Northampton resident and state senator Joanne Comerford supports a Dark Skies bill that was approved by the state senate last month, her spokeswoman told the Valley Post on August 10. An Arizona-based group that has a web site at www.DarkSky.org says, “Since 1988, we’ve been advocating for more responsible outdoor lighting, raising awareness about light pollution, and protecting the night sky. DarkSky has protected 160,000 square kilometers of land and night sky.”

One goal is better stargazing.

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When N.L. Dennis was singing in a recording studio with Toots and the Maytals, Bob Marley stopped by to listen. Marley praised Dennis's delivery. Today, Dennis lives in his native Jamaica and joins hundreds of Jamaicans who come to Vermont every summer in search of better paying work. Most of them work on vegetable farms and at apple orchards. Dennis works as a reggae musician.

On August 9 at 11:30 a.m., Dennis and the Thunderballs will play at the Putney Farmers' Market near Brattleboro.

On August 7 in Londonderry, Vermont, ICE arrested five people. Londonderry is in Windham county. So is Brattleboro. The news was first reported by the Vermont group Migrant Justice.

In Brattleboro, outside the main post office on July 25, more than 100 people “gathered to pay tribute to the lives of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastian Guerrero, killed this month by ICE agents,” organizer Mary Moriarty told the Valley Post by email on July 26. She did not immediately reply to an email sent on August 8. The Valley Post will update this article when Moriarty replies.

Protesters are walking across Massachusetts from west to east. They want Native American rights, a ban on new nuclear reactors in the state, ICE out of the state, and an end to sand minding in eastern Massachusetts pine barrens that are sacred to Wampanoag people. This page

https://changethemassflag.com/2026/07/30/listen-to-indigenous-voices-def...

The same union that represents nurses at several Pioneer Valley hospitals went on strike in Boston on July 8. About 4,500 nurses and other hospital workers in Boston were on strike. They have a web site at www.MassNurses.org.

Unions are good for democracy because they reduce inequality.

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The Brattleboro library is hiring a new director following the resignation of the previous director. In April, the annual town meeting approved a town budget that restored an 8 percent cut to the library budget that the select board had proposed.

In Greenfield on June 17, a man was found not guilty of a crime that the government kept him in prison for 28 years for. His name is Elvio J. "Ralphie" Marrero. He is 65 years old. On June 17, he thanked his lawyers, Steven Van Dyke and Michael Hussey.

On June 11, in Springfield, Massachusetts about 50 childcare workers won their strike. The strike lasted eight days. When they voted to ratify the contract, the workers won about 20 percent higher pay over the course of the new, three-year deal. The workers have a web page at:

www.facebook.com/UAW2322

Unions are good for democracy because they reduce inequality. Billionaires buy politicians. On June 12, Elon Musk became the first trillionaire.

No nation keeps such a high percentage of its people in prison as the USA. Europe's rate is a fraction of ours. On May 31 the Valley Post emailed a state senator from Northampton and one from Brattleboro to ask their reactions to the following quote:

Seventy-thousand Lyft and Uber drivers in Massachusetts formed a union on May 25. “I'm thrilled,” Peter Cianciolo told the Valley Post in a voice phone interview on May 28. He lives in Springfield, Massachusetts and has been a Lyft driver since 2017. Cianciolo grew up in Connecticut and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts in 2012. “I'm very excited. It's an incredible feeling to be part of history.”

A bus will leave from Deerfield, Massachusetts, near Greenfield, to go to an ICE protest in Burlington, Vermont. The bus will leave on May 27 at 8:30 a.m. It will arrive back in Deerfield by 3:30 p.m. Tickets cost $46 round-trip and are available via https://fccpr.us.

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