Crow Suspected in North County Power Outage

Staff ReportsiBerkshires
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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — An errant crow apparently caused a power outage that affected nearly 7,000 National Grid customers on Saturday morning.

While the utility company can't confirm for sure it was the bird, a crow was found at the North Adams substation, said National Grid spokeswoman Jackie Barry.

"Crows, sometimes when they alight or take off different parts of their body touch different parts of energized equipment and it can arc," she said, because of their size and wingspan. "There was no damage to the equipment but it shut off a number of breakers that are connected to three lines that serve Williamstown and North Adams."

The breakers flipped at about 10:30, affecting customers in North Adams' West End, Williamstown and south along the west side of Route 7, according to the company's power outage map. The outage lasted about 45 minutes.

The utility does put in animal deterrents but they can find their way in, said Barry, particularly squirrels.

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New York Times Bestselling Author to Speak at MCLA's MOSAIC

NORTH ADAMS, MASS. — The Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) will host a special lecture, "The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Countercultural Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary," featuring New York Times bestselling author Susannah Cahalan. 
 
The event will take place on April 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the MOSAIC Event Space on 49 Main St., North  Adams. This event is free and open to the public. 
 
According to a press release:
 
Presented as part of the Politics of the Visual: Lecture Series in Visual Culture, this talk will explore the legacy of Rosemary Woodruff Leary, a key but often overlooked figure in the 1960s counterculture movement. 
 
Known primarily as the wife of Timothy Leary, Rosemary played a pivotal role in the psychedelic movement, from her participation in peyote ceremonies with Beat artists to her involvement in Leary's infamous acid commune in Millbrook, NY, and her eventual status as an international fugitive. Drawing from archival materials and an unfinished memoir, Cahalan will reconstruct Rosemary's journey, shedding light on her contributions to the cultural and political landscape of the era. 
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