Wednesday, April 28, will be the 100th day since the tragic deaths of Durrell Feaster, 18, and Deon Whitfield, 17. On January 19, authorities found Durrell and Deon hanged in the cell they shared in the California Youth Authority's Stockton facility.

To commemorate this solemn day, Books Not Bars is organizing "Stop the Tragedies, Stop the Abuse," a statewide candlelight vigil in honor of Durrell, Deon and every young person whose life has been stolen or broken by CYA.

Join in downtown Santa Cruz or Watsonville to remember all of our youth lost in a scary system. Let's pray and work for change.

Wednesday April 28
7:00 - 8:00 PM

In SANTA CRUZ: Clock Tower @ Pacific and Front Street

In WATSONVILLE: Main Plaza @ Main Street

Audio: Rockin' the Boat: Books Not Bars
Audio: Abolish the CYA Mix

Indybay's coverage of Human Rights Violations In California's Youth Prisons

City Council Meets Tuesday at 5 PM to Deliver the Final Death Blow to Rent Control at Clear View Court.

Practitioners of Falun Gong will mark April 25 this Sunday with activities around the world, renewing the call for Beijing to end a five-year campaign of suppression that legal experts have come to term genocide.

The ELFs are angry

Solidarity with Venezuela

The 3rd Annual May Day Labor Film Festival, titled "Reel Work", will be from April 25th to May 1st in celebration of International Workers' Day. The purpose of the festival is to increase community awareness of the history and culture of the U.S. and international labor movement. Filmmakers, producers, labor historians and union organizers featured in the films will be present to introduce films and lead discussion.

Topics include the recent FTAA protests in Miami, the multiracial grassroots movement of the L.A. Bus Riders Union, the organizing efforts of garment workers in sweatshops in Thailand and Bangladesh, and flower nursery workers in Colombia. Films range from classics such as Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times and At the River I Stand, to local premieres about the recent Safeway strike and the Oakland docks anti-war protest of last April.

Reel Work: May Day Labor Film Festival

[ Sunday, A25 at 12pm I Sunday, A25 at 7pm I Monday, A26 at 7pm I Tuesday, A27 at 7pm I Wednesday, A28 at 7pm I Thursday, A29 at 7pm I Friday, April 30 at 7pm I Saturday, May 1 at 1pm ]

The Najaf Emergency Peace Team, "Peace Between Peoples", includes two members of the Santa Cruz activist community. Meg Lumsdaine and Peter Lumsdaine are among the handful of determined volunteers who have placed themselves "nonviolently, symbolically and physically" between the U.S. armed forces massed nearby and the civilian population of the ancient holy city, Najaf.

As numerous people from nonprofit organizations working in Iraq evacuated the country during the past week, an independent emergency delegation of U.S. civilians was preparing to enter the conflict-torn nation, traveling to the tense stand-off around Najaf, where the U.S. military recently deployed almost 3,000 troops for a looming assault to crush Shiite rebels there.

[ Peace Between Peoples Update: Najaf 4-28-04 I Peter Lumsdaine on Democracy Now (4/27/04) I AP article (4/30/04) ]

[ Indybay's Iraq page I Al-MuaJaha I Occupation Watch I Electronic Iraq ]

Interview with Tara Thornton, executive director of the Military Toxics Project, conducted by Between the Lines' Melinda Tuhus

Jewish Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz is sponsoring this talk by Victor Davis Hanson at UCSC. For those who think they are experts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this event may provide information which may shake some previously accepted assumptions.