Feature Archives

On June 16th, same sex marriages officially began in California. same sex marriages were officially held in San Francisco. In San Francisco, hundreds came to City Hall to celebrate. After being together for more than 50 years, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin were the first couple to be legally married. In Oakland, the first couples were married by mayor Ron Dellums, city council member Jean Quan, and congresswoman Barbara Lee. In Fresno, dozens of couples arrived early to get their marriage licenses Tuesday morning. Tinasha Broadus and Alicia Rice were the first in line and the first to be married.

On June 16th, around a dozen protesters gathered at Ashby and MLK in Berkeley to protest the shooting of Anita Gay, grandmother, mother, and resident of Berkeley. She was killed on February 16, 2008 by a Berkeley Police officer who is now back on the street.

June 19th Update: Treesitter and Indybay reporter Cricket, came down Thursday night after 3 days of fighting. He made a deal that resulted in his pictures being handed off to others who could post them to Indybay.

On Tuesday, June 17th, at least five hired contract workers arrived at 6:30am and climbed into the branches of the oak trees to take down tree-sit platforms. Around 5pm, one woman tree-sitter was taken down from a tree and arrested. Contract workers continued to take down parts of the tree-sit Wednesday and 3 protesters were arrested.

On May 22, more than 2,000 Berkeley High School students of all different nationalities streamed out of class and formed a human chain around the school to protest the escalating attacks on immigrants. As they linked arms, they chanted “Immigrants are people!” A young woman with the group Fighting for Immigrants’ Rights and Equality (FIRE), which organized the protest, said, “Most of the school went out with us… Ooooh it made the whole school feel good, like we were a family, no matter what race you are or nothing, like we were together.”

On, June 10, Berkeley residents & activists gathered at Berkeley City Hall to protest UC Berkeley's plan to pulverize LBNL's Bevatron structure. Protesters are worried about the environmental and health impacts of the University's plans to demolish, and haul away, the Bevatron and its contents -- which include radioactive material, asbestos, lead, mercury, PCBs, and chlorinated VOCs.

On June 2nd, the Education for Sustainable Living Program (ESLP) class at UC Santa Cruz hosted an evening entitled "The University is Unsustainable: militarism, nuclearism, corporatism and the UC." Student researchers Jono and Leah presented on UCSC's Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) while UCSC alumni Will Parrish and Darwin BondGraham focused on the University of California from 1868 to 2008, from the genocide of Indigenous Nations, the Spanish American War and the Manhattan Project, through to the present: a time of renewed nuclear-militarism and increasing corporatization and privatization of the University.

In a letter to Chevron executives and shareholders (and to ExxonMobil, who meet the same day), Iraqi oil workers unions called on Chevron to end the occupation and stop pushing for the "Iraq Oil Theft Law." This message will be delivered by an alliance of environmental justice, human rights and international solidarity groups converging on Chevron's annual shareholder meeting, Wednesday, May 28th at 7:00AM at Chevron corporate headquarters in San Ramon.