Occupy Wall Street in New York called for a nationwide May Day General Strike. Cities and towns across the United States are heeding the call. Workers will be striking, students will be leaving classes, and banks and other large corporations will be forced to close for the day across the nation. May 1st, 2012, promises to be the largest American May Day since the Immigrant Rights May Day in 2006 and probably the most widespread and furthest reaching in decades. Indybay has event announcements for Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Sacramento, Fresno, and San Diego.

Copwatcher reports: Oakland Police claim that they have retrained all their officers in crowd control tactics for the upcoming May 1st general strike. While much is unclear about what will be different, there are things that are sure to be the same. Officers that make up most of Oakland's Police Shootings will continue to be deployed as Tango and QRF (Quick Response Force). OPD Chief Howard Jordan has suggested that he may send specialized units into the crowd for the purpose of making surgical arrests, rather than use lethal force through the deployment of chemical and less than lethal rounds indiscriminately.

An assembly of UC Santa Cruz students, workers and community members have planned a day of action in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street's call for a worldwide general strike and the historical significance of May 1st, International Workers Day. This day of events will include rallies, poetry, performance, art, and education around the struggle of the 99% and the collective potential for social transformation. The action will begin with a kick-off rally at the Quarry Plaza on UCSC campus at 11:30 AM which will culminate in a late afternoon march to the downtown post office.

Santa Cruz, CA — District Attorney Bob Lee's prosecution (some say "witchhunt") of eleven activists and alternative media journalists came to a crashing halt on April 25th, as Judge Paul Burdick stopped the preliminary hearing after hearing only two prosecution witnesses. After listening to Officer William Winston of the SCPD and Det. David Gunter's testimony, Burdick challenged Assistant DA Rebekah Young by saying "Ms. Young, you agree that none of these four defendants committed any act of vandalism."

Just months after UC Davis police pepper sprayed seated students in the face during a protest against university privatization and police brutality, Chancellor Linda Katehi's administration is trying to send some of the same students to prison for their alleged role in protests that led to the closure of a US Bank branch on campus. On March 29th, weeks after an anti-privatization action against the US Bank branch, 11 UC Davis students and one professor received orders to appear at Yolo County Superior Court. District Attorney Jeff Reisig is charging campus protesters with 20 counts each of obstructing movement in a public place and one count of conspiracy. Support has been requested for their arraignment on April 27th.

On April 22nd, Patricia Jackson wrote: "If you rambled down to Civic Center Sunday, you might have thought the crowd and the booths could just be another average day event. Then you saw a Whiskey Dome Cycle, a seal made out of all that garbage that gets thrown in the ocean, and the Luvevolution Bus. There was Green Peace and Earth Island Institute — and that was your clue. Earth Day San Francisco, 2012."

In downtown Santa Cruz on April 20, LGBQT community members from the Diversity Center's Youth Program and their family members and allies held a "Breaking the Silence" rally in front of the Del Mar Theatre before a showing of the film "Bully". People held signs and shared stories. There was a group shout out, and many involved with the youth program wore tape x'd over their mouths to both symbolize the silencing effect of bullying on the LGBQT youth community, as well as to be an expression of solidarity with those who could not attend the rally in person for many different reasons of privacy.

WILPF–Santa Cruz Branch writes, The Santa Cruz Branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) condemns the action of local law enforcement in attempting to prosecute eleven local activists who are alleged to have occupied the long-deserted bank building at Water and River Streets last fall. Four of the defendants are journalists, who were present to report to the community on the protests. The First Amendment is clear on the rights of journalists to observe and print their findings; the charges against them should be dropped immediately.

(Albany, Calif.), April 22, 2012 – Occupy the Farm, a coalition of local residents, farmers, students, researchers, and activists are planting over 15,000 seedlings at the Gill Tract, the last remaining 10 acres of Class I agricultural soil in the urbanized East Bay area. The Gill Tract is public land administered by the University of California, which plans to sell it to private developers. For decades the UC has thwarted attempts by community members to transform the site for urban sustainable agriculture and hands-on education.

On April 18th, U.S. Federal authorities removed a server from a colocation facility shared by Riseup Networks and May First/People Link in New York City. The seized server was operated by the European Counter Network (“ECN”), the oldest independent internet service provider in Europe, who, among many other things, provided an anonymous remailer service, Mixmaster, that was the target of an FBI investigation into a series of bomb threats against the University of Pittsburgh.

On April 20th, thousands of people descended upon Porter Meadow at UC Santa Cruz for Four Twenty (420), a counterculture holiday observed in cities throughout the world, where people gather to celebrate and consume cannabis. Four Twenty in Porter Meadow at UCSC is an unorganized annual tradition. Last year, rain caused people to seek shelter under the forest canopy. This year, it was the hot sun which drove people to the shade provided by the trees.

Members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe from northern California on Monday, April 16 challenged Randy Moore, U.S. Forest Service Regional Forester, at his Vallejo office to protect indigenous women from racial slurs and physical harm during coming of age ceremonies planned for this June. Although claiming to be unfamiliar with the issue, Moore promised to review the Winnemem's request to close 400 yards of the McCloud River arm of Shasta Reservoir for 4 days so that the Tribe can conduct the ceremony. Moore committed to respond to the Tribe's request by May 1, 2012. While closing the river will mean a lot to the Tribe, it will have no impact on the Forest Service, said Caleen Sisk, Winnemem Chief and Spiritual Leader.

Congress is currently considering HR 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a bill that purports to protect the United States from “cyber threats”. This legislation would create a gaping loophole in all existing privacy laws. If CISPA, as the bill is called, passes, companies could vacuum up huge swaths of data on everyday internet users and share it with government agencies without a court order. Internet privacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Press say that CISPA uses dangerously vague language to define the breadth of data that can be shared with the government.

ACLU–Santa Cruz Chapter writes, "Eleven local activists have been charged with a variety of offenses arising from the occupation of a vacant bank building last fall. We have two primary concerns regarding this prosecution. First, at least some of the defendants are journalists who were present to report on the protest. We condemn any attempt to criminalize their exercise of the crucial First Amendment right to gather and disseminate information about this newsworthy event. All charges based on this constitutionally protected activity should be dropped immediately. Second, it appears that some of the defendants may have been charged due to their past adversarial relationship with law enforcement officials."

The Long Haul and East Bay Prisoner Support have settled their lawsuits over an armed, over-broad police raid after the law enforcement agencies agreed to delete improperly seized computer data and pay $100,000 in damages and attorney's fees. Moreover, the University of California-Berkeley Police Department (UCBPD) acknowledged that at the time of the raid one of the groups qualified for federal protections designed to protect journalists, publishers, and other distributors of information from police searches, despite the police's persistent denial of that status throughout the lawsuit.

On April 6th, community members gathered at the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz for the opening reception of "Occupy Art", an exhibition of art from Occupy Santa Cruz. In addition to fine art, photography, and protest relics from the movement, spoken word performances were held, and Brent Adams previewed his OSC documentary. The densely packed exhibition is an attempt at documenting the Occupy movement in Santa Cruz while encapsulating the feeling of the protest experience.

On April 2nd, law enforcement agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and the U.S. Marshals Service raided the businesses and home of licensed medical cannabis provider and activist Richard Lee in Oakland. Americans for Safe Access (ASA) put out a call for patients and advocates to go to Oaksterdam University in downtown Oakland to protest the raids and support the victims. At least two people were arrested in the street while the raid continued. Richard Lee called the raid a "senseless act of intimidation."

On April 4th, a dozen people demonstrated on the sidewalk in front of the Wells Fargo Bank located at 74 River St. in downtown Santa Cruz, and across the street from the vacant bank building at 75 River St. The event was held to "encourage those victimized by the bank to learn they have allies" and "support the hundreds of people who visited or protested the vacant building at 75 River St. in late November and early December last year."

On Sunday, April 1st, Occupy SF working groups and affinity groups occupied a vacant building at 888 Turk Street, The idea was to liberate a vacant building and convert it into a social center, shelter and food bank for the people. The SF Commune stated that they initiated the occupation "to provide a perpetual, autonomous headquarters for the Occupy SF movement." The building has space for food preparation and distribution, bedrooms for housing, event rooms for General Assemblies and art projects, classrooms and space for medical services. When San Francisco police raided the building on April 2nd, over 50 people were arrested.

Demonstrators shut down the entrance of the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood City where Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney held a fundraising dinner on March 26th. Several protest groups coordinated to produce a show of anger aimed at the presidential hopeful and wealthy attendees of the event. One group erected a giant Etch A Sketch outside the hotel entrance, making light of a recent Romney aide's gaffe; others mocked billionaire supporters of his campaign by wearing faux fur and pearls and lifting glasses of champagne.

The legendary poet, essayist and feminist Adrienne Rich died on March 27, 2012, at the age of 82 in her Santa Cruz, California home. Rich was one of the most celebrated poets of the last half-century and a lifelong advocate for women, gay and lesbian rights, peace and racial justice. She was a key figure in the women’s movement and an uncompromising critic of the powerful.

On February 26th, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot dead by self-styled vigilante George Zimmerman in Sandford, Florida. Sanford police did not arrest Zimmerman for killing the unarmed teenager, nor even take physical evidence such as Zimmerman's clothing or the handgun he used that night. Police allowed Zimmerman to walk away without charges under the protection of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. Rallies and marches have been held across the country for Trayvon, including at least three thus far in San Francisco and Oakland.

Santa Cruz County District Attorney Bob Lee has embarked on a full frontal assault against independent media in Santa Cruz by including four regular contributors to the independent news website Indybay.org amongst the eleven people charged with multiple felonies and misdemeanors after the occupation of a vacant bank building on November 30th, 2011. District Attorney Lee is attempting to dictate how events such as the occupation of the vacant bank at 75 River Street should be reported on by the media.

Monsanto closed its facility in Davis, California on March 16th after 150 occupiers from throughout the state blocked the entrances to their Davis facility at 1910 5th Street. The occupiers reported that they shut down operations at the corporate giant, which produces genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and is notorious for its inordinate influence over the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

On December 31st, 2011, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012, codifying indefinite military detention without charge or trial into law for the first time in American history. The NDAA’s dangerous detention provisions would authorize the president — and all future presidents — to order the military to pick up and indefinitely imprison people captured anywhere in the world, far from any battlefield.

Students, educators, workers, and supporters of the Occupy movement, converged in the thousands on the State Capitol in Sacramento on March 5th. They were there to demand that the government fund education and social services. In the morning, a march left Sacramento's Southside Park headed for the Capitol. There they were joined by thousands of other protesters. They came from across the state.

On February 27, several dozen community members involved with Occupy Santa Cruz joined in a solidarity march with occupies across the country and the world, protesting repression of the occupy movement and the associated police violence. The march started from the Santa Cruz County court house occupation location of Occupy Santa Cruz, and it made its way through the downtown to City Hall, where a candlelight vigil was held.

On January 9, the general assembly at Occupy Oakland passed a resolution calling on occupies across the country to support a national occupy day in support of prisoners. In the following month, over a dozen communities across the nation followed in planning local demonstrations, including those in Los Angeles, Fresno, and Portland. On February 20, hundreds of demonstrators marched to San Quentin Prison where a rally was held in solidarity with the National Occupy Day in Support of Prisoners.

A "Free Bradley Manning" protest was held in front of the county courthouse in Santa Cruz on February 23 to coincide with Manning's arraignment in military court in Maryland on charges stemming from the accusation that he provided thousands of classified defense department documents to Wikileaks. Approximately two dozen community members participated in the demonstration, which was located at the courthouse general assembly location of Occupy Santa Cruz on Water Street.