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Farmington River Regional Elementary is facing three existential threats: low enrollment, increasing costs and the language in its 32-year-old regional school district agreement, which places an undue burden on Sandisfield taxpayers.
With a redesigned menu and a focus on seafood, burgers and appetizers, James Maston is set to approach the Select Board April 9 to renew the restaurant’s liquor license. He's also seeking an entertainment license.
Jane Kaufman
Community Voices Editor
Chefs Raymond Stalker and Sarita Orobio-Wolff decide themes based on wanting to cook food they know might not normally sell well, or ones they’ve always wanted to learn to cook.
Aaron Simon Gross
Arts & Entertainment Reporter
Yankee Candle is selling its store on Pittsfield Road to the owners of the Berkshire Mazda dealership under construction across the highway.
Latest News
At a recent gathering of 911-EMS providers and town leaders, state Rep. “Smitty” Pignatelli called for priority solutions to the crisis gripping first-responder organizations.
The Pittsfield City Council gave Superintendent Joseph Curtis the go-ahead to ask the state's School Building Authority to consider a construction project, which could mean a new school for students at Crosby Community School and Conte Elementary School.
Conrad Mainwaring admitted to committing crimes against minors in in the 1970s. But a specific statute used to convict him didn't exist at the time.
Three Democratic candidates for the 3rd Berkshire District seat spoke with voters in Dalton on Tuesday night, as the town could be a pivotal force in the election as one of the most populated in the newly drawn boundaries.
The "Peace Coalition" offers an opportunity for healing and connection amid the losses in Gaza and Israel at an event on April 4.
TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES
LOCAL NEWS
A West Springfield man recently cleared of allegations he fired a gun during a road rage incident in 2020 will automatically have his records sealed pertaining to that charge.
Amanda Burke
Cops and Courts Reporter
The council voted unanimously to approve the special permit for the proposed Lipton Inc. car wash at 1035 South St. after tacking on a handful of conditions to the project.
Meg Britton-Mehlisch
Pittsfield Reporter
Unionized museum workers ratified a deal that locks in place wage increases for the next two years.
Sten Spinella
Reporter
Calyx, as it turns out, was the first to file a lawsuit over Community Impact Fees. The pot shop is demanding the return of $392,742.55 paid out since 2020.
Heather Bellow
Reporter
Two people were busted for alleged cocaine trafficking downtown on Friday night.
Amanda Burke
Cops and Courts Reporter
Sten Spinella
Reporter
The Pittsfield Licensing Board on Monday said Panchos Mexican Restaurant can stay open until 1 a.m. after three months of relative calm at the downtown bar.
Matt Martinez
News Reporter
It was a stolen Apple AirTag that tracked the movements of a rented SUV allegedly driven by the suspect in a string of vehicle break-ins.
Heather Bellow
Reporter
Michael Bostwick's attempt to seal his criminal record set off a chain of events culminating in a school investigation and his resignation.
Sten Spinella
Reporter
Amanda Burke
Cops and Courts Reporter
“We need new people coming from a different culture that care about safety," said Nadia Milleron, who's daughter who was killed in the 2019 crash of a Boeing 737 Max.
Heather Bellow
Reporter
Featured Businesses
Spring is here and it is time to welcome back the nation’s pastime. (No, not football.) Play ball!
Faked nude imagery of Swift rattled the internet in January, but this goes way beyond her: Companies make money by selling advertising and premium subscriptions for websites hosting fake sex videos of famous female actresses, singers, influencers, princesses and politicians. Google directs traffic to these graphic videos, and victims have little recourse. Sometimes the victims are underage girls.
At a recent gathering of 911-EMS providers and town leaders, state Rep. “Smitty” Pignatelli called for priority solutions to the crisis gripping first-responder organizations.
Driving in Pittsfield last fall, I hit a pothole. Hard.
Drury Performing Arts will present “SpongeBob SquarePants, The Musical” on Friday and Saturday, April 5 and 6, at Drury High School.
The St. Luke's Alumni Association is accepting nursing scholarship applications for the 2024-2025 academic year. Application deadline is May 24.
Jonathan Pierce and Rene Wendell, Hoffmann Bird Club past presidents and trip leaders, will share photographs from an expedition to the heart of the Peruvian Amazon at the April 1 meeting of the Hoffmann Bird Club.
Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School is holding its annual trivia fundraiser, Get BART Smart, on Saturday, April 6. The event is open to ages 21 and older.
Local History
It was after midnight on an icy cold February night when the first dynamite charge went off under the building where the Froio family lived above their Eagle Street grocery store.
The Big N opened the largest single-story department store in the Berkshires in a 68,000-square-foot building serving as an anchor in the Pittsfield Plaza shopping center on West Housatonic Street.
On March 28, 1979: America’s worst commercial nuclear accident occurred with a partial meltdown inside the Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pa.
Eagle Archives, March 28, 1936: Thomas Curtin, who divides his time between painting and mixing sodas, is becoming one of Berkshire's best known artists.
On March 27, 1973: “The Godfather” won the Academy Award for best picture of 1972, but its star, Marlon Brando, refused to accept his Oscar for best actor, and in what would become one of the Oscars’ most famous moments sent in his place actor and activist Sacheen Littlefeather, who spoke out about the depiction of Native Americans in Hollywood. (In 2022, months before her death, the Academy would apologize for the “abuse” Littlefeather received at the time.)
Arts and Culture
Is the grackle really common? Seen in direct sunlight, the male common grackle is simply iridescent.
Chefs Raymond Stalker and Sarita Orobio-Wolff decide themes based on wanting to cook food they know might not normally sell well, or ones they’ve always wanted to learn to cook.
Horticulturist Joseph Lofthouse says a one-size-fits-all approach to seeds doesn't work. He speaks with Thomas Christopher about the need for seeds that grow well where you are planting.
The Serial Eater and Kato stop by Firefly Gastropub, in Lenox, where grilled elk chops and lobster ravioli are their top choice of entrees for the evening.
Business
With a redesigned menu and a focus on seafood, burgers and appetizers, James Maston is set to approach the Select Board April 9 to renew the restaurant’s liquor license. He's also seeking an entertainment license.
Jane Kaufman
Community Voices Editor
How will buyers and sellers be affected by the lawsuit settlement earlier this month involving commissions paid to brokers and agents? Agents throughout the Berkshires weigh in.
Visa and Mastercard have announced a major settlement with U.S. merchants, potentially ending nearly two decades of litigation between merchants and the major payment companies over credit card fees. The deal would lower and cap the fees charged by Visa and Mastercard and allow small businesses to collectively bargain for rates with the payment processors in a similar way that large merchants do on their own now. Industry groups for retailers both small and large say the settlement is a step in the right direction, but far more needs to be done to remedy the current swipe-fee situation.
European Union regulators have opened investigations into Apple, Google and Meta, in the first cases under a sweeping new law designed to stop Big Tech companies from cornering digital markets that took effect earlier this month. The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive arm, said Monday it was investigating the companies for “non-compliance” with the Digital Markets Act. It's a broad rulebook that targets Big Tech “gatekeeper” companies forcing them to comply with a set of do’s and don’ts, under threat of hefty financial penalties or even breaking up businesses.
There will be a baseball co-op in Berkshire County this spring, as two North Berkshire rivals will get together on the diamond.
The introduction of McCann Tech last season brought Berkshire County up to six girls lacrosse programs, half of whom won double-digit games in…
There were 10 former Minutemen showcasing themselves on Tuesday in Amherst, ahead of the NFL draft.
MCLA men's lacrosse was beaten by SUNY Poly, but all-time leading goal scorer and Hoosac Valley alum Nate Haley added two more to his record tally.
Families staying in overflow shelter sites in Massachusetts will soon have to document each month their efforts to find a path out of the overflow system, including looking for housing or a job. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced Monday that beginning May 1, families will have to be recertified monthly to remain eligible to stay in the state-run overflow sites. They will need to show steps they’ve taken toward independence, including applying for work authorization permits, submitting job applications or taking English classes. Massachusetts has been grappling with the growing influx of homeless migrant families seeking shelter in the state.
The Massachusetts Senate has approved limits on how long homeless families can stay in emergency state shelters as part of an $850 million plan to fund the system that has been at the center of the migrant crisis. The bill approved late Thursday would limit maximum stays to nine months, with the possibility of 90 more days for veterans, pregnant women and people who are employed or enrolled in a job training program. The funding would cover fiscal years 2024 and 2025. Currently, there are no limits on the time a family can spend in emergency housing.
A federal appeals court has ordered the judge who oversaw Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial to investigate the defense’s claims of juror bias and determine whether his death sentence should stand. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not throw out Tsarnaev’s death sentence on Thursday. Defense lawyers had pushed for that while claiming bias by two people who sat on the jury that convicted Tsarnaev for his role in the bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds near the marathon’s finish line in 2013. But the appeals court found that the trial judge did not adequately probe Tsarnaev’s claims of juror bias, and sent the case back to the judge for a new investigation. The U.S. attorneys office in Massachusetts declined to comment.
Doctors in Boston say they have transplanted a pig kidney into a 62-year-old patient. Massachusetts General Hospital said Thursday it’s the first time a genetically modified pig kidney has been transplanted into a living person. Previously pig kidneys have been temporarily transplanted into brain-dead donors. Also, two men received heart transplants from pigs, although both died within months. The hospital announced the transplant Thursday and said the Massachusetts man is recovering well. Doctors says they expect the kidney to work for at last two years, and the patient could go back on dialysis if it fails.