Best CELEBRATING THE 2025 BEST OF THE VALLEY READERS’ POLL WINNERS ...

NEPM Jazz à la Mode host Tom Reney, second from left, speaks during an award celebration for musician Paul Arslanian, right, at The Drake in Amherst, Wednesday, April 29, 2026. Arslanian received ...

PEXELS/Lisa Fotios No matter how hard I think about it, I can’t dream up a plausible public health or safety rationale for dividing the market between tobacco sellers, alcohol sellers, and weed ...

By Yana Tallon-Hicks For the Valley Advocate Hi Yana, I’ve heard the advice that sometimes couples should “schedule sex” when it’s fallen off the priorities list. I brought this up to my partner and ...

As a nimble alternative weekly newspaper with an eager and talented staff, we invest time developing stories about people, places and topics that the mainstream media doesn’t have the time or, in some ...

The Donut Kings, Rikk Desgres, left, Aaron Brennan, and Nate Crowell rehearse in a West Springfield garage on Monday, April 6, 2026. CHRISTOPHER EVANS / For the Valley Advocate The Donut Kings, Rikk ...

“You know what goes on behind closed doors in a polyamorous household?” Fox asks, and I lean in closer. We’re on the phone and he is 800 miles away, so I am leaning toward — nothing. I am on the ...

The eighteenth century preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote on any paper he could find. In Northampton and later in Stockbridge, he made extensive notes on a version of the Bible with large, ...

Despite certain advances in medieval historiography, there is still a general assumption that the middle ages were a period of despair, a time when the innovations of the Roman Empire crumbled, a ...

As a nimble alternative weekly newspaper with an eager and talented staff, we invest time developing stories about people, places and topics that the mainstream media doesn’t have the time or, in some ...

Alex Morse has a new pup — a goldendoodle that answers to Oliver. Can you say inseparable? The Holyoke mayor brought him home from Pennsylvania and claims that the quarantine has afforded him a bit ...

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 ...