With health care providers across Massachusetts facing rising COVID-19 caseloads, Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration said Tuesday it was instructing Massachusetts hospitals to postpone or cancel all non-essential elective procedures. The governor also plans to activate up to 500 Massachusetts National Guard troops to help hospitals in the state. The measures were announced as officials across […]
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, Politics, South Coast Bureau
Group calls for closure of New Bedford’s 133-year-old jail
The choir sang, “Next year all our troubles will be out of sight.” Its members are local activists who gathered Sunday outside New Bedford’s Ash Street Jail, calling for its closure. Between rounds of familiar songs like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” the activists who convened the choir laid out allegations of filthy conditions […]
Posted inArticle, Politics, South Coast Bureau
South Coast politicians weigh in on governor’s decision not to seek re-election
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito jointly announced this week that neither of them will seek re-election next year, a decision that has shocked the state’s political establishment and blown open what is sure to be a crowded race for governor next fall. In southeastern Massachusetts, where Baker had bipartisan support, local politicians are pondering what the governor’s decision may mean for the region.
Posted inArticle, Business, Health, South Coast Bureau
Small businesses offered grants to boost vaccination rates in Fall River, New Bedford
A major health insurance company has announced it’s teaming up with a Boston civil rights group to deliver financial support to small businesses willing to encourage vaccination in Fall River and New Bedford, two coastal cities with persistently low vaccination rates that have started to attract concern from health organizations in other parts of Massachusetts. […]
Posted inArticle, Business, South Coast Bureau
A ‘Striketober’ protest leads to mass firings for Mayans in New Bedford
A work stoppage at a tire recycling company cost roughly two dozen employees their jobs, exposing gaps in American labor law that undermine immigrants’ rights to protest.
Posted inArticle, Politics
Election results: Fall River re-elects Mayor Coogan, and New Bedford unseats a city council president
Mayor Paul Coogan’s election day began in a New Bedford hospital, where his wife is recovering from punctured lungs and 12 broken ribs after a car knocked her off her bike on Sunday. It ended at Our Lady of Light Band Club, where Coogan celebrated a bittersweet finale to a hard campaign. He won 62 […]
Posted inArticle, Politics, South Coast Bureau
New Bedford politicians livid over new congressional boundaries
Fall River and New Bedford will remain split into separate congressional districts if a proposed redistricting map unveiled on Monday by the Massachusetts legislature is approved. The latest boundaries, which are redrawn every ten years to reflect demographic changes recorded in the U.S. Census, ignore recent demands from voting rights advocates to unite the two […]
Posted inArticle, Politics, South Coast Bureau
Election Day arrives Tuesday in Fall River and New Bedford
Voters go to the polls on Tuesday to elect a mayor in Fall River and decide a host of other races in Fall River and New Bedford.
Posted inArticle, Health, South Coast Bureau
Leaders search for answers in New Bedford, MA’s least vaccinated city
Fewer than half of New Bedford’s residents have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
Posted inArticle, Environment, South Coast Bureau
Nor’easter sinks ships in New Bedford harbor
The powerful storm that tore through the region Wednesday morning left more than 500,000 homes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island without power. It also wreaked havoc in New Bedford’s harbor, where two men had to be rescued from a boat where they were living.
