Newsitem List

McDonalds is following the heels of Jack In The Box, Safeway and Lucky's and replacing human cashiers with touch screen terminals in their stores in Europe....

The last ten days have seen an escalation in conflict with the state and against fascists, and anarchists here in Athens are on edge....

Although many US communities along with France, Spain, Mexico, Australia, and Middle East countries are reassessing the promises, costs, and politics of desalination, the deficit-plagued City of Santa Cruz continues furloughing workers while ramping-up a high-visibility promotional campaign to build a “proposed” $120M+ seawater desal plant. Ignoring the up-ended 10-yr old assumptions and troubled history of desal, the city council already has spent approximately $10M on the project -- paid...

I'm sitting in a third story apartment in Exarchia, looking out over the neighborhood and wondering what the coming week will bring. It's sunny, but nowhere near as warm as it usually is this time of year. A cool breeze carries clouds through the sky, which periodically block the sun. The weather report says it will be the same on Wednesday, the day of the general strike, but it has been wrong almost every day so far....

So far the Santa Cruz City Council won't settle the 9-year long legal battle in the Norse v. City of Santa Cruz (mock-Nazi salute) case; it hasn't even made a counter-offer. Instead in two closed sessions it authorized more thousands to be spent on an East Coast legal firm to prepare an unlikely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Their hope is to overturn an 11-member en banc panel decision which found I have a right to take three Mayors to trial for repressive behavior at City Council. Ap...

Fed up with the spiraling collateral damage of the drug war and sparked by the torture and murder near Cuernavaca of several young people, including the 24-year-old son of Javier Sicilia, poet, columnist and nonviolence activist, Mexican civil society groups are coordinating nationwide actions May 5 to 8, including a march from Cuernavaca to Mexico City.Pietro Ameglio, a prominent Gandhian nonviolence educator/activist and close collaborator of Javier Sicilia, will be in the Bay Area May 13 t...

Activist, writer, and long-time community member Linda Lemaster was chair of both the Homeless Issues Task Force and the City's Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women. She was designated an expert witness in the expensive and discriminatory harassment trial of homeless musicians Anna Richardson and Miguel de Leon last summer. She faces a year in jail and $1000 fine for charges of "lodging" in front of the Courthouse for protesting the City's homeless Sleeping Ban last Augus...

Another in a continuing series of updates from activist and writer Becky Johnson originally posted on her blog at http://beckyjohnsononewomantalking.blogspot.com/2011/04/who-owns-courthouse-who-is-in-charge.html . More photos and comments can be found at that site. The trial included about 20 D.A. witnesses (shorted from over 30) and began defense testimony on Friday right before noon. The trial will continue into next week and is likely to go to the jury on Monday. The story examines Th...

Never forget Market St. Field!...

The UAW, the TA union for the University of California, is holding elections -this Tues, Wed, and Thurs- for every position within the local. Against the accomodationalist incumbents are a group of activists - operating under the moniker Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (AWDU) - who want to propel the UAW in California to take proactive action in our struggle against the elimination of public education....