Some came for the rides, others the food, many spent their time with the animals, competed in tests of skill and endurance, or put their prize tomatoes on the line with ribbons and pride at stake.

The Outcasts of Penikese Island, playing Tuesday to Saturday at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse through August 26, tenderly restores to light a shadowed episode of institutional cruelty from more than a century ago.

Many art shows on the Vineyard this week are highlighting Black artists, whose work has become increasingly collectible in recent years.

The shallow harbor in Hyannis recently caused one Steamship ferry to go out for emergency repairs and officials are pushing for new harbor dredging.

The Steamship Authority is updating its staff training program following an internal investigation of last month’s accident in Woods Hole, where the M/V Sankaty came loose from its slip.

Scrimshaw, the centuries-old art of decorating ivory and bone from sea creatures, is getting a new appreciation at the Carnegie Heritage Center in Edgartown.

The two-year period of validity for the commission’s approval was set to expire August 27 because no work had begun on the project.

The town’s police and fire departments have completed safety plans for the festival, an expert has been called in to evaluate the conditions of the park fields and a protocol to deal with the festival’s sound is being put into place.

With its borrowing limit increased by $50 million in the new state budget, the Steamship Authority now has the financial headroom to add a fourth ship to its growing fleet of identical former oilfield supply vessels, which the ferry line is converting into freight ferries.