Teenager taken by ICE released; hundreds gather in Menemsha rally
Hundreds of Islanders stood and marched in solidarity with Nycolas de Al Varenga Lima, the high school student who was arrested by immigration officials alongside his father, Rogerio da Silva Lima, in the fishing town the pair were detained from earlier this week. The streets of Menemsha were overflowing with an estimated 275 supporters of…
MVRHS students hold walkout to honor classmate detained by ICE
Students at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) were energized Friday as they called for the release of their peer, Nycolas de Al Varenga Lima, from the custody of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE). Roughly 200 students poured out of the school on Friday onto the sidewalk of Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road for a…
Marching to the sea in memory of service members
Tisbury School students marched to the sea carrying brightly-hued flowers to be thrown into the harbor from Owen Park in a longtime Island tradition to honor those who gave their lives for the country. Around 300 Tisbury students walked down Spring Street and into Main Street on Friday for the annual March to the Sea,…
Islander on aid flotilla to Gaza detained
Ames Simmons, a Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School graduate who grew up as an avid sailor on the Island, was placed in custody in Israel after being detained for a second time. He was part of the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza, a civilian-led maritime mission that aims to break a naval blockade restricting aid…
Taken from Menemsha
After a father and son were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) early this week, a network of Islanders are scrambling to keep them from being sent out of the state to Texas. Rogerio da Silva Lima and his son, Nycolas de Al Varenga Lima, 15, were taken into ICE custody in Woods…
ISland Life
VOICES bySharisse: Who gets to call Martha’s Vineyard home?
Let the season begin
Click below to browse the print edition of the paper:
Sign up for our newsletters
Stay informed all week about Island news.
Environment
Island and Vineyard Wind officials meet
Island town administrators and Vineyard Wind officials finally sat down this past week to take steps to possibly replicate an agreement that Nantucket established last December. “I met with … Vineyard Wind and town administrators yesterday,” Tim Caroll, Chilmark town administrator, said at a select board meeting on Tuesday. “We’re working on a [memorandum of…
Health
Red House moves into new home
One of the gray-shingled buildings on the Martha’s Vineyard Community Services (MVCS) campus is now decorated with red paint, a homage to the name of the peer-run recovery center that recently set up shop inside. Staff at the Red House, the Island’s substance-use peer recovery support center, where more than 100 people attend meetings, meals,…
Housing
Real estate company facilitates $500,000 in donations
Feiner Real Estate, a company based on Martha’s Vineyard that specializes in vacation rentals and real estate sales, officially surpassed $500,000 in donations to Island nonprofits. Ten years ago, principal broker Jim Feiner created the Client’s Choice Program as an “experiment” that allows buyers and sellers to choose to direct 10 percent of the real…
Education
Tours of high school prior to June 2 vote
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) Building Committee is holding public tours of the school prior to a district-wide vote on June 2. The MVRHS building project is a proposed full-scale renovation and addition of the structure that school officials say is far below educational standards set by the state. It is the largest…
Politics
Aquinnah voters approve all funding requests
The unofficial results of the Aquinnah annual town election are in. Residents of Aquinnah voted 96–32 in favor of allowing the town to assess an additional $100,000 in real estate and personal property taxes to fund both the department budgets of the Up-Island and Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. They also voted 104–23 to allow…
Cops and Courts
Edgartown man pleads guilty; bomb threat charges dropped
David M. Capato, 58, an Edgartown man charged in 2025 for making a bomb threat at the Vineyard Haven Steamship Authority terminal, pleaded guilty Wednesday, May 21, in Dukes County Superior Court and was sentenced to five years of probation on multiple counts. At the change of plea hearing before Superior Court Judge Elaine M.…
Immigration
Island family stranded in Canada after visa renewal denial
Updated April 17. An Island family, stranded in Canada for the past six weeks due to a denied visa renewal following a family ski trip, has been forced to seek documentation in order to try to return home. The family’s status continues to remain uncertain after federal border officials rejected Michael Freeze’s work visa renewal…
Ferry and transportation
Oak Bluffs welcomes first ferry of the summer
In another sign of the upcoming summer season, the Steamship Authority (SSA) brought a little more fanfare to the annual opening of the Oak Bluffs terminal this year. The SSA hosted its inaugural “First Ferry” event on Thursday, with organizers celebrating as the crew of the ferry Martha’s Vineyard brought Oak Bluffs’ first batch of…
