Two American Jewish women, Donna and Darlene Wallach, left their lives behind in San Jose six months ago to break the Israeli siege of Gaza. Courageously sailing on the first two Free Gaza boats, SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty, they had no idea of their fate at the hands of the Israeli navy, which has maintained a total sea blockade of Gaza since the 1970s. On January 25th, the two sisters arrived at Mineta San Jose International Airport to a heroes’ welcome.

On January 30th, bail for BART police officer Johannes Mehserle was set at $3 million. Protesters gathered outside the courthouse and marched toward 14th and Broadway after the bail was announced. Oakland police fired tear gas and projectiles at protesters and later blocked off several roads. At least nine people were tackled and arrested for "failure to disperse." On January 31st, a demonstration was held at Oakland City Hall. Around 50 people gathered despite the large number of police present. Demonstrators read their demands for police accountability.

Schachaf Polakow, a member of Anarchists Against the Wall, will give presentations in the Bay Area on February 5th and 6th that will include film and photos, and will focus both on AATW's recent work in solidarity with Gaza and their ongoing work in the West Bank.

Anarchists Against the Wall is a direct action group that fights against Israeli apartheid and oppression in all its forms, most recently also the atrocities in Gaza. For five years the group has waged a constant struggle against Israel's Wall. The work on the ground in the West Bank, alongside the Palestinian popular movement is breaking new ground in the joint struggle for Palestinian liberation.

UA in the Bay writes: Attention all anarchists, anticapitalists, antiauthoritarians, troublemakers, and rabble-rousers across North America! We’re writing to let you all know that UA in the Bay, the Unconventional Action branch in the San Francisco Bay Area, is still alive and kicking and we are calling out to all groups across the country to continue the fight as well!

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) placed United Healthcare Workers (UHW) West in trusteeship on January 27. UHW members work in hospitals, convalescent facilities, and in home care. The International wanted to remove 65,000 members from UHW and put them into another, newly formed local, while UHW wanted the plan to be decided by a democratic vote of the members. UHW supporters held a rally and march on the evening of January 27 to protest the action.

On January 23rd, Annette Garcia, a mother of three, was shot to death by Riverside Sheriffs after they received calls that she was suicidal and under duress due to a marriage dispute. Reports by the family and witnesses state that she "posed no harm to the officers involved, yet she was shot at six times until a bullet hit her in the back as she tried to run for cover." Due to this outrage and other recent police misconducts and abuse around the nation, several community members from Watsonville and Santa Cruz held a candlelight vigil protest on January 25th in Watsonville.

Jeffrey Free Luers writes, "Alongside protecting the wild and fostering respect for our planet, one of the tenets of this movement is creating a sustainable future for our communities. In doing so, we must develop communities that have the ability to provide food, water, sanitation, resources and energy in a decentralized and autonomous manner."

American Indian leader and political prisoner Leornard Peltier was brutally beaten on Tuesday, January 20th, just after he was transferred to the Canaan Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. On Friday, January 23rd, the American Indian community and their supporters came out in the rain in San Francisco to protest the attack on Leonard Peltier. Family members of Leonard feel the assault was orchestrated by the FBI to prejudice his next parole hearing.

On January 24th, the "March For Life" took place in San Francisco. Tens of thousands of people who oppose abortion and gay rights converged on San Francisco for a march down the Embarcadero. Several hundred counter-protesters showed up to denounce the right-wing message of the marchers. The Bay Area Coalition for Reproductive Rights (BACORR) had called on supporters of human rights to protest the “Walk for Life," which was led by religious conservatives.

On January 20th, 2009, George W Bush left the White House and Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. The transition was marked in several ways across Northern California. From San Francisco to Fresno to Santa Cruz to Mountain View to Sacramento, the transfer of power was met with relief, cautious celebration, and determination to keep the fight for social justice alive. Many are concerned about military policies of George Bush that Obama may continue or expand.

On Tuesday, January 27th, at 7:00pm, the Santa Cruz City Council will consider recommendations by Mayor Cynthia Mathews and Councilmembers Lynn Robinson and Ryan Coonerty to make Santa Cruz’ downtown and beach area "more safe, vibrant and welcoming for community members and visitors alike. This effort will improve and expand existing ordinances in order to make them consistent, understandable and enforceable; other programs will address specific issues."

On January 16th, 60 University of California (UC) service workers and at least ten UC student supporters from at least five UC campuses stormed the San Francisco offices of UC Board of Regents Chairman Richard Blum at his company, Blum Capital, on Montgomery St. Chanting, singing and posting images and words of impoverished UC service workers on the walls, they occupied Blum's office to ask that he and UC President Mark Yudof "agree to end poverty wages at UC."

On January 22, police seized an Indymedia server in Manchester, England. Kent Police had e-mailed UK Indymedia earlier in the day in regards to two comments containing the address of a judge that had been posted to the site. It is believed the search and seizure was connected to postings about a recent Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) trial in the UK. The seizure specifically targeted a server named "Strummer" which functions as a mirror of the UK site and does not actually receive submissions from users. The server was reportedly handed over to police by hosting company UK Grid without a warrant being served.

Mark Hawthorne writes: One of the most exciting results of Proposition 2 — California’s successful campaign to ban battery cages for hens, gestation crates pigs and veal crates for calves — is that it energized activists across the United States, introducing a new generation of animal advocates to the horrors of factory farming. Many of these people had known little, if anything, about agribusiness practices. But they literally took up the Prop 2 banner, getting involved in the fight to end the use of intensive-confinement devices in California.

Photographs from Palestine taken by Emily Jacir were recently on display at SFMOMA as part of an exhibit about passages and memory. The title of the photo display was where we come from” and it’s a representation of interviews the artist did with Palestinians in the Diaspora and Palestine. Jacir asked her interviewers to answer the question “if I could do anything for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?” Jacir's works was acquired last year by SFMOMA and will likely be shown again in the near future.

On January 18th, Israel announced it was ending its attacks on Gaza and after Hamas agreed to stop rocket fire the next day, Israeli troops have begun to withdraw. Gazans who survived the 22-days of Israeli attacks are starting to venture outside and some reporters are starting to get in to the the destruction. At least 1314 Palestinians were killed and 50,000 were left without homes as a result of the fighting. Israeli officials have said that one reason they ended their attacks was to prevent distracting news stories from getting in the way of Obama's inauguration in the US.

On January 15th, about 45 Palestinian, Jewish, immigrant rights and prison abolitionists chained themselves to the Israeli consulate in San Francisco to protest Israeli apartheid and its current attacks on Gaza. The protesters called for an immediate ceasefire; the opening of land, sea, and air borders to allow in emergency supplies; and an end to US financial and political support for Israel.

The BART police officer filmed shooting Oscar Grant was arrested on January 13th. On January 14th, thousands gathered in front of Oakland City Hall for a rally to protest the shooting. One of the rally's organizers stated, "The job is not done. He has been arrested but he has not yet been prosecuted. The fight is definitely not over." When the main protests ended, there was a break-away protest. Around 8:20pm a Wells Fargo was attacked. Police moved in with tear-gas and over the next few hours there were 18 arrests. On January 16th, court hearings for arrested protesters were held. Oakland students walked out of classes to speak out at the county courthouse. At 4:40pm, students returned from the county courthouse to Oakland High. Other students started joining them and the police charged in. Four arrested and one student attacked violently by the OPD. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 19th, a March for Justice & Reparations for the Family of Oscar Grant III started at West Oakland BART.

On Sunday, January 11, more than a thousand people demonstrated against Israeli attacks on Gaza in a suburban shopping district in San Jose, California. This was the second Sunday in a row that demonstrators, many dressed in the colors of the Palestinian flag, started their protest by chanting and wielding signs in front of a typical 1960's era shopping strip. They then stopped traffic as they filled the streets a block away in a fashion district featuring luxury retailers.

Sunday, January 11, a rally protesting U.S. torture at Guantanamo and around the world took place at Market and Powell Streets in San Francisco. A march through the surrounding Union Square shopping district with a line of orange-clad "prisoners" dramatized the plight of people caught in the U.S. detention system, and was followed by concluding remarks at the Powell Street cable car turnaround. The rally was part of a National Day of Protest: Close Guantanamo and End U.S. Torture Policies Everywhere.

In a new interview, San Francisco journalist and former Black Panther Kiilu Nyasha writes that San Quentin Six prisoner "Hugo L. A. Pinell, nicknamed 'Yogi Bear,' will go to Board again on January 17. His last Board appearance was November 14, 2006 when he was denied two years, despite having no rule infractions for 24 years. Make that nearly 27 years clean time now. One of George Jackson's closest comrades, Yogi has now been incarcerated in California prisons for almost 45 years, nearly 39 in solitary confinement, the last 19 in the Pelican Bay SHU (Security Housing Unit, or 24/7 lockup)."

In an open letter to the Lesbian and Gay community during his campaign, president-elect Obama promised, "I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans." On January 10th, three South Bay activist groups came together to lead a rally calling on Mr. Obama to hold true to his word. The downtown San Jose rally was part of a national day of action to gather a million signatures to demand equal rights for the gay community. The signatures are to be delivered to Obama on January 20th, Inauguration Day.

On January 7th, a rally was held to protest the police murder of Oscar Grant. Protesters gathered at the Fruitvale BART station at 3pm. After dozens of speakers addressed the crowd for about 2 hours, a march began. Hundreds of protesters marched up International Blvd towards downtown Oakland. As the crowd passed the Lake Merritt BART area, there was a brief confrontation where a police car was attacked and a dumpster lit on fire. Within minutes, riot police arrived and shot tear gas into the crowd. The protest continued into the night as dozens of protesters massed and split up repeatedly, smashing windows, lighting fires in dumpsters, and torching at least two cars as police struggled to keep up. Oakland police are reporting that they arrested 105 people for a variety of offenses.

The Coalition Against Police Execution (CAPE) has announced a "Rally for Justice for Oscar Grant" at Oakland City Hall on Wednesday, Jan. 14th. There will be a benefit for legal defense Saturday, January 17th. On January 12th, a demonstration against the police murder of Oscar Grant was held in SF.

On Saturday, January 10th there were nationwide protests against the atrocities and occupation perpetrated by the Israeli government in Gaza. The San Francisco protest started in Civic Center at 11am and then thousands of protesters marched through the downtown. More then 850 people have died and thousands have been wounded in Israel's attacks on Gaza. 1.6 million Gazans are living without access to basic services and face constant Israeli attacks in one of the most densely populated areas of the world. On January 8th, the UN accused Israel of purposefully killing its aid workers. The UN has also reported that Israeli troops ordered Palestinian civilians into a house in Gaza City, and then shelled the building 24 hours later. The ICRC has also accused Israel of restricting access to thousands of wounded civilians, including several young children who the Red Cross found living for several days among the corpses of over a dozen dead relatives.

SANTA CRUZ, CA – The Diversity Center’s Latino Outreach program will hold a presentation of the “Assessment of the Latino Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community of Santa Cruz County” on Thursday, January 15th, at 5:00pm at the Diversity Center (1117 Soquel Ave). This report will present what Latino LGBT people have identified as their issues and needs and how one can better support them as service providers, family, friends and teachers.

On December 18, members of the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations (FIOB) in the city of Greenfield, California opened a new office in the city to meet the requests of the indigenous migrant community in this area. The grand opening is doubly symbolic because International Day of the Migrant is celebrated on this day.

In the early hours of January 1st, BART police shot and killed a 22 year old man, Oscar Grant, on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland. Witnesses report that Grant was "lying on his stomach with his hands out in a non-threatening position when he was shot". Police have confirmed Grant was unarmed and have suggested the shooting was an accident. Grant lived in Hayward and leaves behind a 4-year-old daughter.

On Wednesday, January 7th, there will be a memorial service at 11am at Palma Ceia Baptist Church and then a rally to protest the shooting from 3pm till 8pm at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland.

On Saturday January 3rd, Israeli ground troops moved into Gaza, cutting the territory in two and surrounding Gaza City. At least 600 Palestinians have now been killed with thousands wounded and an even larger number left without water and other basic services. As protests occur around the world and many world leaders denounce the massacre, the US is trying to delay a ceasefire and US politicians like NY mayor Bloomberg and Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman have flown to Israel to show their support for the continuation of the killing.

In San Francisco, an emergency protest took place Saturday at Powell and Market. Over one thousand protested in San Jose Sunday. On Monday morning in San Francisco, a thousand protesters marched from Market and Montgomery to the Federal Building, demanding that Israel halt its invasion of Gaza. A small delegation attempted to enter the Federal Building to deliver a message asking the US government to stop supporting the Israeli military.