The Circus of (Im)Migration is touring the west coast from April 30th through May 13th. The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA) made their first stop in the Bay Area on May 7th at UC Berkeley. The trip continues on May 8th with a San Francisco evening show at Station 40, before a workshop and performance in Santa Cruz on May 9th and 10th.

On Saturday, May 5th, Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink joined in an anti-war solidarity event while unsatisfied Congresswoman Doris Matsui constituents demanded that she "Stop the Funding now!" A neighbor of Matsui threw an egg, hitting a 4-year old girl and a Matsui aide. Police conducted a door-to-door inquiry for the egg thrower, without success.

Just weeks after being released from a military stockade in Germany for refusing redeployment to Iraq, Agustin Aguayo will be joined by fellow war resisters on a greater San Francisco Bay Area speaking tour from May 9-18. Agustin served almost eight months in prison after fighting for nearly three years to be recognized as a conscientious objector. Agustin will explain for the first time why he chose jail instead of redeploying to Iraq.

Palestine Awareness Week is taking place at UC Santa Cruz from May 7th through May 10th and began with a Check Point established in the Baytree Plaza. At that check point, five Palestinians were being detained for no apparent reason while two Israeli soldiers mentally and physically abused the detainees and prevented them from leaving the prison cell. One Palestinian women plead over and over to be released because she was pregnant and worried should would lose her baby.

On Thursday, May 17th, oral arguments will be heard in federal court in Philadelphia on what could be the last appeal of death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is known as the "Voice of the Voiceless." Bay Area supporters of Mumia have organized a rally that will be held outside of the 7th U.S. Court of Appeal building, at 7th and Mission Streets in San Francisco, from 4pm to 6pm on May 17th. Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row in Pennsylvania for 25 years.

Jeff Perlstein, who was one of the founders of Indymedia, steps down as Executive Director of Media Alliance this month. On May 3 a meeting/party was held in Jeff's honor at New College in San Francisco. The event also marked the 31st birthday of Media Alliance, as well as World Press Freedom Day. Media Alliance always struggles for the cause of community journalism. It helped kick off Indymedia in the Bay Area in 2000.

In the latest rounds of budget woes, the Santa Cruz Homeless Services Center, in order to balance out the loss of some hoped for grant money, and a food service budget which has caused a deficit for 2 years in a row, will be cutting the Saturday and Sunday afternoon dinners along with staffing cuts, and fewer hours of service. Meanwhile the heavily used HSC's hygiene bay includes 2 washing machines, 4 dryers, 3 showers, and toilets for 2,500 homeless clients. Hours will be cut to 5 days a week instead of seven. But the biggest loss are those two, weekend meals which feed between 65 and 160 people each afternoon.

On April 26, 2007, Danny Glover announced that he is joining with Congresswoman Barbara Lee in supporting the ongoing boycott by UC workers against UC Berkeley due to the unsolved issue of pay equity for custodians. Before the boycott began last year, custodians who clean the dorms and classrooms at UC Berkeley have been urging the Chancellor to end poverty wages. According to the Economic Policy Institute 100% of the custodians at UC Berkeley earn a wage that is below the $19.78 per hour needed to support a one parent and one child household in the East Bay.

Friday, May 4th was one of the most successful Oakland Critical Mass rides to date. The bicyclists rolled together down Telegraph, visited the Art Murmur, and encountered a scene where a bicyclist had apparently been struck by a motorist. After the ride, some cyclists continued through West Oakland to the collapsed portion of the MacArthur Maze, where they entered the worksite and observed the deconstruction/reconstruction. Later, they corrected a bike hazard that is known as the "Grates of Death." To further assert the message of carmageddon in the face of deadly grates, mazes, and consumer culture, the big box stores of Emeryville were stormed by TallBike.

Free Skool Santa Cruz (FSSC) held their quarterly Community Picnic and Running a Free Skool workshop on the weekend of May 5th and 6th. May 5th kicked off a special Free Skool weekend with a Free Skool Community Picnic at Ocean View Park. Sunday May 6th, FSSC hosted a workshop on Running a Free Skool at the Big Yellow House.

May 1, 2007 was the first anniversary of the Great Boycott of 2006, in which immigrants led walkouts, boycotts, and protests all over the US. Reports are in that thousands marched in Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco. In Los Angeles, police shot projectiles at a rally tens of thousands strong. Protests were also held in Berkeley, Mountain View, Davis, Fresno, Modesto, Sacramento, Salinas, Santa Cruz, and Watsonville. The ILWU reportedly stopped work in 6 west coast ports, and May 1st was also a day of nationwide student walkouts.

On April 30th, at 5pm, sympathizers of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) and students from the Benito Juarez Autonomous University occupied Radio Universidad in preparation for the May 1st general strike in Mexico. The section 22 teachers' union will participate in the march to the main square, the Zocalo, that will take place on Tuesday in Oaxaca City. Radio Universidad was fiercely defended against the invading federal police last November 2nd and continued to broadcast until a few days after the 25th of November, when massive state repression forced much of the movement into hiding.

Van Jones spoke at UCSC on April 25, on "Growing Greener, Growing Together: Sustainability, Social Justice and the Future of the Progressive Movement." Van Jones is the Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, a national organization in Oakland, CA, that has focused on positive alternatives to incarceration and violence in urban America.

On Saturday, April 28th, people all over the country organized events calling for the impeachment of George Bush. On April 28th, thousands of people gathered at Ocean Beach in San Francisco to spell out the words "IMPEACH NOW!" with their bodies. CodePink then lead a 12pm march to Nancy Pelosi's house. There were also actions in Sacramento and other cities around the US that day.

On April 26th, the Stop BP-Berkeley student group opposing the $500 million dollar contract between oil giant British Petroleum and the University of California Berkeley held its first teach-in on the issues surrounding the agreement. Meanwhile, the newly-formed Phoenix coalition, which emphasizes direct action to "free the University of California," occupied a redwood tree in the heart of campus to raise awareness of the issue.

The US military has ordered that at least 10 areas of Baghdad be entirely sealed off by walls. The western Baghdad district of Ghazaliyah has already been walled off. The 15,000 residents of the area are subjected to curfews and can only enter and leave through one checkpoint, where they are subjected to repeated identity checks and searches. Since April 10, US forces have been constructing a five-kilometer wall made of six-ton concrete sections along the highway dividing Adhamiyah from its Shiite neighbors. On April 23rd, residents the Sunni enclave demonstrated and shouted slogans against the wall and Prime Minister Al Maliki called for an end to construction, but the US military has said that it will continue building the walls.

On April 26th, students from San Francisco State walked out of classrooms to protest higher fees in education and the privatization of public education. Students first met at Malcolm X plaza and then marched towards the center of campus. More students began to file out of class and join the crowd. Later, the students went inside different buildings to encourage even more students to walk out. At the highest point of the protest there were about a thousand students marching.

On April 21st, activists from the Arcata People Project established an encampment in Arcata California. According to an organizer, the protest aimed to "reclaim common spaces and create awareness about the issue of homelessness in the country and the fact that folks just don't have a place to sleep and be safe." On April 25th, police raided the protest encampment and several homeless rights activists were attacked and arrested by the police. Homeless protesters are continuing their protest on the lawn in front of The Arcata City Hall, where they intend to stay until the city gives back the property siezed by the police in Wednesday's raid.

Santa Cruz City Hall Courtyard hosted a jean art exhibit on April 25th as part of Denim Day in Santa Cruz. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and wearing denim, "Wear Your Jeans", is part of an international protest of an Italian High Court decision to overturn a rape conviction because the victim was wearing jeans. Denim Day is about challenging myth-based injustice.

Every year on April 20, folks gather around North America to celebrate and smoke. UC Santa Cruz has historically had one of the largest gatherings around, a self-fulfilling prophesy of sorts, spurred on by UCSC's unique cultural history and the occassional spotlights from outside (like Rolling Stone Magazine a few years ago). Its a big community event - a place where thousands of people can bring a bunch of friends, musical instruments, frisbees, you name it, and just have fun. This year, cops and administrators attempted to intimidate students, but the party went on.

The Cucapa Tribe on the Colorado River Delta in Baja California faces similar problems in the battle for environmental justice that the Winnemem Wintu and other California tribes face on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and California rivers and coastal waters. The Cucapa Tribe in El Mayor, Baja California has organized an historic Zapatista peace camp to defend their fishing rights against harassment and intimidation by the Mexican government on the Colorado River Delta.

On April 19th anti-war protesters gathered in front of a Chevron station in San Francisco to protest a proposed Iraqi law that would give Western oil companies more control over Iraqi oil. If the law is adopted as is, control of the Iraqi oil industry will shift from the public sector, where it’s been since the 1970s, into the hands of the multinational oil companies, especially British and American firms.

On April 14th, Santa Cruz County activists crowded into the First Congregational Church to honor some of their own local heroes of Latin America Solidarity. The evening was filled with good food, laughter and inspirational words from a variety of community members. The event bridged the divide between young and old and brought together people from north and south Santa Cruz County.

On Thursday, April 19th, at 5:00 p.m., a rally was held at Civic Center in San Francisco to oppose the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Federal "Partial-Birth" Abortion Ban. Many say that the decision, which was announced on April 18th, will endanger women's health by eroding the scope of Roe v Wade. In a 5-4 decision, the justices upheld the Federal Abortion Ban that had been passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2003. This federal ban will come into effect within a few weeks. It will trump California's strong pro-choice laws and ban certain abortions, without an exception to preserve the health of the woman.