With summer in full swing and events like Illumination Night and fireworks occurring in Oak Bluffs, this is your friendly reminder that bringing dogs to these occasions is a very bad idea. Please leave your furry friends at home, safe and sound.

The Aquinnah Cultural Center is hosting the exhibit Captured: 1614 curated by Plymouth 400, which commemorates the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower and the settlers’ relationship with the native populations.

President Obama and his family had a low-key start to their annual Vineyard summer vacation this week, balancing time at home out of the public eye in Chilmark with trips out for meals with friends. There has also been beach time — and for the President of course, plenty of time on Island golf courses.

While the Vineyard is perhaps best known for the ocean, Vineyarders have deep ties to the ponds that were carved into the Island landscape some 20,000 years ago.

A proposed Aquinnah casino reached legal and political crossroads this week, as the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) asked a federal judge to validate its gambling project just days before its members are to vote on a bid to scrap it.

As the years-long, hugely expensive Lagoon Pond drawbridge project enters its final phase, state contractors confirmed this week that the bridge must stay in the down position from Oct. 1 to Jan. 31.