About 50 people marched in Northampton on December 4 to protest mass incarceration. No nation keeps such a high percentage of its people in prison as the USA. Europe's rate is a third of ours. "We took over Main street from Smith college to the post office and back. We got a ton of positive honking responses and handed out lots of fliers along the way,” Yoav Elinevsky told the Valley Post. Elinevsky lives in Amherst and is on the board of Massachusetts Peace Action. That's one of the groups that organized the march.

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On December 8 in Amherst, about 35 people attended a climate march. One of the groups that organized the march has a web site at www.xrWesternMass.org. The march went to two banks that finance fossil fuel pipelines, TD Bank and Bank of America. It was a half day for Amherst schools so high school students were there.