“This is a great victory,” Brett Morrison of the Brattleboro group Friends of Island Park, told the Valley Post in a voice phone interview on November 20. The two bridges that connect downtown Brattleboro with Hinsdale, New Hampshire, and with an island in the middle of the river, will re-open to people for walking, riding bicycles, and relaxing. “I'm optimistic that it can happen before the bridge rehab project starts, and that the rehab will happen on time, finishing by 2029. The bridges will re-open permanently at that time,” he said.

The group of activists whose work led to this win has a web page at:

www.facebook.com/groups/1047644160578747

The bridges will be closed at night, Morrison said. “I think we'll find a way to plow the bridges so they can be open all winter. Or people can wear proper footwear and walk on snow or ice.” One brand of ice walking footwear is YakTrax.

Info on the other recent Brattleboro bike-ped victory is at:

https://valleypost.org/node/1990

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In Massachusetts, the group Springfield No One Leaves has, in the past, used marches, rallies and non-violent civil disobedience against giant banks to make gains for affordable housing. In a November 20 mass email, a spokesperson for the group said, “We celebrated a big win. Since 2022 we built power with the tenants living in Springfield Garden Apartments. After years of organizing, the investment firm sold their properties, but that wasn't the end of that campaign. In September, the Attorney General announced the approved court decision for Springfield Garden Apartments to pay $10 million to tenants and the commonwealth and that Schweb Partners (the investors) will never own property or managing property in Massachusetts again.”

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In 2014, the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor closed permanently because thousands of people marched in Brattleboro, and because hundreds of people were arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience in Brattleboro and outside the reactor three miles from Massachusetts and a stone's throw from New Hampshire. Deb Katz was one of the main organizers of these protests. She lives in the Pioneer Valley and runs a group that has a web site at:

www.NukeBusters.org

On November 19, 2025, Katz told the Valley Post a giant corporation is scheming to build a mega battery facility at the nuclear waste dump that now sits where Vermont Yankee once stood. “There are real concerns that need to be addressed before the state or for that matter the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves such a plan. This is not a small facility. There have been fires at battery energy storage facilities. Millions of curies of high level nuclear (HLN) waste remain on the site with no removal date planned. Fire plus radioactive waste is a dangerous combination.”

Katz said, “Then there is climate disruption and the potential for maximum precipitation events that cause flooding, compromising the HLN waste canisters as well as the battery facility. I understand (the Vermont town of) Vernon's desire to replace revenue from Vermont Yankee to support the town, but this may not be the right way to do it.”

Nina Keller lives in the Pioneer Valley town of Wendell and is active in a group called No Assault and Batteries. On November 18 she told the Valley Post, “The re-purposing of a radioactive site must not prioritize corporate economies and overshadow environmental impact. Politicians and low-paid or volunteer town boards, optimistically are directed towards what they are offered as innocuous solutions. Because they are limited with time to investigate every issue, they are guided by professionals who profess to have conducted impartial research.”

She said, “The Vermont Yankee site remains a storage site for high level waste. It lies above the vulnerable Connecticut river. Despite ownership responsibility, that site remains ruined. It is a storage site for high level radioactive materials. Battery storage is in its incipient stages of development. Until local governments and town fire departments are assured of methods of securely confronting battery threats: fire, seepage, decomposition, waste, where local infrastructure may be undermined and fire fighters are subject to toxicity, battery sites must be on a slow track for being welcomed into our communities.”

Laurel Facey is also active with the Pioneer Valley-based group No Assault and Batteries. On November 18, she told the Valley Post, “Sites with high-level nuclear waste are sites that present major safety concerns. As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says on its website, battery energy storage systems (BESS) 'can catch fire and release harmful gases that pose health risks to nearby residents and first responders.' Who in their right mind would choose to be anywhere near that place?”

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Andrew Zimbalist is an economics professor at Smith college and a Harvard graduate. On November 20, he told the Valley Post that Larry “Summers should not be teaching at Harvard or anywhere. Shame on (Smith college president) Cathy McCartney for bringing Summers to Smith to give a presidential lecture” in 2014.

In a November 20 mass email, the feminist group Ultraviolet said, “Thanks to the courage, strength, and persistence of a thousand survivors, the names of powerful men who participated in and enabled Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's child abuse and trafficking network are coming to light. One of those men is Lawrence 'Larry' Summers, a former treasury secretary under president Bill Clinton and a former president of Harvard university. Summers has also held key leadership roles in the Obama administration, the finance sector, and prominent tech companies like OpenAI.”

The email says, “Summers, who has long held very harmful views on women and Black people, had a cozy relationship with Epstein. In fact, Summers continued asking Epstein for romantic advice and money for years, even after Epstein's horrendous crimes came to light. Summers has announced he is resigning from his public positions, and Harvard University has said it will launch an investigation into its affiliates' ties to Epstein. But Summers will continue to teach at Harvard. This is unacceptable.”

The group has a petition to demand Harvard fire Summers at:

https://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/no_Larry_Summers/?t=2&akid=59082%2...