The 5th annual Trans Price March will take place Friday June 27th in Dolores Park. There will be a rally at Dolores and 19th Street starting at 3pm and march leaves around 7pm. The theme of this year's march is "Marching for a Gender Inclusive ENDA", with an objective to bring a focus on transgender civil rights and to celebrate the support of the LGBT family.

The Trans March will kick off a weekend of Pride events. The 16th annual San Francisco Dyke March will take place Saturday June 28th in Dolores Park. The rally and stage begins at 3 with the march at 7pm. The 38th SF LGBT Pride Festival will take place Saturday from noon till 6 in Civic Center Plaza with the Pride March taking place on Market St from 10:30am through 7pm Sunday.

In August 2006, seven African American lesbians were walking down the street in the West Village, when a male bystander assaulted them with sexist and homophobic comments. The women tried to defend themselves, and a fight broke out. The women were arrested and three of them accepted plea offers while the other four received sentences of up to 11 years in prison.

On Monday, June 23, 2008, Terrain Dandridge’s case was overturned, all her charges were dropped and her record was cleared. Terrain Dandridge and her mother meet with Angela Davis at the San Francisco Women’s Building for a public event Tuesday, June 24th to discuss the experiences of violence faced by queer people of color.

Video cameras have become a crucial way for Palestinians to document the daily harassment inflicted on them by Israeli settlers. In one recent example, a Palestinian family living on the southern hills of Al-Halil, was attacked by four settlers armed with baseball bats while farming their land. The video provided evidence against two settlers, who were arrested by the Israeli police.

On June 21, local activists in the Castro district united, in an outdoor public awards ceremony to "honor" the greedy landlord speculators most responsible for the gentrification and destruction of San Francisco's communities. The event took place at Harvey Milk Plaza at Castro and Market in San Francisco, and the activists called on people to stand up against gentrification by landlord speculators who are destroying our neighborhoods and communities.

Under the guise of the "War on Drugs," the Mexican Army has increased its presence around the Zapatistas autonomous municipalities in La Garrucha — the last place Subcomandante Marcos was seen. On June 4, a convoy of 200 army, state and local police tried to enter La Garrucha under the pretext of “looking for marijuana plants,” but were turned away by Zapatista men, women and children armed only with machetes and stones.

While the violence surrounding drug cartels in Mexico causes great alarm in Mexico and abroad, the targeting of Zapatista communities in the “War on Drugs” is equally alarming.

On June 21, about 200 pro-war/pro-military bikers invaded Berkeley to demonstrate in support of the Marine recruiting station in downtown Berkeley. They were met by about 100 demonstrators chanting, "Murder, Rape, Torture, War – That's What They're Recruiting For" and carrying pictures of Iraqi civilians maimed at the hands of U.S. troops.

On June 19th, between 2,500 and 3,000 people gathered for a very spirited "Heathcare-Yes, Insurance Companies-NO" rally outside the Moscone convention center in San Francisco. The largest contingents came from the California School Employees Association, the California Nurses Association, and the California Universal Health Care Organizing Project.

May 2008 marked 60 years of the Nakba, the catastrophe. Sixty years ago, 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and 350 Palestinian villages were destroyed by the Israeli army and militias. In the Bay Area, the Nakba was commemorated by numerous events and demonstrations. On May 10th at the Civic Center, a peace and solidarity festival took place with bands such as the Coup and Dam. Jewish groups also organized solidarity actions. The International Jewish Solidarity Network has circulated a statement calling on people not to celebrate, and Jewish Voice for Peace called on Americans to remember the thousands of Palestinians who have suffered in the creation of Israel. The IJSN disrupted an event at San Francisco's JCC called "Israel at Sixty."

On June 19th, the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that aerial pheromone application will no longer take place over urban areas and will be "limited to agricultural land and undeveloped regions as a tool of last result" to control the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). “The bottom line for eradicating this pest has always been safety,” said Sam Farr, representative of the 17th Congressional District of California. “The public was never convinced that spraying was safe or the only option, and the result has been protests, anger and a series of lawsuits."

When a prison riot between inmates and guards broke out in a maximum security facility, Salinas Valley State prison in California on Thanksgiving Day in 1998, corrections officer Donald J.Vodicka's life would be changed forever. In an attempt to document evidence of injured inmates, Vodicka was behind the camera that day. What was normal standard procedure would be shunned on by a group of guards, and Vodicka was told by other guards to get rid of the photos and evidence of injured inmates. To cover-up evidence.

June 19th Update: Treesitter and Indybay reporter Cricket, came down Thursday night after 3 days of fighting. He made a deal that resulted in his pictures being handed off to others who could post them to Indybay.

On Tuesday, June 17th, at least five hired contract workers arrived at 6:30am and climbed into the branches of the oak trees to take down tree-sit platforms. Around 5pm, one woman tree-sitter was taken down from a tree and arrested. Contract workers continued to take down parts of the tree-sit Wednesday and 3 protesters were arrested.

Indymedia Newsreal, a monthly television series, brings progressive grassroots organizing, going on in your backyard, to a national television audience. Newsreal is a longstanding collaboration between the Independent Media Center and Free Speech TV. It is shown on Free Speech TV every first Thursday at 5pm PST and sent on disc to community screening groups who show it during public screenings or include it on public access shows.

Skidmark Bob of Free Radio Santa Cruz interviewed media analyst John Anderson about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to be discussed at the G8 summit in Japan and H.R. 4279, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act of 2007. Although ACTA's title might suggest that the agreement deals only with counterfeit physical goods (such as medicines), what little information has been made available publicly by negotiating governments about the content of the treaty makes it clear that it will have a far broader scope, and in particular, will deal with tools targeting "Internet distribution and information technology." The PRO IP Act proposes to make substantial changes to federal copyright law, including the appointment of a copyright Czar.

On Tuesday June 18th, Judge Barbara Miller upheld a temporary injunction preventing U.C. Berkeley from developing an athletic center in the Memorial Oak Grove. Celebrations broke out among protesters as the news was announced. The University says they will continue taking down tree-sits and it is not clear how long the Oaks will be safe.

On June 16th, same sex marriages officially began in California. same sex marriages were officially held in San Francisco. In San Francisco, hundreds came to City Hall to celebrate. After being together for more than 50 years, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin were the first couple to be legally married. In Oakland, the first couples were married by mayor Ron Dellums, city council member Jean Quan, and congresswoman Barbara Lee. In Fresno, dozens of couples arrived early to get their marriage licenses Tuesday morning. Tinasha Broadus and Alicia Rice were the first in line and the first to be married.

On June 16th, around a dozen protesters gathered at Ashby and MLK in Berkeley to protest the shooting of Anita Gay, grandmother, mother, and resident of Berkeley. She was killed on February 16, 2008 by a Berkeley Police officer who is now back on the street.

"Jonah" Larrama, a traveler who spends most of his time in SF and NY, is being held at the Northwest ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Detention Center in Tacoma, WA. He is known locally from Food Not Bombs, Homes Not Jails, and various tenants' rights, homeless rights, bike rights and animal rights activities among other things. He was arrested at the end of May for trespassing to watch the sunset from a roof of a building in Seattle and spent some time in county jail. An ICE raid took place at the jail and he was transported to the Northwest Detention Center because his citizenship status is in question.

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.