Guests of Salisbury’s EXTRAS fundraiser gala at the White Hart Inn Friday, April 25, got a ballroom salsa dance lesson.
Sava Marinkovic
Lou Bucceri delivers a speech after accepting his award.Sava Marinkovic
Latest News
The news feed
May 21, 2025
John Coston
About a year ago, we dropped off some just published copies of The Millerton News for patrons at Irving Farm’s coffee shop on Main Street in Millerton. It was a Wednesday morning. The papers were fresh off the press, having been driven to The Lakeville Journal offices in Falls Village from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where they are printed on the presses of The Berkshire Eagle.
Inside Irving Farm, a few papers were placed on tables for anyone to read. A few people reach out to glance at the paper, maybe even pull it closer to read some part of it, then return to their phone. Some will flip through pages, but only to return to their digital news source. Swipe. Swipe. And swipe.
The News, The Journal and The Eagle all thrive today because of readers who want to know what’s happening in their own local communities. Yet it’s a growing fact of life that news readers are turning more and more to digital sources for that news. According to a report this month from the Pew Research Center, while Americans continue to see value in local news, they also prefer news websites or social media to print newspapers — and by a wide margin. From 2018 to 2024, the preference of news websites or social media as Americans’ news sources grew from 37% to 48%. Print newspapers declined from 13% to 9%, and television dropped from 41% to 32%. Radio inched up from 8% to 9%.
The News and The Journal are as committed to providing a weekly print product. Our ‘Local Matters’ motto aligns with the Pew Research Center’s finding that the vast majority of Americans see local news as important to the community. In a recent poll, only 15% of respondents answered that local news was either ‘not too important’ or ‘not at all important.’
We also embrace a digital future with enthusiasm. We’ve upgraded our websites and continue a push to keep fresh posts coming on our social media pages. We strive to get news to you when it happens and where and when you want to read it.
The Pew report notes that most people say local journalists are “in touch” with their communities and perform well at “reporting the news accurately.” In fact, roughly two out of three readers surveyed said local news was being reported accurately, that the most important stories and issues were being covered, that journalists were transparent about their reporting and were keeping an eye on local political leaders.
A relatively small percentage of consumers of local news — 15% — reported that they paid for local news in the past year, and 63% believe that local news outlets are doing well or “somewhat well” financially, even though thousands of newspapers have folded over the past two decades.
We remain a thriving local news source because of the support of our readers, advertisers and donors. Even as readers’ relationship with the delivery of news changes — long gone is the ubiquitous youngster on a bicycle tossing papers on your doorstep — we celebrate the fact that readers see value in what we deliver.
And we are optimistic about the future. This summer, The Lakeville Journal and The Millertion News will sponsor eight journalism interns from high schools and colleges. Demand for these paid positions has steadily grown, and is another indication that local news — in print or online —is here to stay. So keep that phone charged.
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The ACLU and the preservation of democracy
Many of us are searching for ways we can protect and preserve our democracy under the onslaught of the past 100 days, as President Donald Trump has tested every limit, abused every power, and exploited every loophole to silence dissent, disenfranchise marginalized communities, and erode our rule of law.
We recently attended a talk given by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. The ACLU is a nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. It advocates for and defends individual liberties and civil rights through litigation, lobbying, and public education. The ACLU is in courts and communities across the country to protect everyone’s rights. We were delighted to learn of their effectiveness.
In the first 100 days of the Trump administration, it filed 110 legal actions. More than 1 million ACLU community members have taken action since Election Day, more than 14,000 have been trained as volunteers, and more than 150 Know Your Rights trainings have been held across the country.
With a small staff of just 17, the folks here in Connecticut have been working hard to protect our residents. They are focusing on issues both national and specific to Connecticut, such as protecting our personal data, having the shield law include telehealth, protecting Medicare and Social Security, strengthening the Trust Act, working to fully fund the implementation of the Connecticut Voting Rights Act, early voting, and no-excuse absentee voting and protecting foreign students with valid visas from deportation. They could use all the help they can get.
I know I came away from their talk feeling that there are positive actions I can take to help preserve our precious democracy.
We are not powerless with the help of the ACLU! You can learn more here www.acluct.org.
Mary Close Oppenheimer
Salisbury
Why do billionaires attack the most vulnerable?
Our president is a billionaire as are many of the people advising him and in his cabinet.It is curious why people who have so much money would spend so much time attacking programs which help the most vulnerable.
Cutting programs like Meals on Wheels for the elderly will hurt seniors who do not have enough money for food.Cutting the HeadStart program would hurt young children with working parents who need instruction to prepare them for kindergarten. Cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, means many families will need to go to food pantries to put food on the table.
The administration is pushing for more private school vouchers paid for by taxes raised to support public schools.This leaves our public schools short of funds for educating our children. The administration is trying to make huge cuts to Medicaid, used by almost one million people in Connecticut.Medicaid funds patients in nursing homes, hospitals, and is the only healthcare available for millions of vulnerable Americans.
They want to cut Medicaid to fund a huge tax cut for the billionaires including for those in the administration. It is puzzling why these billionaires need a tax break, would they even notice the difference to their bottom line?
Lizbeth Piel
Sharon
Streamlined DOT process draws praise
InHartford last week a history making event happened. I refer to the U.S. Department of Transportation and state DOT signing a cooperative agreement.
The agreement’s purpose will allow a projected time saved of six weeks for major projects.There are 90 infrastructure projects in the hopper.Some are:The Gold Star Bridge, the rapid transit system in New Haven and the Metro-North Railroad customer service.
The U.S. DOT touted the agreement as “the first of it’s kind in the nation.”
The streamlined process involves bringing multiple federal agencies (the federal Highway Dept, federal Transit Administration and federal Railroad Administration) collaborating with the Connecticut DOT, the Connecticut State Historical Preservation Office, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
The agreement delegates certain responsibilities to the state DOT to evaluate historical properties and delve into potential impacts with th 1966 National Preservation Act — a common sense approach to regulationand state rights. Time and costs of projects can escalate when applications pass from agency to agency and include public comment delays.
Deputy U.S.Transportation Secretary Steven Bradbury heralded the agreement’s efficient solution to streamlining the regulatory process. State DOT Commissioner Garritt Eucalitto praised the collaboration and support from U.S. DOT which will ultimately reduce project costs.
This first in the nationpartnering adds toU.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s 100 Days of Accomplishment and President Trump’s Golden Age of America crusade.
Joe Agli
Kent
Kudos to sports photog
From a retired photojournalist: I realize that Riley Klein is the managing editor, but he is also an excellent sports photographer. Keep him shooting.
Christopher Little
Norfolk
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Trump administration vs. Harvard
May 21, 2025
In a battle that may take years to play out fully, Harvard, the nation’s oldest university is standing up to punitive demands by the Trump administration that it says threaten to destroy its whole reason for being. In so doing, Harvard has become an unlikely hero.
In early April, the Trump administration sent Harvard a letter containing a long list of demands that they said, if unmet, would result in the withdrawal of billions of dollars of federal funding promised for a large assortment of projects mostly in scientific and medical research. After careful consideration, Harvard’s president, Dr. Alan Garber representing Harvard’s governing body, the Harvard Corporation, wrote the Trump administration a polite but strong letter refusing these demands. Along with countless cheers from academics and others from all across the country, a furious Trump quickly announced that he would have the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) terminate Harvard’s tax exempt status (not realizing that for the IRS to do so at the President’s direction would be strictly illegal). These retaliatory moves would be a devastating financial blow to what had always been one of the most financially secure universities in the country.
Although Harvard has been cheered on by educational institutions and individuals all over the country, no other university has dared to take a position along with Harvard in strongly defying Trump’s extremely overbearing demands. The only other Ivy League university to take a public stance is Columbia who acquiesced to nearly all the administration’s demands several weeks earlier.
The administration has placed much of its case for punishing Harvard on exaggerated claims that the University was guilty of antisemitism. But the only documented antisemitism that the administration has cited exists at an individual not an institutional level.
As Jonathan Chait wrote in a recent issue of The Atlantic “The Republicans use of antisemitism as a justification to extend political control over universities has nothing to do with protecting Jews and everything to do with undermining liberal democracy.”
Trump did receive an Ivy League bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania but he nurses a grudge against most elite universities, thinking them more politically “liberal” than he would wish.
Trump did receive an Ivy League bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania but he nurses a grudge against most elite universities thinking them more politically “liberal” than he would wish. The controls he has wanted to place on Harvard, especially the college (politics is less active in manyof the graduate schools) are more closely related to college life and teaching. Most of the research grants, in medicine and the sciences are miles away from academic or political controversy.
The Trump administration’s list of demands that Harvard essentially relinquish control of its hiring of personnel including professors, student admissions, and many other matters was so offensively presented that even administration officials tried to “walk it back” by saying that it was just a preliminary draft. But Harvard’s president wrote back a very polite but firm letter refusing the terms of the demands and saying that he considered several (if not all) of them to not only be crippling but unconstitutional.
A May 6 letter from the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon to Dr. Garber was even more negative and insulting than the earlier one from the administration and it stated that unless Harvard made many changes that the administration demanded there would be no more federal money going to the university whatsoever.
It doesn’t stop. On May 16 the Trump administration announced a series of investigations including one by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission into whether Harvard had discriminated against “white, Asian, male or heterosexual applicants. . .”Several other such investigations have begun.
Meanwhile, what about all the other colleges and universities that were quick to congratulate Harvard for its courage in standing up to the Trump administration’s unreasonable demands? Where are they now, especially other Ivy League universities that the administration has issued more hate-filled rhetoric and nasty threats to?All of the Ivy League schools except for Dartmouth and Yale have been threatened by Trump; now other colleges such as Haverford are being attacked by the House Education Committee and its leading interrogator Rep. Elise Stefanik (whose brutal questioning last year was considered by many to be responsible for the resignations of the then presidents of Harvard, Penn, and Columbia).
What’s next for Harvard? The future looks troubled. Few think Harvard’s tax-free status will be successfully challenged but the various grants may be stifled just by delaying them. Harvard’s endowment is mostly in encumbered accounts and cannot be easily drawn upon like a checking account.Whatever happens Harvard is likely to have a few very difficult years ahead.
Architect and landscape designer (and Harvard graduate) Mac Gordon lives in Lakeville.
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