On May 27th, mayor of Richmond Gayle McLaughlin attended the Chevron Shareholder's meeting, along with delegates representing Nigeria, Burma, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Philippines, and Canada. The delegates introduced to the meeting this year's alternative Chevron annual report: The True Cost of Chevron. The annual report documents the ecological and human damage caused by mismanagement of infrastructure, laborers, and the environment.

The weather is warming and this years summer crops at the Beach Flats Community Garden in Santa Cruz are coming up. It's been over a year since the Garden was first threatened with closure. Despite various threats, gardeners continue to plant, tend and harvest.

Gay shame is holding a protest at the San Francisco LGBT Center on June 25th at 6pm. Gay Shame writes: Does today's mainstream LGBT movement make you feel like you're lost in an alternate reality? Perhaps even another dimension? Do the things groups like the HRC fight for cause you to feel as if you're going the wrong way backwards through time? Does the thought of straight ally Gavin Newsom's ascendancy to governor give you vertigo?

The preliminary hearing in the trial of Johannes Mehserle for the murder of Oscar Grant III began on May 18th. Indybay has reports from inside the court room during the three hearing days last week. Outside the court house, demonstrators have gathered to press for an effective prosecution of Johannes Mehserle. The hearings continued on Tuesday, May 26th, and the family of Oscar Grant and community activists are asking supporters to rally at the court house.

On May 21st, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Civil Liberties Defense Center joined in a defense attorneys' motion in the San Jose district court to dismiss U.S.A. v. Buddenberg, a federal prosecution of four animal rights activists in California for alleged conspiracy to commit animal enterprise terrorism. The four have been charged with First Amendment protected activities such as protesting, chalking the sidewalk, chanting and leafleting. The motion asks the Court to strike down the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) as unconstitutional.

On Tuesday May 26th, the California Supreme Court's ruled in favor of Proposition 8 banning future same-sex marriages but upholding existing same-sex marriages. Street actions to protest discrimination are taking place throughout the day in California and elsewhere in the nation. In San Francisco, police arrested more than 150 protesters for blocking an intersection near City Hall shortly after the ruling was announced.

On Saturday, June 6th at 6pm at Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos, author, elder and activist Betita Martinez presents the film made as a companion to her book, "500 Years of Chicano History: Viva la Causa." The film is an introduction to Chican@ history from the point of view of the people who lived it. This film is sympathetic to the issues of oppressed peoples, without flinching for the difficulties facing "el Movimiento" including class, sexism, interracial unity, and homophobia.

On May 19, activists in the San Francisco Bay Area and Fresno marked a Global Day of Action for death row inmate Troy Davis with rallies, vigils and public information sessions. Davis has been on Georgia's death row for more than 18 years despite a strong case of innocence. He lost his most recent appeal and his execution date is expected to be set soon.

With Mexican flags and music, Cinco de Mayo was celebrated in San José on May 3rd with the usual pride and enthusiasm. People were just trying to have some safe fun driving slowly down Santa Clara Street, the main thoroughfare from Mexican Heritage Plaza and the east side of the city into downtown. The crowds were smaller than previous years, but that did not stop San José police from targeting Latinos.

Joe Tougas writes: On International Workers' Day, 2009, after living in Beijing for five months without leaving the city, I finally made it into the country. I traveled with a British national and three Chinese folks to a small village about four hours northeast of Beijing, called Hong Xing Cun, or Red Star.

Fresno is ground zero in an epic battle for the heart and soul of the union movement. Will 10,000+ Fresno homecare workers be represented by a union run by unelected, out-of-town bureaucrats who negotiate sweetheart deals behind closed doors with corporate CEOs? Or, will workers support the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), a member-driven organization that fights for better pay and benefits for its members?

At the May 16th ceremony for UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall law school graduates, World Can't Wait protested against Boalt Hall Law Professor and author of U.S. torture memos, John Yoo. The protest against torture called on graduates to demand that the UC law school not tolerate torture and those who are apologists for torture policies.

The Rock n' Roll On the Knoll Benefit Concert scheduled to occur on the UC Santa Cruz campus on Sunday, May 17th has been canceled. This was announced with very short notice on the afternoon of May 14th. Apparently, UCSC had to export some of it's police force to a graduation ceremony at UC Merced where Mrs. Obama will be speaking.

After a 10-year hiatus, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is back at Stanford University where she is a Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. Rice has said she's ready for spirited debate, but it is unlikely she anticipated being caught on videotape last week, when she was cornered by a student demanding she explain her role in authorizing torture. This week about 150 veterans of protest, who led the fight 40 years ago to dislodge Stanford University from the War in Vietnam, called on Stanford to sever relations with the former Provost.

The Home Depot in Capitola was targeted on May 3rd with hundreds of stickers and handbills to publicize the company's involvement in a controversial development project in Patagonia, Chile. The HidroAysen project involves three dams on the Pascua River and two dams on the Baker River that would flood globally rare forest ecosystems and some of the most productive agricultural land in the Aysen region.

After months of pressure for greater transparency in BART policy making by Oscar Grant's family, community members, and activists, BART has scheduled its first public meeting on police oversight for Saturday, May 2nd in Oakland. Activists intend to remind BART that they still question if BART even needs its own police force, as well as to continue to demand that General Manager Dorothy Dugger and BART Police Chief Gary Gee be held accountable.

On Tuesday, April 21st, over 110 therapists, mental health practitioners, and therapists-in-training across the Bay Area filled Namaste Hall at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) to hear directly from transgender and gender queer clients and consumers of therapy and mental health services.

On May 1, International Workers Day, rallies and marches are planned for cities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Cruz County, and the Central Valley. Demonstrators will call for action in defense of jobs, families, immigrant rights, and unions.

On May 1, International Workers Day, rallies and marches are planned for cities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Cruz County, and the Central Valley. Demonstrators will call for action in defense of jobs, families, immigrant rights, and unions.

On May 1, International Workers Day, rallies and marches are planned for cities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Cruz County, and the Central Valley. Demonstrators will call for action in defense of jobs, families, immigrant rights, and unions.