On November 8th, 2011, four students from Renaissance High School went to the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds to protest against the way the circus treats their elephants. Students attending the protest joined other demonstrators from the bay area that were following the circus around to their performances. One protestor was assaulted while handing out flyers about the circus. The students stayed at the fairgrounds protesting for animal rights from 3pm to 7pm.

In solidarity with the call by Occupy Oakland for a general strike, which was in response to the police violence in Oakland that resulted in the serious injury of Scott Olsen and others, Occupy Santa Cruz members called for a strike to be held in Santa Cruz on November 2nd. Suggestions to avoid work and or/school were made, and community members gathered at the county courthouse steps for a march and demonstration downtown.

After an eviction from their previous transmitter site, Free Radio Santa Cruz has found a new site and resumed broadcasting. The collectively run, anti-corporate, community supported station has been providing Santa Cruz with alternative programming to counter mainstream corporate and NPR stations since 1995. Uncle Dennis, a broadcast engineer for Free Radio Santa Cruz, is offering a class in radio engineering during the winter quarter of Free Skool Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz, Calif. — Just as PG&E enters the final phase of its deployment of wireless “smart” meters in California, the largest of the state’s Investor Owned Utilities (IOU’s) has reversed course, quietly beginning to replace the ‘smart’ meters of those reporting health impacts with the old analog version. Consumer rights and health groups immediately seized on the news, demanding that millions of Californians unhappy with their new wireless meters get their analogs returned immediately at no cost.

Occupy Oakland continues to kick through the boundaries of what was previously thought possible, upping the ante of what it means to resist against corporate greed and state oppression. Just one day after a hundred people were arrested, two encampments were physically smashed to the ground, and a thousand supporters were attacked by police with chemical weapons and projectiles in a manner that shocked the conscience of the nation, Occupy Oakland collectively took the audacious and ambitious step of calling for the first General Strike in America in sixty-five years.

On Saturday, October 22nd, over a hundred people from across the Central Valley participated in the Caravan of Resistance against police brutality both inside local jails and on the streets. Participants from Modesto, Stockton, Manteca, Davis, Sacramento, and Merced all converged to participate in a string of actions in a total of three cities. The Caravan brought together over a hundred people: blacks, Chicanos, and working class whites joined with victims' families to protest murder and brutality at the hands of the police.

On October 27th, the City of Fresno and Caltrans did what they said they were going to do — they attacked the homeless encampment on Santa Fe street in downtown Fresno. But, they did not destroy the encampment without being confronted with significant resistance by community members who protested the eviction. Evictions at all of the other encampments — The Hill, G street, Santa Clara street, F street, and at San Benito/H street — are scheduled for Tuesday, November 1st.