable cost that promises to eat into bottom lines during an already tight budget season.

At 4:30 in the morning, my husband was drinking his first cup of coffee, yes, really that early. He heard a sound that wasn’t part of the normal din of an old house. So he went down to the basement to investigate. He found water spraying all over from the outside water service line. It had a hole ahead of the shutoff valve, so there was nothing he could do except seek help.

I was glad to see Sen. Ed Markey visit Northampton, while many of his Republican peers avoid contentious town halls. While both Sens. Markey and Elizabeth Warren have been vocal in opposing the lawlessness of the Trump administration, there is more that can be done.

There is important background information explaining Elon Musk’s Nazi salute at a Trump inauguration party. Musk’s grandfather was born in Canada of South African parents and emigrated back to South Africa in the 1950s. According to reporter Chris McGreal, writing in The Guardian Jan. 26, “that’s when apartheid had just started to kick in. South Africa had had discriminatory laws before, but you see the specific apartheid laws, which are much more aggressive, and in many ways reminiscent of the Nazi Nuremberg laws against Jews in the 1930s.”

We were pleased to learn that Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra has announced plans to run for reelection. We believe that Mayor Sciarra is a competent and compassionate leader, and we feel lucky and blessed to have her at the helm here in our unique and wonderful city.

I appreciated Rutherford J. Platt’s Feb. 24 column on evil as called out by Rep. Jim McGovern [“Applause for calling out ‘evil’”]. The evil cited was “America’s role as a responsible world power is being diminished: Foreign aid has been thrown into chaos, endangering lives worldwide.”

By CHRIS LARABEE

SOUTH DEERFIELD — As protests against the Trump administration proliferate across the U.S., a new group of voices is rising in South Deerfield, on the corner of Route 116 and Sugarloaf Street.

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — More than a half-dozen restaurants in Hampshire County are partnering with survival centers in Northampton and Amherst to provide free meals to those facing food insecurity in the region as part of a larger initiative taking place statewide.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — Best-case scenarios for the Amherst elementary and Amherst-Pelham Regional schools, in which the budgets are around $2 million short of providing level services for the 2025-2026 school year, are leading a member of Amherst’s Town Council to suggest town officials find a way to get more money to local public education.

By COLIN A. YOUNG

BOSTON — About 3.1 million people in Massachusetts already have a Real ID-compliant driver’s license or identification card and demand for the Registry of Motor Vehicles appointment required to get one is high ahead of a long-awaited May deadline.

By SCOTT MERZBACH

NORTHAMPTON — On an early March weekend, as numerous musicians took the stage at venues across the city for the Back Porch Music Festival, some spent a portion of their downtime at Mill River Music and Guitars, relaxing on the store’s couches, surrounded by hundreds of acoustic and electric guitars displayed on the walls.

By DR. JULIA FISCHER

By ERIN-LEIGH HOFFMAN

GREENFIELD — The more than 700 people who attended a town hall event with U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern on Tuesday relayed an expansive mandate for him to take back to Congress: Defend federal institutions, create a stronger coalition of Democrats and be a voice of resistance to the Trump administration.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says: “Few budgetary concepts generate as much unintended confusion and deliberate misinformation as the Social Security trust funds. The trust funds are invested in Treasury securities that are just as sound as all other U.S. government securities, held by investors around the globe and regarded as being among the world’s safest investments.”

As a resident of Ward 3 for a dozen years, I have had a number of City Council representatives and frequently watch the Thursday evening proceedings. In all of that time I have rarely met a public servant as dedicated to her constituents as Councilor Quaverly Rothenberg.

I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Ward 3 City Councilor Quaverly Rothenberg for her unwavering accessibility and dedication to vulnerable residents like myself.

Talk is cheap. It is clear to many that there are only two ways to stop Trump. One is the courts, the other is massive civil disobedience.