In Holyoke there will be a march on September 1 at 11 a.m., starting at city hall. The goal is democracy not dictatorship. September 1 is Labor Day. One of the unions that's organizing the march has a web site at:
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In Brattleboro on August 9 at noon there will be a rally to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. The rally will be outside the main post office. A group that's promoting the rally has a web page at:
https://grassrootsfund.org/groups/upper-valley-action-affinity-group
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The front page of the August 3 edition of the Brattleboro Reformer daily newspaper carried a news article that began, “Following a two-year legal battle, Vermont officials have amended a law passed in 2023, allowing pregnancy centers to resume their work without the risk of hefty fines and service-related discrimination. Two Vermont pregnancy centers, Branches in Brattleboro and Aspire Now in Williston, with the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, sued Attorney General Charity Clark in July 2023 for unconstitutionally restricting the centers’ speech and provision of services.”
On August 4 a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood in Vermont, Jessica Barquist, responded to a request from the Valley Post for her reaction to the Reformer article. Barquist said, “We believe Vermonters seeking medical care deserve medically accurate, science backed information from their provider. Act 20 expanded critical consumer protections to all providers of medical care. This updated legislation requires providers to share medically accurate information and prohibits them from misleading or false advertisements. Anti-abortion centers will still be held to these standards. Vermonters have a right to complete, medically accurate, and transparent information about their health decisions and we are pleased to see these protections expanded across our entire healthcare system.”
The federal government declared August 6 in Springfield, Massachusetts to be an air quality “action day,” meaning kids, elders and people with lung disease should avoid outdoor exercise that is intense (like running) and/or prolonged (like taking a long walk). Smoke was visible from forest fires in Canada throughout the Pioneer Valley and Brattleboro area for several days.
According to an August 4 news article in the New York Times, “Climate change is worsening the dry and windy conditions that make wildfires more intense, researchers have found.”
One of the best ways to stop climate change is to guarantee abortion rights. That's according to the Venn diagram at this web page, run by an Arizona-based group that employs dozens of lawyers and scientists:
www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/climate
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