In the Valley, more than 1,000 people attended rallies against president Trump's immigration policies June 30. The rallies were in Springfield, Greenfield, Brattleboro, and Keene. The same day in Boston, more than 15,000 people marched from city hall to the statehouse to protest Trump's immigration policies. People from the Valley were at the Boston march. “No borders, no nations, stop the deportations!” thousands of people chanted.

One of the groups that organized the Boston march has a web site at www.jwj.org. The below photo shows the march. To enlarge the photo, click on it, then scroll down and click “see full size image.” photo by Eesha Williams

About 200 people were at the Keene rally, state senator Jay Kahn told the Valley Post in a telephone interview. He spoke at the rally.

In other Keene news, the city's bus service is planning to add more routes. Details are available via:

www.hcsservices.org/transportation

Even though the bus is run by a group whose main function is providing health care in elderly people's homes, anyone is allowed to ride the bus. Most of the money to run the bus comes from taxpayers. The fare is $1.

Travelling by bus rather than by car is much better for the environment, unless the car is full of people. Cars cause climate change, which the world's leading scientists say is a major threat to earth's ability to support human life. Poor people in Africa are experiencing the problems that will become more widespread if climate change isn't stopped. These include lack of good quality food to eat, caused by farmers' need to deal with more severe and more frequent droughts and floods. Millions of people, including children, die of starvation every year.

Keene's environmental victory is the result of work by activists who have a web site at www.VoicesForPublicTransit.org.

Public transportation gets better when people protect open space, which encourages people to live in places like downtown Northampton, rather than in single family houses newly built on prime farmland, or in forests. In New York City, millionaires live in apartments. In the Valley, land trusts have offices with full-time staff people working to protect open space. They need donations and volunteers. They can be reached via www.FindALandTrust.org. Raising taxes on billionaires is another way to fund land trusts.