Alex Darocy Photography

Two different political demonstrations were held during the first day of Alumni Weekend at UC Santa Cruz on April 25. Members of Santa Cruz Food Not Bombs protested an appearance by former CIA director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who spoke at 'Launch', an exhibition of various student projects at the university. At the same time as the Panetta protest, students in support of the UCSC 22 demonstrated at another Alumni weekend event, the Graduate Alumni Cocktail Hour, which was held at the Graduate Student Commons. Panetta Protest At the Panetta protest, individuals held signs with the statements, "Jail Panetta", "What about the drones, Leon?", "Panetta Supports Torture", "Panetta is a War Criminal", and "Drone War is A Crime." Issues highlighted in literature distributed outside of the event included Panetta's involvement with drone warfare as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2009 to ...

During both days of the April 2-3 UAW Graduate Student Workers strike at UC Santa Cruz, riot police were outfitted and deployed at the west entrance of campus. Graduate and undergraduate student demonstrators at UC Santa Cruz continued to face what they call intimidation while attempting to maintain a peaceful picket line across the university's two entrances during the Unfair Labor Practices strike. Additionally, the university continued to video tape legal strike activities. UAW Local 2865, the labor union that represents Graduate Student Workers and Teaching Assistants, said in a press release that the measures the university took were, "simply an attempt to intimidate individuals involved in lawful conduct." On the first day of the strike 20 students were arrested by police. The first arrested was union organizer Josh Brahisnky, who according to eyewitness reports was forced to the ground by a group of police who "crowded" him and forcefully handcuff...

Today on Earth Day, April 22, members of San Benito Rising will submit nearly 4,000 petition signatures to the San Benito County elections office in order to qualify a local initiative to ban fracking and other extreme oil extraction methods for the November 2014 ballot. Since March 21, San Benito residents have been collecting signatures to ban fracking in their county, and volunteers secured twice the number required to qualify the initiative in less than two weeks. The five original proponents of the initiative will deliver the signatures this afternoon in Hollister using Native American baskets. This will be preceded by a short Earth Day ceremony lead by Ann Marie Sayers, a local Ohlone tribal leader, and one of the original proponents of the initiative. San Benito Rising has organized the local ban on fracking in order to "protect local groundwater, residents’ health, agriculture and tourism," the group stated in a press release. The initiative, if approved by vote...

Community members gathered in downtown Santa Cruz today on Tax Day, April 15, to protest the U.S. government's subsidy of $8 million a day in military aid to Israel. Tax Day is when federal income tax returns are due in the United States, and demonstrators held signs that indicated what the government should be spending citizens' hard earned dollars on, if the money wasn't wasted on military aid to Israel. They also held signs that read, "Apartheid: Wrong for South Africans, Wrong for Palestinians." One individual was dressed as a 100 dollar bill, and the group distributed a brochure with information from the organization If Americans Knew. According to If Americans knew, Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid since 1976, and in the last 20 years economic aid to that country has been slowly phased out in favor of military aid. Israel receives about $3 billion ($8 million a day) directly from the United States in military financin...