On July 24, Israel's Prime Minister came to the US and addressed a joint session of Congress. However, more than a dozen legislators boycotted the speech because they, as do millions gthroughout the world, consider him to be a genocidal war criminal. Throughout Northern California and the US, demonstrations continue to demand Netanyahu's arrest and that the US stop enabling Israel's military as it kills Gazans by the tens of thousands.

The first U.S. countywide vote to prohibit factory farms will take place on November 5 in Sonoma County. This historic measure was named Measure J after the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors asked the Registrar of Voters to assign the already intensely debated initiative a measure letter months earlier than normal. The battle over the ballot measure comes after a decade of investigations into Sonoma County factory farms.

On May 11, a procession was organized in San Francisco to mark the two years since Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli military sniper. There still has been no justice for Shireen, and this impunity has led to an unprecedented attack on journalists. An estimated 140 journalists and media workers have been killed in Palestine since October 7, with more arrested, injured, and missing.

The UCSC Campus Mobile Crisis Team (CMCT) is the first of its kind on a University of California campus. The CMCT provides an empathetic, non-police response to emergency calls regarding mental health crises on campus. Following a series of police killings in the U.S., including the choking death of George Floyd in May, 2020, worldwide protests called for the expansion of non-police crisis teams for community safety.

In an inexplicable move, the National Marine Fisheries Service has allowed a little known fishery that targets bottom-dwelling sablefish to expand into federally designated habitat for critically endangered Pacific leatherback turtles off the coasts of Oregon and California. The fishery's lines can wrap around sea turtles’ necks or front flippers, anchoring them to heavy pots on the seafloor, resulting in injuries and deaths.

Golden Gate Fields in the East Bay is finally shutting down. For the last race day on June 9, animal rights activists gathered to mourn the deaths of all the horses who have died there since it opened 1941. Dressed in black, with a coffin and holding flowers, activists held a short funeral procession. They spoke of horse racing's abuse of horses for sport and of how the animals are slaughtered when no longer useful.

On May 31, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish clerics held a pray-in to demand that Senator Padilla stop supporting Israel's genocide of Palestine. Dressed in black, protesters, many with their small children and carrying effigies of killed Palestinian children, marched in a slow, mournful procession to Padilla's office's street. There they painted a large mural bearing a Papal message of peace while religious leaders addressed the crowd.

Through products like Project Nimbus, Google profits directly by enhancing Israeli surveillance and control over Palestinians. Recent reporting shows Google signed a deal with the Ministry of Defense. On May 14, pro-Palestinian protesters rallied near the entrance to Google’s annual developer conference, many chaining themselves together. Thousands of attendees waiting to enter the Google event were delayed and had to be redirected.

Students at UCB, Cal Poly Humboldt, Stanford, Sonoma State, SF State, Sacramento State, USF, UCSC and UCD joined students at colleges throughout the country to establish occupations in support of Palestinians. Outrage at Israel's attempted genocide in Gaza has produced a movement of encampments at Harvard, Columbia, Yale, MIT, NYU, UT Austin, and more. Police have arrested hundreds, and yet the protests persist and expand.

As of March 2024, 894,898 acres across the western United States are slated to be logged under a "community protection" measure proposed by the U.S. Forest Service. Resistance is growing. In addition to a lawsuit filed against the agency by a coalition in California, a National Day of Forest-Climate Action will take place on May 28, and the group Lost Sierra Forest Defense is organizing a Climate Action Camp in Plumas County from May 23-29.

May Day actions this year were organized with urgency in solidarity with the Palestinian people, heeding the call from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions to stand with Gaza. Workers and peoples around the world called for an immediate ceasefire. Marches and rallies filled the streets across Northern California on May 1, and there was no business as usual at the Port of Oakland as officials closed the port in anticipation of planned protests.

From April 19-22, thousands of young people from across Northern California took part in multiple national days of action calling on President Biden and other decision makers to declare a Climate Emergency and End Fossil Fuels. In San Francisco, Youth Vs. Apocalypse's annual youth-led Earth Day action centered intersectional demands around uplifting Palestine, Sudan, and Congo, countries suffering violence due to western imperialism.

On April 18, workers at the REI store in Santa Cruz voted 32-12 in favor of forming a union. The workers filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board on March 14, at which time they announced their intent to join United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) Local 5. The Santa Cruz REI store is the second REI location in the Bay Area to unionize, and the tenth nationwide.