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Santa Cruz Progressives write: The official list of campaign donors confirms what has been no secret in this year's Santa Cruz City Council election: it's a battle between four big money conservative candidates and four grass roots progressives. All four of the conservative candidates have each raised about twice the amount of money the progressives have and they are funded by wealthy contributors. Progressive candidates Chris Krohn, Drew Glover, Steve Schnaar and Sandy Brown, also known as ...

The ACLU of California has obtained records showing that Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram provided user data access to Geofeedia, a developer of a social media monitoring product that markets to law enforcement as a tool to monitor activists and protesters. After the ACLU reported their findings to the companies, some steps were taken to rein in Geofeedia. Further steps are required if these companies are to protect users of all backgrounds engaging in political and social discourse....

Many long-time Bay Area residents have been displaced over the last several years. The median rent in Oakland is now $3,000 a month and heartless landlords are taking extreme measures to boost their profit at the expense of tenants. In one recent case, an East Palo Alto property owner and his son were arrested for a plot to push tenants out of rent-controlled units by destroying their property. Tenant advocates across the Bay Area urge voters to support the strong renter protections in Ric...

Officers with the Santa Cruz Police Department shot and killed 32-year-old Sean Smith-Arlt outside of a home on the corner of Chace and Getchell Streets on the west side of Santa Cruz. Police have stated that Smith-Arlt, who was experiencing mental health issues, was advancing towards officers with a gardening rake when officers deemed him a threat and shot and killed him at about 3:30 am on October 16. In response, residents have organized a candle light vigil at the Town Clock in Santa Cruz...

Daniel Borgström writes: It was Saturday, September 24th.... The solidarity rally was to be held in downtown Oakland, at the triangular-shaped plaza where Telegraph Avenue splits off from Broadway. It was 7:30 p.m. when I arrived; Gerald Sanders was speaking to a gathering of a couple hundred people. Almost everybody there was quite young. A banner read: "Revolt with Charlotte." Several dozen police were taking up strategic positions along Broadway and Telegraph....

Mothers and fathers whose children have been killed by police spoke out at the San Francisco Hall of Justice and District Attorney's office on October 7 to demand an end to the murders and executions of Blacks and Latinos in Northern California. They demanded that DA George Gascon file murder charges against the police officers that have killed young people with impunity. Some of those who spoke were Gwen Woods, mother of Oscar Woods; Wanda Johnson, mother of Oscar Grant; Elivra and Refugio ...

UPDATE: On October 3-4, Hurricane Matthew killed hundreds of people in Haiti, causing untold damage. The elections will not be held as scheduled, after already having been postponed repeatedly throughout this year. A new date has not been announced yet by the electoral council. September 30 marked the 25th anniversary of the coup that overthrew Haiti’s first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency agents were present with the Haitian m...

While previous attempts to reign in police seizures have failed in the California legislature, state lawmakers approved Senate Bill 443 in August with bipartisan support. On September 29, the bill limiting civil asset forfeiture abuse in California was signed into law, marking a victory for the larger asset forfeiture reform movement underway throughout the country. The new law goes into effect January 1, 2017, requiring a conviction in most cases before state and local law enforcement age...

A U.S. district judge on September 6 overturned a Bureau of Land Management plan to open more than one million acres of public land and mineral estate in central California to drilling and fracking. The ruling notes that BLM officials estimate that oil companies would frack 25 percent of new wells drilled on vast stretches of land in California’s Central Valley, the southern Sierra Nevada, and in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties. Yet the bureau’s 1,073-page management plan ...

Labor groups have issued a statement clarifying the Driscoll's berries boycott is still in full effect and farmworkers in San Quintín, Mexico continue to work for the recognition of their union in order to negotiate the signing of a collective bargaining agreement. In Washington State, the results of an election on September 12 confirmed the independent union Familias Unidas por la Justicia as the formal representatives of farm workers at Sakuma Brothers Farm, a supplier to Driscoll’s. A rall...