Feature Archives

On January 19, at women's marches throughout the Bay Area, the focus was on unity rather than the rift in the national group. Optimism was abundant despite a slight decrease in attendance over last year. The marches were not without critics who cited a lack of attention to the plight of the underhoused and other issues effecting women. Unlike the city of New York where there were two separate marches, however, a spirit of solidarity ruled the day. The largest marches in the Bay Area were in San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, and Santa Cruz.

On January 12, several thousand teachers, students, staff and supporters marched and rallied in Oakland to defend public education and call for increased funding. The Oakland Education Association contract has expired and teachers are discussing striking in February. In Los Angeles on January 14, tens of thousands of teachers went on strike. Oakland teachers are promising a wildcat strike on Friday, January 18.

For the first time ever, a fish survey that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife conducts every autumn turned up zero Delta Smelt throughout the monitoring sites in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in the last four months of 2018. The Delta Smelt, listed under both federal and state Endangered Species Acts, is regarded as an indicator species, a fish that demonstrates the health of the entire Delta ecosystem.

Kevin Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted of murder in 1985. He has been on death row at San Quentin for decades. On December 24, 2018, Governor Jerry Brown ordered new DNA testing. Kevin Cooper responds: I am happy that we have finally “won” something from some entity in this state. But after learning what exactly outgoing Gov. Brown wrote... I am not as excited as I was at first, or should be.

Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday, celebrated from December 26 to January 1, that reclaims what was lost during the African holocaust, the sense of an African connection. In California's Central Valley, Kwanzaa takes on special significance in the long standing African American farming community's journey to reestablish agriculture as the foundation of culture in the farm to fork capital of America.

US border authorities fired tear gas into a group of Central American asylum seekers on November 25. Shortly before the attack, over 200 people attended a rally in San Ysidro to support the caravan migrants. The violence of the attack is being condemned worldwide. In Northern California, protests were held on November 25 in San Francisco; November 26 in Palo Alto; December 1 in Oakland, El Cerrito, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz; and December 2 in San José.

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to cease issuing permits for offshore fracking and acidizing in federal waters — waters over 3 miles from shore — off of the coast of Southern California. On November 9, U.S. District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez ruled that the federal government violated the Endangered Species Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act when it allowed hydraulic fracturing and acidizing in offshore oil and gas wells in all leased federal waters off Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties.