Almost a hundred gathered at a vigil in front of Burlington City Hall late afternoon on Friday, November 25th to commemorate the lives lost in Israel’s wave of military and settler violence brought on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Speakers and attendees called for a true ceasefire, not a humanitarian pause, as the first step to ending decades of bloodshed and apartheid.

As Israel continues its ongoing siege and bombing of Palestinians in Gaza, and the death toll passes a grim 10,000, Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders continues to refuse to call for a ceasefire. To many inspired by Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential bids, it has been a legacy-tarnishing moment for someone who stood as the key figurehead of a growing left movement in the United States.

Jamie Peck presents on Block Cop City in Burlington

Organizers in the movement against Cop City — the proposed police training center in Atlanta that is estimated to cost $100 million, clear cut large swaths of forest, and disrupt Black communities surrounding it — are in the midst of a nationwide tour, speaking in more than seventy cities to educate the public and encourage participation in a demonstration planned for November 10-13 in Atlanta.

Last Thursday, in the halls of the Waterman Building on the campus of the University of Vermont, dozens of staffers across various departments — from biology to residential life — lined the hallways outside the executive offices of the school, laptops open, diligently at work. This “work-in” was held to object to UVM’s proposed implementation of new time-tracking software on roughly 700 staff.