The nurses at the Greenfield hospital reached a tentative union contract on September 28. “This is an enormous victory for patients, nurses and the Franklin county community,” said Suzanne Love, an emergency nurse at the Greenfield hospital. “We stayed united and persisted over several months of a coordinated community campaign because our patients need safe staffing. In the end, Baystate (the corporation that owns the hospital) moved toward us and we reached an agreement because nurses and our community supporters refused to give up.”

The nurses won:

In the Pioneer Valley town of West Springfield, there will be a peace protest on September 26. The protest will be at 10:30 a.m. on “Memorial Ave, on the sidewalk in the vicinity of Work N’ Gear (218 Memorial Ave), and Pet Supplies Plus (175 Memorial Ave). This location is a prime spot as hundreds of vehicles per hour exit from the interstates for the major Big E gateway location,” the organizers wrote at:

www.instagram.com/p/DdbyI0yNumx/?hl=en

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: