People who live in the Valley, eat eggs, cheese, or meat, and care about farm animals' quality of life may need to visit farms themselves. President Trump is weakening so-called “animal welfare standards” for organic food. Enid Wonnacott runs the Vermont chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association. On December 29, she told the Valley Post that Trump “has blocked the movement of the animal welfare standards that we have worked on for years.”

More than 700 people had RSVP'd for the Women's March in Northampton as of December 27. The march is set for January 20, 2018 at 11 a.m. Since the Valley Post first reported on the march, organizers have announced the route: it will start at Sheldon Fields and end at city hall.

The event is being organized by the same people who organized the January 2017 Women's March. That drew about 3,000 people to Northampton and 3,000 to a sister march in Greenfield. Photos of those events are below. The march organizers' partners included Planned Parenthood, the AFL-CIO, and 350.org.

Roomful of Blues will play at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton on November 25 at 7 p.m. In a positive review, Down Beat magazine, which has been published every month since 1934, said Roomful of Blues is “in a class by itself.” The band will play concerts next month in Washington, DC and in California in April. You can hear their music at www.roomful.com.

War tax resisters from around the nation will host a public event in Amherst on November 3 at 7 p.m. Stopping construction of fossil fuel pipelines is the goal of a march in Northampton on November 5 at 5:30 p.m.

Sam Koplinka-Loehr will moderate a panel at the peace event. “I am a war tax resister because I believe a better world is possible,” she told the Valley Post. More information is at:

https://nwtrcc.org/programs-events/gatherings-and-events/schedule

On September 5 in Northampton, about 500 people attended a rally to protest anti-immigrant action taken by President Trump earlier that day. The turnout at the Northampton event may have been higher if it hadn't been raining heavily at the time of the rally. Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protected from deportation immigrants who came to the USA when they were children. The Northampton event organizers have a web site at www.pvWorkersCenter.org.

In Northampton on August 13, hundreds of people attended a rally to protest racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. The same day in Keene, about 60 people attended a rally for the same cause. On August 14, about 80 people attended a rally for the same cause in Greenfield. On August 15, dozens of people attended another rally for the same cause in Springfield.

On July 29 in Northampton, there will be a march for universal health care. The march starts at 1 p.m. at Childs Park, which is bordered by North Elm and Prospect streets, and by Woodlawn Avenue. As of July 26, more than 65 people had RSVP'd at:

www.facebook.com/events/121333305132027

Eight people who were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience to stop construction of a fracked gas pipeline in the Valley will be in court July 18 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. They are asking the public to come to court to support them. “The trial starts at 9 a.m.,” Ellen Graves of West Springfield, Massachusetts told the Valley Post in a telephone interview. She is one of the people who were arrested on June 24 in Sandisfield, Massachusetts. “There is only one court in Great Barrington. I feel good about how the protest went. We succeeded in bringing attention to this pipeline.”

On July 8 in Northampton, there will be a march and rally against sexual harassment. President Trump has boasted of sexually assaulting women. Earlier this year, Trump defended a male Fox News employee who sexually harassed five women so severely that Fox paid the women $13 million to get them to agree to not take Fox to court.

The march will start at noon at 2 Parsons Street and will end at Pulaski Park, where there will be a rally. More information is at www.facebook.com/events/1168327906646279.

In Northampton on June 4, dozens of people protested a plan by President Trump and the Republican-controlled congress to eliminate health insurance for poor people. The activists staged a so-called “die in” to bring attention to the fact that thousands of people will die if the Republicans' plan is approved.

According to an article that appeared in the Washington Post on May 7, 2017, “A 2009 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that 45,000 deaths annually were linked to lack of health coverage.”