From Other Sources: News for and About Amherst. This Week –  Catching Up

I have assembled some local stories from other media sources that we couldn’t cover in the Indy that I think are worth reading. But first, I provide a few recommendations for readings on the recent trend away from autocracy and on the security of the upcoming elections

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This Week’s Recommended Reads
The slogan kicking around social media last week was a list : “Orban, Vučić, Bolsanro, Netanyahu, and Trump”,  suggesting a succession of autocrats who have recently been brought down, or in the case of the latter two, are facing a downfall, and alluding to momentum toward restoring democracy.

This week, I recommend two articles on the shocking electoral victory of the student list in Serbia that took down strongman Aleksandar Vučić, and two articles outlining strategies and actions on tap to counter ongoing efforts to interfere with Tuesday’s elections in the US.

Good Day for Democracy: Lula’s Win in Brazil and Serbia Ousting Vučić Show Strength of People Power by Jula Conley (Common Dreams)

How Serbian Students Toppled an Authoritarian by Breza Race Maksimovic and Jelena Trajčevski (Waging Nonviolence)

Election Defenders Organize for the Best, Prepare for the Worst by Sandra Hinson and Marcy Rein. (Convergence)

Tens of Thousands Get Ready to Defend the Vote. by Surina Venkat (Waging Nonviolence)

News Roundup
Atkinson Family Practice Founder Abruptly Departs After 21 years; Northampton Office Closes by Emilee Klein (10/30/26). Dr. Katherine Atkinson has left the Amherst and Northampton family practice she ran for more than two decades, a year and a half after selling it to keep it out of bankruptcy.  “I would never leave my patients on short notice if I had any option,” Atkinson said in a phone interview with the Gazette. “I didn’t have options, and I’m devastated. I miss my patients and my practice.” Atkinson announced her departure in an Oct. 15 Facebook post. She declined to say why she left, noting that paperwork she signed when she sold the business bars her from discussing it in detail. She said retirement was not the reason. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Main Street is a Place Where People Come Together.  In Northampton, It’s Tearing the Town Apart   by Brooke Hauser (10/29/26). Jackhammers are still a ways off, but the touted “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to modernize Main Street has already torn the city apart. That’s because a lot more is at stake than a half-mile of asphalt. This struggle is for the very soul of this quirky college town, and it poses an existential question for our online age: What, and who, is Main Street for? The clash isn’t as simple as cyclists versus drivers, or people who embrace change versus those who fight it.It’s also about New Englanders who resent being told what’s good for them, and how local politics, in the time of Trump, can break down into us versus them. (Boston Globe)

Building Big’: Amherst Celebrates a School Designed for the Future by Samuel Gelinas (10/26/26). The new Amethyst Brook Elementary School is about $100 million worth of steel, brick and mortar. It’s a haven to cultivate learning for the town’s young people, and a place of recreation for residents of all ages who will have access to fields and a cafetorium. It’s also a milestone, the town’s first net-zero municipal building, and an ambitious three-story, 105,750-square-foot symbol of Amherst “building big.” For Amherst parent Lindsay Trottier, the new school marks a world of difference: an end to years of mold, mildew and other problems, and a fresh start in a brand-new building. These points were highlighted at Monday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, marking the official opening of Amethyst Brook, though the school has been in operation since the start of the school year in late August. Adding to the excitement shared among families, state and local officials, students involved in the school’s chorale and dance group danced and sang for the occasion. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Historic Amherst Home Scheduled for Relocation on North Whitney Street by Ashley Shook (10/26/26). Amherst residents are being advised to plan for potential travel disruptions and temporary utility outages as a historic According to the Amherst Police Department, a historic home at 24 Dickinson Street is scheduled to be moved beginning at 10 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28.The relocation will travel via Main Street to North Whitney Street and is expected to continue until approximately 10 a.m. Thursday. (WWLP)

Western Mass. Towns Push Back on State Solar Siting Rules at Shutesbury Forum by Scott Merzbach (10/26/26). When five solar projects were proposed that could have cleared some 29,000 trees from 190 acres in Shutesbury, town officials were left on their own to cover the costs of the Land Court litigation that followed. Planning Board member Jeff Weston said the town got “no help from anyone” at the state level in defending the town’s bylaws. He said that was despite the state’s 2024 Siting and Permitting Law, which offers financial and technical assistance to small, rural communities, and despite Shutesbury’s proximity to Boston’s drinking water supply.“We protect the Quabbin Reservoir, our trees filter the water for the Quabbin Reservoir, ” Weston said. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Ancestral Bridges Exhibit Reclaims Overlooked Black, Indigenous History in Amherst by Scott Merzbach (10/20/26). As the 250th anniversary of the United States and the American Revolution is celebrated, leaders of Ancestral Bridges say the contributions of Black and Afro-Indigenous peoples often remain invisible or wiped from the historical narrative, even in Amherst.In a continuing effort to confront this challenge, the Cottage Street museum has launched “Revolutionary Responses,” an exhibit that includes a series of art pieces installed amid the archives. This comes as the museum undertakes research projects that aim to better understand the lives of those buried in the nearby West Cemetery, the final resting place for generations of Black residents and those who once made their homes in the Westside Historic District, such as famed banjo player Gil Roberts. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

UMass Amherst Union Workers Demand Living Wage at Campus Rally by Juliana Pinelli (10/23/26). Unions at the University of Massachusetts Amherst rallied for higher wages outside of the student union Thursday as part of a larger state-wide campaign demanding an increase in wages for public higher education staff. Eve Weinbaum, a sociology professor and vice president of the Massachusetts Society of Professors, says some employees are even struggling to pay for groceries. “Some of the workers who are here today have talked about the fact that they have food insecurity. They are using the food bank or the campus food pantry to feed their families,” she said. “Housing prices are unbelievably high in this area and it’s impossible to afford even a reasonable apartment on a starting salary at UMass. And so we’re asking for that to change.” (NEPM)

Smith College to Close Fort Hill Day Care Center, Leaving Families Reeling by Anthony Cammalleri (10/20/26). Smith College will close its Center for Early Childhood Education at Fort Hill next June, ending a century-long run for the childcare center and leaving families angry and dismayed. The center opened in 1926 and enrolls about 80 children and infants in seven classrooms. Parents and staff learned Monday evening that it will close June 4, 2027, in an email from Anne-Marie Szmyt, the college’s vice president for human resources. Szmyt said the decision to close Fort Hill comes after a review of the college’s childcare benefits and operations, and is not a financial decision. “This decision is not a reflection of the quality of education and care at Fort Hill, nor is it a budget-relieving measure,” Szmyt wrote. “Instead, Smith is expanding its overall childcare benefit to a model that provides flexible childcare benefits for employees with children up to age 12 across any licensed and accredited provider.” (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Easthampton Backs Divestment from Companies Linked to Human Rights Violations by Sam Ferland (10/22/26). The City Council on Wednesday passed a nonbinding resolution urging the city to divest about $454,000 from companies accused of complicity in human rights violations in Israel and Palestine.The clock had just rolled past 9 p.m. when councilors approved the resolution. Members of Easthampton Divest, the group that spearheaded efforts to get the resolution passed, cheered and applauded as their nearly yearlong campaign came to fruition. Since forming in December, the group has collected more than 525 signatures from local residents in favor of the resolution. (Daily Hampshire Gazette)

News from Further Afield
Massachusetts May Be the First State to Repeal Recreational Weed by Genevieve Morrison (10/30/26).  It’s not only weed at stake. The whole legal apparatus that supports social equity marijuana businesses would disappear if ballot question 8 passes. (The Nation)

College Towns Finally Build More Student Housing – Now Some Have Too Much by Allaire Conte (10/20/26). The student housing shortage may finally be breaking in some college towns—only for falling rents and empty beds to expose an entirely different problem in its place.Developers delivered more than 31,000 dedicated off-campus bedrooms in 2026 across the university markets tracked by Yardi Matrix, a commercial real estate intelligence platform—20% more than the year before. But some of the newest properties are already struggling to find residents. Buildings delivered this year averaged just 84.1% occupancy in September, according to Yardi’s preliminary estimate, compared with 95.3% for the previous year’s new projects at the same point. (realtor.com)

Election News
Your Progressive Guide to the 2026 Statewide Ballot Questions by Progressive Mass 8/5/26). Recommendations for 8 of the state’s 9 ballot questions. (Progressivemass.com).

Ballotmania: Inside the Flurry of Measures Upending Massachusetts Politics by Chris Lisinski 10/28/26). The surge in questions on the November ballot and the tens of millions of dollars being spent on them has revived debate about the process itself. Are initiative petitions a legitimate policymaking tool that citizens can wield when their elected officials are too resistant to public opinion? Or are they an outdated, poorly designed mechanism that can be exploited, especially in a post-Citizens United world, by those with a specific vision and money to burn? (CommonWealth Beacon)

The Shoestring has several articles analyzing the pros and cons of some of the ballot issues on Tuesday’s ballot.