On, June 10, Berkeley residents & activists gathered at Berkeley City Hall to protest UC Berkeley's plan to pulverize LBNL's Bevatron structure. Protesters are worried about the environmental and health impacts of the University's plans to demolish, and haul away, the Bevatron and its contents -- which include radioactive material, asbestos, lead, mercury, PCBs, and chlorinated VOCs.

Copwatcher and member of the Free Mind Media Center (a Santa Rosa based radical infoshop and bookstore) Ben Saari, was arrested on May Day while doing Copwatch and has charges pending against him.

Free Speech Radio News (FSRN) is facing closure after its major supporter substantially reduced funding. FSRN has been given notice by the financially-strapped Pacifica Foundation that its funding will be cut by more than $13,500 a month - effective immediately. The reduction represents about a 25% cut in income for the grassroots news collective. Since FSRN is barred from on-air fundraising, it must seek to offset the cut with income from affiliates, foundations and individuals. A massive cut in funding from Pacifica on a moment's notice will make it impossible for Free Speech Radio News to produce a daily half-hour newscast.

On June 6, a Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge voided a demolition permit for the historic Juana Briones home. Juana Briones de Miranda was a Latina businesswoman, humanitarian, and landowner who built a rare earthen-walled house in the 1840s in what later became Palo Alto.

On June 2nd, the Education for Sustainable Living Program (ESLP) class at UC Santa Cruz hosted an evening entitled "The University is Unsustainable: militarism, nuclearism, corporatism and the UC." Student researchers Jono and Leah presented on UCSC's Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) while UCSC alumni Will Parrish and Darwin BondGraham focused on the University of California from 1868 to 2008, from the genocide of Indigenous Nations, the Spanish American War and the Manhattan Project, through to the present: a time of renewed nuclear-militarism and increasing corporatization and privatization of the University.

On June 5th, after a federal judge cleared the way, Blackwater Worldwide, the 'World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army', opened a large training facility in San Diego, just three blocks from the border that separates California and Mexico. Blackwater is setting its sights on the so-called "war on drugs" and recently opened its own private CIA, called "Total Intelligence Solutions," marketing "CIA-type services" to Fortune 500 companies. On Wednesday, June 11th, local groups in San Diego are organizing a major protest outside the Blackwater facility at 7685 Siempre Viva Road in Otay Mesa.

On June 8, at Chai House in San Jose, Jewish and Japanese American survivors of the camps of World War Two and their families met to tell their stories and reach common understanding. The South Bay Holocaust Survivor Group and the Japanese American Museum of San Jose were sponsors of the meeting, and the group was about evenly mixed between the two communities represented.

The community of Felton prevailed in its six-year fight to acquire its water system from California-American Water (Cal-Am), a subsidiary of the German multinational corporation RWE. Cal-Am and the San Lorenzo Valley Water District (SLVWD) announced a purchase agreement on May 30th, less than a week before the planned start of an eminent domain trial where a jury would have set the value of the water system. “This win, combined with the failure of RWE to efficiently and affordably deliver water to the residents of Felton is yet another example of why water utilities should be managed by the public," said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch.

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Santa Cruz County and mental health advocates will rally on Tuesday, June 10th at 9:30am in front of the County Government Building on Ocean Street to call for the protection of mental health services in Santa Cruz County. Children, incarcerated individuals, and individuals with mental illness are losing their services or will receive reduced services.

On June 6th, George Blumenthal was inaugurated as the 10th Chancellor of UC Santa Cruz during a ceremony on the East Field overlooking the Monterey Bay. Students and workers, organized through the Student and Worker Coalition for Justice (SWCJ) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), rallied at UCSC, marched to the Chancellor's Inauguration and blocked California Highway One during a 10-hour day of action to end poverty wages at the University of California.

The homeless and their advocates achieved an enormous victory on June 6th when a federal court in Fresno approved a settlement of over $2 million for the destruction of their personal property. The settlement is the largest of its kind in the entire country.

On May 31st, nearly a thousand protesters marched across the Golden Gate Bridge to protest the proposed spraying of the Bay Area for light brown apple moths. Groups gathered on both sides of the bridge and marched to the middle carrying signs protesting the proposed aerial spraying of a moth pheromone as part of a statewide campaign to wipe out the moth.

AFSCME Local 3299's strike, planned for June 4 - 5, has been postponed indefinitely. UC hired the infamous anti-union law firm Littler Mendelson, a firm that boasts on their website about their expertise in avoiding unionization and busting unions. Suddenly, UC Executives claimed to have new proposals for AFSCME and asked for negotiations to resume -- even though they already gave AFSCME their "last, best, and final proposal." In the eyes of a Republican-dominated state labor board, these alleged new proposals were enough to overturn AFSCME's right to strike.

California held an election on June 3rd. Proposition 98 failed to pass and Proposition 99 passed. In the CA Assembly, Nancy Skinner beat Kriss Worthington and in the State Senate Mark Leno beat Carole Migden. In San Francisco, Prop G passed and Prop F failed to pass.

Propositions 98 and 99 were aimed at changing the government’s power to take private property. Proposition 98 would have abolished rent control and other renter protections. Proposition 99 will block the government from taking single family homes or condominiums to transfer to other private parties.

Between 1973 and 1976, more than 76 traditional Lakotas and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) were killed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. These deaths were part of the F.B.I.'s "Reign of Terror", designed to destroy traditional peoples' resistance to corporate projects such as uranium mining. A free film screening and information night on Wednesday, June 4th in Santa Cruz will include literature on John's case and related resistance movements, and will be introduced by a friend and supporter of John Graham.

On Tuesday, June 3rd, Gay Shame will conduct a séance to "summon the ghosts of Polk Street's past", defend street culture and protest Lower Polk Neighbors, whose "business improvement district" has been slowly squeezing the spirit out of Polk Street. Mary writes, "Because the gentrification of the Polk Street area in the Tenderloin is an intersection of so many different wars City Hall is waging -- against people of color, sex workers, homeless people, immigrants, drug addicts, youth, and marginalized queer/trans people -- it's the perfect place to channel voices of resistance."

Earth First! Radio News is a no compromise weekly radio program produced at Free Radio Santa Cruz. Focussing on direct-action and bio-diversity, EF! Radio provides eco-action and activist news, calls-to-action, updates and commentary on current events worldwide. The May 29th broadcast features updates from the North American Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network, Tre Arrow Defense Committee, Support for Rod Coronado, Buffalo Field Campaign, as well as news from Montana, Australia, Chile and more.

On May 30th, the Movement for Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA) organized a rally and press conference at Beach Flats Park in Santa Cruz to denounce recent raids by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE). Community members, union representatives, religious leaders, students and other local activists created a space for community members to become informed of their rights if approached by ICE agents.

On May 22, more than 2,000 Berkeley High School students of all different nationalities streamed out of class and formed a human chain around the school to protest the escalating attacks on immigrants. As they linked arms, they chanted “Immigrants are people!” A young woman with the group Fighting for Immigrants’ Rights and Equality (FIRE), which organized the protest, said, “Most of the school went out with us… Ooooh it made the whole school feel good, like we were a family, no matter what race you are or nothing, like we were together.”

San Francisco renters took to the streets on May 31st to reclaim public space and call attention to the urgent need to protect tenants' rights in this ever-gentrifying city. The action was timed to raise awareness about the urgent need to stop Proposition 98 and save rent control in the June 3rd election.

On May 30th, tens of thousands of Iraqis protested in a number of cities across Iraq against the proposed agreement between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush administration that would codify a long-term US military occupation. Muqtada al-Sadr and Ayatollah Ali Sistani are demanding that any US-Iraqi security agreement be submitted to a national referendum

Friday, May 30, 2008 :Professor Norman Finkelstein, an American Jewish scholar known for his trenchant criticism of Israeli policy, was detained and interrogated by Israels security forces for 24 hours at Tel Avivs Ben Gurion airport on May 23, denied entry into Israel and deported back to Amsterdam where he had been lecturing. He has also been banned from entering Israel for 10 years, for so-called “security reasons.” The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz has published an editorial criticizing the Israeli government’s decision to ban American academic Norman Finkelstein from entering the country.

anarchists write, "Over the last week, we took out six surveillance cameras from the exteriors of four different buildings on the University of California in Santa Cruz campus. This was an act of rebellion to the social control in our daily lives. These cameras are the eyes of the police. This task was easy to accomplish, and would be easy for anyone to reproduce."

Andrew Flood spent the last several months traveling around the USA on a 45 city speaking tour about anarchism in Ireland. Andrew recorded interviews with anarchists, edited audio on bus rides, and posted articles to indymedia ireland once he accessed a wi-fi signal. Together, all those interviewed give an impression of 'the other America.'

Thousands of immigrants and their supporters around the country and in San Francisco marched in favor of a more just immigration policy for the US on May 1st. The next day, 63 immigrant workers from El Balazo Taquerias were raided and detained by ICE. Immigrant rights groups, labor, faith-based groups, and many others will gather for a press conference and rally to denounce the Bay Area raids, and to support the taqueria workers on the day of their first court hearing. They will gather on Tuesday, May 27th at 10 am outside of the Homeland Security Building at 630 Sansome St., in downtown San Francisco.