In the weeks since the death of organizer Steven James in a duck hunting accident, Islanders have speculated about the future of the tournament, which brought crowds and controversy to the town for 27 years. Now two have applied to take over the contest.

The Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank plans a second off-Island location in the former TD Bank building on Palmer avenue. Pending regulator approval, the branch will open in May.

Tonight it may be possible to see the thin crescent moon appear near the distant planet Mercury. The two are close to the horizon right after sunset.

The moon is only one day past the New Moon phase and so it resides very close to the horizon after sunset. If you are standing on the beach at Menemsha and looking west you’ll see the moon amid the glow of twilight for a short time before it sets.

Mercury is that faint looking “star” to the south, or left of the moon.

With the much-discussed big-house bylaw now a fact of life in Chilmark, discussion at the town planning board this week turned to preservation of historic houses.

Pamela Goff, who owns a pre-Revolutionary house off Tea Lane, asked the board to consider an amendment to the bylaw approved by voters last year to regulate very large houses. The first-of-its-kind bylaw could have the unintended consequence of actually encouraging people to demolish old houses instead of preserving them, Mrs. Goff said.

As the Stop & Shop presses its expansion plan in front of the Martha's Vineyard Commission, focus shifts to a potential redesign of the town-owned parking lot adjacent to the store.

Snowy owls have been spotted in unusually large numbers throughout the Eastern Seaboard this year, including on the Vineyard. Beaches and open habitat resemble their native Arctic tundra.

The financially-strapped Vineyard Nursing Association has signed an agreement to sell its operations on both Islands to Cape Cod Healthcare, a large consortium that owns a visiting nurse agency.

Many policies are changing over effective March 31, including Network Health, popular among Islanders with low and moderate incomes. Health care providers confirm the confusion.

On-Island, community-based, homegrown: these are the virtues we tend to celebrate. So it is that the decision by the Vineyard Nursing Association to sell out to an off-Island home health care group doesn’t sit easily.

This week the selectmen in the shire town approved a request by a new homeowner to remove four old shade trees on South Water street in Edgartown.