Activists in the Valley are inviting the public to join them on free buses to a rally for a $15 an hour minimum wage. The February 6 rally will be in Manchester, New Hampshire outside a Republican presidential debate. The buses will leave from Chicopee (near Springfield) at 2:15 p.m., Northampton at 3 p.m., and Amherst at 3:30 p.m. People will be traveling from all over New England for the rally. Manchester is about an hour from Keene by car.

More information is available from Jon Weissman of Western Mass Jobs with Justice www.jwj.org. He can be reached by phone at (413) 314-3095 or by e-mail at jon@wmjwj.org.

The richest 0.1 percent of Americans now have about as much money as the bottom 90 percent. The rich use their money to make sure that members of congress, governors, and other politicians don't raise taxes on millionaires. By raising taxes on rich people, the government could save the lives of some of the millions of people around the world who die of starvation every year, and address climate change by switching from fossil fuels to expanded energy efficiency programs, solar, and wind.