Feature Archives

Mark Hawthorne writes: Animal Place, an education center and sanctuary for farmed animals, is pleased to announce that in addition to our new location in Grass Valley, we will retain our current property in Vacaville, California.... Animal Place will keep our 60-acre location, transforming it into Rescue Ranch.... The Ranch will be dedicated to finding loving homes for easily adoptable animals, such as chickens, sheep, and goats.

Statement From The Chicano Mexicano Prison Project: "Once again, major violence between Raza and African prisoners has erupted within the United States Concentration Camp (Prison) System, this time at Chino California State Prison. Beginning at 8:20 PM, on Saturday evening (Aug. 8), African and Raza (Latino) prisoners, in the most brutal fashion, slashing, cutting, hitting each other with anything that could get their hands on, battled against each other for more than 11 hours. Over 200 hundred were hurt, several were critically injured with severe head injuries or stab wounds."

On Wednesday, August 5th, protesters met in San Francisco to protest Governor Schwarzenegger's budget cuts which disproportionately target health services fighting the spread of HIV. Due to Schwarzenegger's line item vetoes in this year's budget, an additional 85 million in funding is being cut from HIV/AIDS-related organizations and groups.

Boston Woodard, a frequent contributor to Indybay, is in solitary confinement because of an article he wrote, which displeased the staff and warden at Solano State Prison. Boston's article, "Rogue Prison Staff: Breaking all the Rules," published on Indybay in April, describes in detail the threats and intimidation taking place at Solano - the filing of false disciplinary charges, mail tampering, verbal threats, etc.

Health care reform activists in the San Francisco Bay Area rallied on July 30th in solidarity with a major demonstration held in Washington, DC. "Medicare: Made in America Rally and Lobby Day" marked the 44th anniversary of the creation of a single-payer health care system for seniors. Demonstrators celebrated by serving up slices of "single layer, single-payer Medicare birthday cake."

The Governor and the California General Assembly approved wage reductions for in-home assistance to elderly and disabled as part of an overall budget reduction proposal earlier this year. On June 23rd, activists from "The People's Day of Reckoning" protested those cuts as well as the governor's accusations that state funded In-Home Support Services is "rife with fraud." Seventeen people, many in wheelchairs, were arrested. On July 15th, members of that coalition were joined by labor activists, educators, and students at a larger protest at the same location.

On July 13th, defense attorneys for Joseph Buddenberg, Maryam Khajavi, Nathan Pope and Adriana Stumpo (the AETA 4) presented oral arguments on their motion to strike down the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA). The AETA 4 are being represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC), and other well-respected civil rights attorneys, including Tony Serra. The defense demanded that AETA be struck down as unconstitutional before Judge Ronald Whyte of the United States District Court, Northern District of California in San Jose.