An overloaded electrical cord and power strip are believed to be the accidental cause of a blaze that destroyed a single family home in Oak Bluffs Tuesday morning and claimed the life of a dog, Oak Bluffs deputy fire chief Tony Ferreira said Thursday.

E. Gale Huntington was a writer, folksinger and teacher who spent plenty of time on the waterfront. He was also the founding editor of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum’s publication the Intelligencer. In February of 1971, he published in it an article he had written in 1934 when he was in his early 30s about fishing in the waters of the Vineyard with members of the Tilton family. Mr. Huntington died at the age of 91 in December of 1993. The winter 2012 issue of the Intelligencer is a retrospective and reprints Mr.

We will have a full moon in the coming week. The Snow Moon, as the Old Farmer’s Almanac calls it, arrives on Monday night.

Eight North Atlantic right whales have been spotted near Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket in the past week, including six sighted from the air on Feb. 15 swimming between the two islands. The other two were seen south of Nantucket.

Incumbents seem to rule in the hours before nomination papers are due in three Island towns.

With just one full working day left before contestants for elected office must file nominating papers, town clerks in Edgartown, West Tisbury and Oak Bluffs report that all races are so far uncontested and many races have no candidates at all.

Blame it on the moon, an asteroid that swooped close to Earth on Friday or an approaching tsunami, but unusually low tides seen across the Vineyard this weekend actually have a simpler explanation than some expected and feared.