BERKSHIRE COUNTY

The coronavirus pandemic has fed fears of both getting sick and food scarcity. And that’s infused grocery shopping with more anxiety for customers and workers. 

Critical care nurses like Amber VanBramer are confronting challenges they've never faced before, with about 3,500 people in Massachusetts hospitalized with COVID-19, and about a quarter of them in intensive care.

Virtual platforms have become a gathering place for many religious groups in New England during the coronavirus pandemic. Faith leaders are tweaking the experience to bring a sense of human contact or address community needs.

Like so many places where people gather, museums are closed in the COVID-19 pandemic and people have lost their jobs. Around New England, the big museums are taking a variety of approaches to engage would-be visitors and donors as they try to envision the future. 

COVID-19 is upending many aspects of life, including the beginning of it.

While the goal of closing schools and businesses is to slow the spread of COVID-19, the impact on employment has been swift in Massachusetts.  

The oldest church congregation in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is selling its building.

With new cases of COVID-19 announced every day in New England, many events, meetings and conferences are being postponed or canceled. Among them is an annual Catholic gathering, in April this year, that attracts 15,000 faithful from around the world to Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  

The number of confirmed or presumed positive cases of the new coronavirus has grown to five in western Massachusetts — all in Berkshire County, according to numbers the state public health department released on Monday.

The Berkshire Innovation Center opens officially on Friday morning. One of its goals is to help companies keep pace with changing technology. An even bigger goal is to attract and retain talented workers to the area. 

General Electric and several stakeholders reached a deal this week on the next phase of cleaning up toxic waste from the Housatonic River.

Updated at 11:00 p.m.

After more than a year and a half of mediation, the U.S. EPA New England office, General Electric and cities and towns along the Housatonic River have agreed to dispose some toxic PCB sediment at a site near the Lee-Lenox line, about 1,000 feet from the river. But not all participants in the mediated settlement agree with the decision. 

Nearly 250 years ago this month, 11 men gathered in a house on the Housatonic River to draft a document on equality and independence aimed at the British crown. A woman who was enslaved in the house overheard the discussion, and determined the words applied to her, too.