Memorial Day weekend is a cause for celebration — for togetherness, revelry and communal joy. It is also cause for reflection, and reflecting is what America desperately needs to do right now.
From the local level to Washington, compromise in governance is a precious resource: valuable but rare. We were happy to see a small Berkshire town mine some at its recent annual town meeting.
What will a nation do after it sees nearly two-dozen of its citizens, mostly children, killed in their classrooms by a hail of gunfire?
Last month, we were elated to hear that the state’s East-West rail plans appeared to be picking up speed. Gov. Charlie Baker, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal and other officials joined in Springfield to announce a new agreement on a real path forward for a landmark passenger rail project that stands …
“Circumstantial and not particularly strong.” “Hopelessly slanted.”
Earlier this year, we highlighted Pittsfield’s persistent pothole problems and the bigger issues that might disappear into some of those chasms.
The push to equip Pittsfield Police officers with body cameras is gaining traction — better late than never. We have urged all Berkshire County departments to pursue this commonsense measure toward accountability, but the fatal police shooting of Miguel Estrella and the resultant heated deba…
Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, Verizon is hitting back hard against the Pittsfield Board of Health, previewing a messy — and entirely avoidable — legal battle.
Our landscape is our most abundant natural resource, and preserving it is an American tradition. So is fostering the public’s access to and enjoyment of these most pristine parcels. That is the beauty of preserving open space and public land, even as it requires considerable investment and c…
As Tip O’Neill noted, all politics is local — and in our town offices and city halls, so is the maintenance of democracy itself. That’s not just a principle but a process and, for some, a profession. Regional leaders are sounding the alarm, though, that those folks who make up the vital infr…
On a chilly Saturday in November, Monterey residents bundled up and banded together for an unusual special town meeting. As bitter factionalism continued to divide the community and erode productivity at Town Hall, voters approved using public funds to hire an independent investigator in an …
As the annual town meeting and local election season spins up, we always love to see our letters to the editor section swell with citizens’ concern and attentiveness for the issues that most directly affect them. One recent letter, though, particularly stood out to us.
Trending Now
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A man goes missing in Connecticut, and his car is found burning in New York state. Why was the FBI searching for his body in Sheffield?
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Luis Delvalle-Rodriguez found guilty in October Mountain shooting of Nick Carnevale; second defendant acquitted
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Vermont residents purchase two prime North Street properties
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A Monument high school graduate has died of an injury he received in South Carolina in 2000. What happened remains a mystery
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A Pittsfield man was shot and seriously injured on Congress Street
When it comes to analyzing deadly and controversial interactions between police and civilians, zooming in on the truth should be prioritized by every department and available to every community. Pittsfield is learning this lesson the hard way as the community continues to be torn by the deat…
A summit of Massachusetts officials at a Springfield train station appeared to make it official: The state’s long-gestating East-West rail endeavor aims to truly make good on the “West” part. On Tuesday, Gov. Charlie Baker and U.S. Rep. Richard Neal described plans for a new rail authority a…
We shouldn’t need reminding, but sometimes they remind us anyway: We’re lucky to have the local firefighters that protect us at all hours and in all corners of our communities. In fact, we in the Berkshires were reminded of that three times just in the last week.
Our Opinion: After judge flags poor prosecutorial conduct, Berkshire DA owes Adams couple an apology
Andrea Harrington owes Cassandra Barlow-Tucker and Matthew Tucker a sincere apology. If the past is prologue for the future, the Tuckers should not expect anything from the Berkshire District Attorney.
Today is Earth Day. As we celebrate this pale blue dot we call home, we also owe it to the only inhabitable planet we have to acknowledge the threat climate change poses and our duty to do something about it.
Soon after a cannabis cultivation site proposal sparked controversy, a glamping pitch for the Dream Away Lodge grounds spurs its own intense debate in Becket. This small and scenic Central Berkshire town can’t seem to catch a breath between divisive episodes of internal rancor over developme…
The recent COVID-19 uptick presents a new test in adapting our risk assessment and management skills, such as they are.
Twenty-two thousand souls. Since the turn of the millennium in Massachusetts, that staggering number represents the cost in human life stemming from fatal overdoses related to opioids alone. We can’t undo this needless suffering that has torn families and communities across the commonwealth,…
North Adams is certainly not the only Berkshire community with heated debates on whether to welcome marijuana cultivation business. The heat was turned up quite a bit here, though, with Mayor Jennifer Macksey’s decision to sue the city’s Planning Board over its conditional approval of a spec…
The Berkshire district attorney this week publicly asked the agencies investigating Miguel Estrella’s death to accelerate that probe. Those agencies are mostly overseen by the District Attorney’s Office, so the DA’s public statement appears less like a step forward for a critical fact-findin…
Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court when she replaces retiring Associate Justice Stephen Breyer later this year. This great and long overdue leap forward for representation in the highest halls of America’s judiciary is well worth celebrating. As t…
To the editor: Our Legislature is working on a climate bill that will mandate changes by 2035.
To the editor: The Eagle's Santa Fund Elves thought it was a great idea to give area children the opportunity to move away from screens this s…
To the editor: With the passing of Jim Hoellerich, I lost a good friend and the extended community also lost a great individual.
To the editor: While every industry faces a worker shortage, the crisis growing in human services should be sounding alarm bells on Beacon Hill.
The explosion of spring seasonal allergens that trigger asthma is an opportunity to assure asthma sufferers that there are highly effective wa…
Before the pandemic, one of the best options for those without cars to get around was to hail an Uber or Lyft, if the bus wasn’t available or …
To the editor: Town meetings in Otis, Lee, Becket, Dalton and Windsor as well as city councils in Pittsfield and North Adams have endorsed the…
At 65, there are few things as exhilarating as racing down a hill on my bicycle at 50 miles per hour. It doesn’t happen often, but when it doe…
When I talk to business groups these days, the most commonly asked question is, “Are we headed for stagflation?” I’m pretty sure they find my …
To the editor: We have known our friend and neighbor Andrew “Andy” Krouss for almost 10 years.
To the editor: We share the concerns about the prosecutorial conduct of Berkshire District Attorney Andrea Harrington in the case of Cassandra…
To the editor: On behalf of The People's Pantry, we want to thank you for Heather Bellow's recent article about food insecurity in Berkshire C…
Letters to the Editor
To the editor: Williamstown is in a housing crisis.
To the editor: I think the police in every department need body cameras and dash cameras.
To the editor: Living in Kennebunk, Maine, I was delighted to find that I could livestream “The Approach” from Shakespeare & Company.
To the editor: This letters is regarding the recent massacre in Buffalo, N.Y.
To the editor: I think former presidential adviser David Axelrod said it best when he described it as "Groundhog Day."
Columnists
The figure of John Eastman, a constitutional theorist, former law professor and legal adviser to Donald Trump, looms increasingly large in retrospectives on the events of Jan. 6, and for good reason: Out of all the characters who floated through the White House in the aftermath of the 2020 e…
In January 1927, Donald A. Hall was relaxing in his new office, checking his initial estimates for a custom job that had just arrived via telegram.
May is National Foster Care Month, and at 18 Degrees, a provider of comprehensive foster care services, we want to celebrate our families doing the work. We also want to let you know if you have ever thought about being a foster family, now is the time. You can do this, and we will be with y…
It seems so long ago, back on Valentine’s Day of 1989, that Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Salmon Rushdie for blasphemies against Muhammad in the novel “The Satanic Verses.” Rushdie’s logorrhea offended me less lethally by failing my trusty five-page test.
Things to do this week in Berkshire County
Things to do this week in Berkshire County
The Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires presents the 2022 Berkshire Nonprofit Awards
A tribute to those we have lost, December 2021 - February 2022.
Prepare for the long-term with The Berkshire Eagle’s annual guide to financial readiness and life planning.
A tribute to those we have lost, September - November 2021
The best of the best of Berkshire County, chosen by Berkshire Eagle readers.
