She had pages of handwritten notes, spread out on her lap, words crossed out and written back in in neat script. But as she started to read, her voice started to shake, just a little, and her eyes filled with tears.

NORTH TONAWANDA — The two siblings, all huge eyes and trembling whiskers, caught in the same trap, stared from its confines on a recent autumn morning on Tonawanda Island. The orange-and-white tabby cats, about 5 months old, were numbers 10 and 11 captured on the first day of the big trap-neuter-vaccinate-release push on the island. But their plight held a promise of a better life ahead — and the culmination of months of work on the part of local residents and animal-welfare organizations.

NORTH TONAWANDA — With the snip of a bright orange ribbon and a stampede of small feet, the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum's Kiddieland exhibit opened to the public Saturday, bringing to fruition years of work and dreams on behalf on the museum and its volunteers.

Maybe it’s a 9-year-old at a new school, embarrassed of her threadbare and too-thin clothing. Or maybe it’s a high school junior, studying for exams, trying to make sparse supplies stretch to the end of the school year. Jill O’Malley of Kenmore, the director of the Ken-Ton Closet, a community initiative to collect donated clothing and other items and distribute them to children of the school district, said it all started as she made rounds of the schools for the Ken-Ton Parent Association.

Roller derby teams from throughout the country will roll into Niagara Falls next Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association North Central Region playoffs, an event that will eventually crown a regional winner (and runners-up) to head off to the national championships in November.

Eight years ago, fewer than 10 students were enrolled in the industrial technology department at Erie Community College and it looked like the program would follow the industries and jobs of yesterday, and disappear.

With all respect and great affection to the classic children’s book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond ...

Sam doesn’t want to be 2. Oh, he still likes all the usual 2-year-old things. He adores his Thomas the Tank Engine and his favorite music group is still The Wiggles. He still takes a nap some afternoons. He’s still prone to curl up for a snuggle in the evenings when bedtime is getting nigh. But beyond that ... he wants tobe more."