Corrections officers have resolved a standoff at a Bristol County Jail that kept the facility under lockdown for most of the day on Friday.
Ben Berke
Based in New Bedford, Ben staffs our South Coast Bureau desk. He covers anything that happens in Fall River, New Bedford, and the surrounding towns, as long as it's a good story. His assignments have taken him to jails, factories, city halls, fishing vessels, bakeries, environmental cleanup sites and the homes of hundreds of interview subjects. Ben joined the bureau in February 2021 after three years in Brockton reporting for The Enterprise. His freelance work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Providence Journal. When he's not working, Ben can often be found near the beach hiking, surfing and collecting the strange things that wash ashore.
Posted inArticle, South Coast Bureau
Unsealed footage of 2020 ICE detainee uprising leaves some questions unanswered
A violent confrontation between guards and immigrants at a Bristol County detention center in 2020 spawned conflicting accounts of what happened. Three years later, the release of a heavily redacted subset of the original footage offers little in the way of objectivity.
Posted inArticle, South Coast Bureau
New Bristol sheriff advances plans to close Ash Street Jail, reduce suicides
At a press conference reflecting on his first 100 days in office, Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux announced plans to rearrange the county jail system’s staff, facilities, and suicide prevention protocols. He said these changes will reign in the jail system’s exceptionally high suicide rate and enable him to close New Bedford’s Ash Street Jail within two years.
Posted inArticle, Business, South Coast Bureau
New Bedford seafood plant follows through on mass termination of immigrant workers
Eastern Fisheries, one of America’s largest seafood suppliers, has effectively fired 100 processing workers in New Bedford by requiring them to reapply for their jobs with verified social security numbers. Many of the workers are Central American immigrants who have worked for years at Eastern Fisheries under temporary contracts through a pair of local employment […]
Posted inArticle, Business, South Coast Bureau
‘Clear vengeance’: Workers threatened with termination at New Bedford seafood plant
Eastern Fisheries, one of New Bedford’s largest seafood processing operations, has notified as many as 200 workers that the company plans to fire them by terminating their contract with local temp services that placed them in Eastern Fisheries’ seafood processing plants in New Bedford. The termination notices, which several workers shared with The Public’s Radio, […]
Posted inArticle, South Coast Bureau
Voters agree – Abel Afonso makes the best pastel de nata in Massachusetts’ South Coast
The pastel de nata is one of Portugal’s best-known culinary exports. Thousands of these flaky pastries filled with sweet egg custard emerge from ovens in Fall River and New Bedford each week. A recent contest between the two cities’ tourism departments claims to have identified the best pastel de nata in the region.
Posted inArticle, Business, South Coast Bureau
New Bedford’s last mass transit link to Boston closes in April
DATTCO announced it will stop running buses to Massachusetts’ South Coast on April 16, leaving carless commuters without a direct ride to Boston until the MBTA’s long-awaited South Coast Rail opens next winter.
Posted inArticle, Housing, South Coast Bureau
Rent control in New Bedford? Non-binding referendum would gauge public opinion
Rent control was eliminated in Massachusetts by a close statewide referendum in 1994. But now, as many cities face a cost of living crisis, politicians in Boston are asking the state legislature for the right to cap rent increases again. In New Bedford, city councilors are wondering if they should do the same.
Posted inArticle, Environment, South Coast Bureau
A historically Black union looks for a way into the offshore wind industry
Ships carrying turbines for the nation’s first major offshore wind farm are scheduled to arrive in New Bedford this spring, where a shrinking longshoremen’s union is hoping to rebuild itself unloading a new type of cargo.
Posted inArticle, Politics, South Coast Bureau
The enduring challenge of closing New Bedford’s 135-year-old jail
Less than a month into his first term, Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux announced his intention to close the Ash Street Jail. It’s one of the oldest carceral facilities in America, but the project of closing it has proven to be more difficult than expected.
