Feature Archives

On Friday, March 27, protesters decried budget cuts to home care workers in front of the State Building in Oakland. SEIU claimed that the California budget passed in February contains $1 billion in "trigger cuts" to home care, health care, higher education, SSI/SSP, and CalWORKS. The protest was part of a day of action organized by SEIU that included a rally at the Capitol Building in Sacramento and in five other cities.

On March 16, 2009, students and educators from public colleges all over the state converged on Sacramento to demand that California fully fund higher education and not raise tuition. Over 6,000 students, teachers, administrators, and education workers converged in Sacramento. They came to demand, “Keep the doors open,” “No budget cuts,” “Bail out colleges, not banks,” “Fund education, not war,” and “Money for schools, not prisons.”

Evaluating the health effects of past and future pesticides applied on and around people to combat the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM), three state agencies concluded the potential danger was low because they incorrectly divided instead of multiplying. In their analysis, the agencies divided by the thousands of acres sprayed, when they should have multiplied by the same number of thousands. If only 1,000 acres were involved, the peoples' exposure was as much as one million times greater than reported by the state agencies.

Anticipating a California Supreme Court decision on Proposition 8 that could come as early as this month, lesbian/gay/bi/trans activists and supporters left Berkeley, California for a 100-mile walk to the state capitol in Sacramento on March 25. The event began with a rally on the steps of San Francisco's City Hall at noon on Tuesday, March 24 followed by symbolic march to the State Supreme Court Building. It ended with a rally on the steps of the capitol on March 30. Meanwhile, many activists are calling for a return to the streets and civil disobedience on Prop 8 D-Day if discrimination is written back into the California Constitution.

International Women's Day was Sunday, March 8th, and was celebrated around the Bay Area through a variety of events. The Stop Violence Against Women: 1 in 3 Art Exhibit included performances on Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday, March 8th, Code Pink marched across the Golden Gate Bridge, and then attended a potluck and program in Berkeley. In Palo Alto, the film "A Single Woman: The Story of Jeannette Rankin" was screened. In L.A., a march and rally aimed to "Celebrate Resistance and Internationalism! " and on Sunday there was a Women Hold Up Half the Sky presentation.

On Thursday, March 5th, legal arguments took place in the California Supreme Court regarding an attempt to overturn 2008's Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage. Lead counsel Shannon Minter argued that if the initiative process is used to take a fundamental right away from a persecuted minority, no one in California is safe. The court has 90 days to issue an opinion, but Equality California thinks that a decision will be issued sooner. Several events related to same-sex marriage are planned for the next few days.

A report released in February and authored by a group of researchers from various organizations supports concerns Californians have had about the aerial spraying of pesticides in the Monterey Bay area in 2007. The study shows the correlation of the unprecedented bird die off and red tide with the timing of the spraying of the pesticide Checkmate.