Larry Parnass
About
Larry Parnass joined The Eagle in 2016 from the Daily Hampshire Gazette, where he was editor in chief. His freelance work has appeared in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Hartford Courant, CommonWealth Magazine and with the Reuters news service.
Three years ago this month, the Environmental Protection Agency was preparing to reveal that, in a switch, it would allow PCBs dredged from the Housatonic River to be buried in the Berkshires. The General Electric Co. continues to shape plans for that controversial disposal site in Lee. But a challenge by two environmental groups still stands in the way.
An expert hired by the former Berkshire district attorney says a deadly fire in North Adams in 1984 – which sent a man to prison for nearly 35 years and killed three young people – could have been sparked by accident, not arson. That opinion is now before a Berkshire Superior Court judge considering whether that man, William P. Cascone, should be granted a new trial.
One day last week, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Berkshire County hit an unusual high. That tally has eased, but questions remain: How severely will a new strain of the virus, known as XBB1.5, affect public health in the region?
For years now, artists with the Fireside project have been telling young writers in Pittsfield about the literary lions of yesteryear — people like Longfellow and Thoreau. They share tales of those far-off writing lives, here in the Berkshires. They read old works aloud with elementary students. They puzzle out what the poems mean to people today. And they wait to see what happens. This is what happens.
A look at the rhyme and reason of Fireside, which since 2017 has helped elementary students in Pittsfield blossom as writers.
This winter has seen the emergence of a new sub-variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This sub-variant – XBB1.5, or ‘Kraken’ …
Steven Valenti’s Clothing for Men, one of downtown’s most durable businesses, declared its confidence in North Street and Pittsfield by buying their building. “We feel it’s only going to get better, week by week,” Steven Valenti said.
