Feature Archives

The Never Again Moss Landing (NAML) stakeholder group has released a new report detailing the findings of their 120-day investigation into how and why the Vistra Energy lithium-ion battery facility at the Moss Landing Power Plant caught fire and destroyed itself during the period of January 16-22. The report is highly critical of Vistra's design of the facility, as well as the California PUC's role in regulating the plant.

John Malkin speaks with Heather Edney, co-founder in 1990 of the Santa Cruz Needle Exchange Program. Despite lack of funding and support for syringe distribution, the program pioneered a model of harm reduction that centered the voices of drug users. Operated by young women volunteers who used drugs, SCNEP was one of the first risk reduction models that included holistic healthcare practices.

On January 13, demonstrators rallied outside the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco to protest the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Investors Conference which brought together capitalists from around the world who profit from denying health care. They delivered the message that "health care is for people, not for profit" and also connected the genocide of Palestinians to the healthcare system.

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.

A coalition has filed a lawsuit challenging the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) and Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner’s repeat rubberstamping of applications to use highly toxic and legally restricted pesticides, including chloropicrin and 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D), near three schools in the Pajaro Valley of Monterey County. The young students suffer some of the highest exposure to fumigants in the state.

On January 20, thousands traveled to San Francisco to protest the continued availability of abortion. Lacking local support, the Catholic Church hires dozens of busses to transport their flock for the Walk for Life annually. As in previous years, their event this year attracted members of hate groups, with some giving nazi salutes. Counter-protesters assembled in front the San Francisco Public Library to confront marchers as they passed.

In response to anti-government protests after police murdered a seventeen-year-old boy of Algerian descent, the French government has taken a number of repressive anti-democratic actions. Several hundred protesters were tried, convicted, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms within just forty-eight hours. One teenager with no prior record was sent to prison for a year and a month for allegedly throwing an empty soda can at a group of police.