Santa Cruz Indymedia — Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay

Students at UCB, Cal Poly Humboldt, Stanford, Sonoma State, SF State, Sacramento State, USF, UCSC and UCD joined students at colleges throughout the country to establish occupations in support of Palestinians. Outrage at Israel's attempted genocide in Gaza has produced a movement of encampments at Harvard, Columbia, Yale, MIT, NYU, UT Austin, and more. Police have arrested hundreds, and yet the protests persist and expand.

May Day actions this year were organized with urgency in solidarity with the Palestinian people, heeding the call from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions to stand with Gaza. Workers and peoples around the world called for an immediate ceasefire. Marches and rallies filled the streets across Northern California on May 1, and there was no business as usual at the Port of Oakland as officials closed the port in anticipation of planned protests.

On April 18, workers at the REI store in Santa Cruz voted 32-12 in favor of forming a union. The workers filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board on March 14, at which time they announced their intent to join United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) Local 5. The Santa Cruz REI store is the second REI location in the Bay Area to unionize, and the tenth nationwide.

A coalition has filed a lawsuit challenging the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) and Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner’s repeat rubberstamping of applications to use highly toxic and legally restricted pesticides, including chloropicrin and 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D), near three schools in the Pajaro Valley of Monterey County. The young students suffer some of the highest exposure to fumigants in the state.

Millions of people worldwide are standing in solidarity with Palestinians as Israel wages war on Gaza. Marches and rallies have demanded a ceasefire, the end of US military support for Israel, and that Palestine be freed once and for all. Every week there are more protests in cities large and small, including in many that have never seen a pro-Palestinian demonstration. In San Francisco, tens of thousands have marched against Israel's war on Gaza.

The newly-formed Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ) will hold its inaugural bicoastal conference, Battling the “IHRA Definition”: Theory & Activism, on October 13-14. Through the lens of research on structural racism, state violence, and social justice movements, the conference will analyze political campaigns that seek to codify the “IHRA definition” of antisemitism, and efforts to oppose IHRA policies.

A Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the FDA to withdraw its decades-old approval of mifepristone nationwide on April 7. Mifepristone is used in more than 50% of abortions. On April 21, the Supreme Court issued a stay against any mifepristone bans or restrictions, sending the issue back to the Fifth Circuit. While this is seen as at least a temporary victory, defenders of reproductive justice rights say that the fight is far from over.

On September 10, more than 400 people gathered in front of the Santa Clara County Government Building in San Jose to stand with members of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. They called on the County to deny permits for a proposed mining project that threatens the tribe’s most sacred site. The proposed sand and gravel mine in the county would significantly damage the sacred Native American site and historic artifacts.