BERKSHIRE COUNTY

General Electric and the EPA have responded to an appeal of the agency's plan to clean up the rest of the Housatonic River.

Springfield, Massachusetts, officials continue to field suggestions on reopening many of the city's basketball courts. They were closed at the beginning of the pandemic last year to help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.

Employees at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams have voted overwhelmingly to unionize.

With states around Massachusetts beginning to loosen some of their personal and economic COVID-19 restrictions, Gov. Charlie Baker said Thursday that the state's vaccination program remains his top priority. But he said he'll likely have more to say about reopening by the end of the month.

A Pittsfield, Massachusetts, school committee member resigned during a meeting Wednesday night when the committee cast their votes on candidates for a new superintendent. Dennis Powell, who is also the president of the Berkshire County chapter of the NAACP, said his voice is not being heard.

A North Adams, Massachusetts, college student who grew up in the city has taken out nomination papers to run for mayor.

About 100 eligible employees at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams can now begin to cast mail-in ballots, voting on whether to form a union.

New numbers from the state show Hampden County now trails all other Massachusetts counties in the percentage of residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, which owns and operates Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, has announced it will hold live in-person concerts this summer. The BSO hasn't performed a live concert since March 2020, when COVID-19 triggered cancellations of arts events worldwide. 

When Stockbridge, Massachusetts, residents hold their annual Town Meeting this spring, they'll vote on whether to take steps to return centuries-old documents to the indigenous tribe that once helped govern the town.

Decades-old allegations of assault at a youth summer camp in the Berkshires are at the center of new criminal charges filed against a former Olympian.

The Baker administration announced funding on Tuesday to prepare sites for industrial and commercial development. Nearly two-thirds of the $3,184,000 from MassDevelopment's Site Readiness Program is going to communities in western Massachusetts.

A spokesperson for Berkshire County's two hospitals said the region's success in COVID-19 vaccination has been all about collaboration.

Updated at 11:43 a.m. on March 9 

Staff at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Massachusetts, announced Monday they're taking steps toward forming a union, citing reasons like inequitable working conditions and low salaries.

The Massachusetts Attorney General's office says by meeting in closed sessions last year, officials in five Berkshire towns did not violate the open meeting law. But the AG's office did rebuke several of the towns over related issues.

Two groups are appealing the Environmental Protection Agency's permit to clean up the Housatonic River.

Democrat Ben Downing, a former Massachusetts state senator who went on to work in solar energy, is announcing Monday that he'll run for governor in 2022, mounting a campaign he said will aim to infuse state government with a sense of urgency.

Officials in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, are asking the state Department of Public Health to do a cancer study in a neighborhood near two General Electric toxic waste disposal sites. 

Updated Feb. 4, 2021  

Williams College and the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians are launching a new collaboration focused on historic preservation. The school is providing a three-room office for the tribe in downtown Williamstown, Massachusetts, and funding student interns.

A new survey shows that COVID-19 is keeping people from riding public transportation in Massachusetts.

A rehab and nursing facility in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, has had one of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in Berkshire County, according to the city health department.

The top doctor at a Springfield, Massachusetts, medical facility said the region has enough capacity to treat patients for COVID-19 and other illnesses — at least for now.

Updated 3:30 p.m. 

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has issued a revised final permit for the next stage of cleanup of the Housatonic River. General Electric polluted the river with PCBs for decades when it operated a plant in Pittsfield, Massachusettts. 

The Springfield Roman Catholic Diocese said it will expand which clergy accused of sexual abuse it lists on its website.