On November 21, 2024 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Prime Minister of Israel. In Brattleboro on January 4 at noon there will be a rally to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. The rally will be outside the main post office. A group that's promoting the rally has a web page at:

https://grassrootsfund.org/groups/upper-valley-action-affinity-group

A rally for the same cause will happen in Northampton on January 10 at 3:30 p.m. Details are available via:

www.instagram.com/jvpWesternMass

The ICC arrest warrant is at:

Shutesbury, Massachusetts borders Amherst. On December 14, Kestrel land trust posted on its Facebook page, “We're grateful that we've been awarded a $327K grant from the MA Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs’ Acquisitions for Forest Reserves to protect 200 acres in Shutesbury next year.” The forest is on Montague Road. The plan is to never log the land.

On December 10 in Amherst there was a march and rally for abortion rights, among other issues. Marisol Pierce Bonifaz was one of the organizers. She told the Valley Post that the marchers chanted, “Abortion is a civil right, war on health care, we will fight.” About 40 people were there. The organizers have a web site at:

https://generationratifyam.wixsite.com/website

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In 2014, the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor closed permanently because
thousands of people marched in Brattleboro, and because hundreds of

Last year, the Valley Post published a special investigation into nursing homes. On November 29, 2024, the New York Times reported that, “Inspection reports continue to find homes leaving residents lying in their own feces, suffering severe bedsores and falls, contracting infections, choking on food while unattended or ending up back in a hospital for preventable reasons. Some nursing homes overuse psychotropic medications to pacify residents because they do not have enough workers to attend to them.”