Approximately 60 Oakland police in riot gear entered Frank Ogawa Plaza around 11:30 p.m. last night and "made several indiscriminate arrests," as KRON4 is reporting. A dozen Occupy Oakland folk were arrested in total after they were marching in front of City Hall in protest of Tuesday's forced removal of their symbolic teepee. more ›

Just when you thought they might be hibernating, more than a dozen tents went up last night at a new Occupy Oakland encampment on the 2000 block of Peralta Street near Mandela Parkway. They're calling the space the Cypress Triangle, even though no one seems to have called it that before. more ›

Compared to OPD and the city of Oakland's reaction, the San Francisco Police Department's response to cleansing out the encampment at Justin Herman Plaza was a gentlemen's affair. No serious injures were reported, save for the ones that befell several officers. And while some campers complained that SFPD only gave them five minutes to clear out, that wasn't the case, or so says SF Police Chief Greg Shur. more ›

It looks like Oakland mayor and incessant flip-flopper Jean Quan is once again about to try to oust the dirty hippies from her front yard, and we can promise you this isn't gonna be pretty. Matier & Ross at the S.F. Chronicle cite an anonymous source in the Oakland Police Department who says that they've canceled all training exercises for next week, "which is a 'pretty good indication' that the cops are making plans once again to clear out the Occupy camp outside City Hall." more ›

Oakland, dude. There's hella more angry, semi-organized, semi-maybe-unemployed, restless kids over there. Well, at least a couple hundred more than there have been in the daily occupation at Occupy SF. And last night things erupted into a tear-gassy mess after a day-long stand-off between displaced Frank Ogawa Plaza campers (and other non-camping protesters) and Oakland police — who were donning riot gear and guarding the perimeter of the plaza around Oakland City Hall, all day, as if it were the armory in Shays' Rebellion, and not just a smelly campsite that got a little rat-infested and poopy. Now CNN and the New York Times Lede blog are covering the story, and we can assure you it will continue on well into Wednesday and beyond. more ›

Did BART Police violate everyone's civil liberties by switching off cell phone service last week, or were they simply acting in the name of public safety? An editorial in the Examiner today argues the latter, and this is perhaps predictable given the paper's arguable conservative bent. The ACLU, naturally, has penned a strongly worded letter to BART Police chief Kenton Rainey stating their objections, though they aren't filing any lawsuits just yet. more ›

Oakland activist Naomi Pitcairn and a gaggle of friends attended a fundraising lunch with President Obama at the St. Regis today, paying a total of $76,000 (funded by Pitcairn) for their seats in order to sing an a capella ditty at the President that seems to be called "We Paid Our Dues, Now Where's Our Change?" Pitcairn revealed, in the middle of the song, a t-shirt she was wearing under her clothes protesting the imprisonment of Pfc. Bradley Manning. more ›

Jesuit priest Stephen Kelly, 62, of Oakland, and Sister Anne Montgomery, 84, of Redwood City, were among a group of five senior peace demonstrators who were sentenced to federal prison in Tacoma, Washington, today. The group were all convicted of conspiracy, trespass, and destruction of government property in December and were facing up to ten years in prison for cutting through fences at Bangor Base on November 2, 2009, to get to an area containing ten Ohio-class submarines. more ›

Per @Emergency_in_SF and elsewhere, a protest turned violent yesterday morning at UCSF, with rocks being thrown and nine campus police squad cars on the scene. The protest was over the UC Regents plan to raise tuition. more ›

Matt Baume of Stop8.org, live from an ENDA protest in progress in the Castro, reports, "GetEqual in Castro, protesting Pelosi's ENDA inaction. About to block traffic." That was 40 minutes ago. And now? Well, traffic is blocked. Please be advised. more ›

There was a time when tons of protesters would gather outside the Bohemian Grove enclave in Monte Rio, organized in part by Sonoma County resident Mary Moore, to call attention to the great big, white, male, Republican, secret-society-like gathering that happens there each July. It's the summer retreat for the Bohemian Club, a men's club founded in 1872 which has that big, fancy clubhouse on Taylor and Post, and it's been said that the Manhattan Project was conceived there, and Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan met there in 1967 and agreed who would seek the presidency first. more ›

In what may be the first controversial/incendiary political protest to hit the streets of Walnut Creek, like, ever, organizers are gearing up for a rally in support of Johannes Mehserle and other law enforcement officers. The media love a conflict, and regardless of whether many anti-Mehserle, send-him-to-the-chair counter-protesters show up from the other side of the hills, this event will likely be covered on every local news outlet into the evening. more ›

On May 13th 1960, a group of Bay Area college students gathered outside the Supervisors' chambers at City Hall on the second day of hearings by the House Un-American Activities subcommittee, which was touring the country to root out Communists in unions and the teaching profession. The SFPD ended up turning fire hoses on the kids to disperse them, and arresting 64 of them in a "riot" that got national attention and eventually led to the Free Speech Movement. As the Chron reports, HUAC's subsequent propaganda film about the protest completely backfired. ""People saw that film, and said, 'I'm going to Berkeley!'" says former teachers union prez Marty Hittelman, who was in the hearing room that day. [Chron] more ›

A flashmob of (mostly) ladies descended on the Westin St. Francis over the weekend to call attention to the boycott of the hotel. The protesters were all of the LGBTQ community, and we're not clear on the connection here except that, in this case, the LGBTQs of SleepWithTheRightPeople.org come out on the side of hospitality workers' rights, and the group saw workers' demands for health care and a fair contract as a good excuse to write and perform a Lady Gaga parody song ("Don't Get Caught in a Bad Hotel"). Most of the tourists, especially the kids, seemed just to appreciate the free, in-house entertainment. Three cheers for guerrilla theater. [thanks, Olen] more ›

Certainly in times of such crazy rental rates (which are lower than they used to be but not by much) it's frustrating to see perfectly nice residential properties sit vacant while people remain homeless. more ›

As we type, a gaggle of about 100 protesters are marching toward Civic Center shouting things like "Shame on Communist China," and "No More Torture in Tibet," and "Religious Freedom in Tibet," and a series of other chants that are thoroughly confusing most of the assembled marchers. more ›

In another nod to their Boomer parents, a gang of tuition-hike protesters at Berkeley turned their political act into a rowdy party last night, invading a building that's under renovation with spray-paint cans, a sound system, and some 40s of O.E. (or similar), and eventually spilling out onto Telegraph Avenue and vandalizing a sandwich shop. We're sure the UC Regents are listening to your demands now! [ABC 7] more ›

Early this morning, 65 protesters occupying UCB's Wheeler Hall were arrested. Joined by officers from other UC campuses, UC Berkeley police started arresting protesters at around 4:40 a.m., reports SF Chron. more ›

While most of you were in bed watching America's Test Kitchen or having a light brunch at Dottie's on Saturday, the tenacious Anonomyous clan were out in full force doing what they do best: protesting Scientology, amusingly. And it looked like fun: Twister was played, gorgeous protest posters were display, pedobear and Rick Astley's voracious meme made an appearance, stenciling streaked the sidewalks, and so much more. more ›

Yesterday's protest was a huge success in luring people of all ages and creeds to Market Street and City Hall. A particularly ripe bunch of "protesters" showed their support to all of us tired passengers on the 47 Van Ness bus around 9:30 p.m. They were taking the bus to the "end of the line," aka Fisherman's Wharf. more ›

Last night 24-year-old Memorial Oak Grove tree-sitter Nate Hill fell on his tushie after plummeting 40 feet out of the tree. He suffered both a broken wrist and ankle, but is in fine, fighting, camera-ready condition. He was trying to get out of the tree, via a traverse line, to visit his poppa waiting down below. But it seems that he was not, in fact, on the line, and then took a nasty fall... more ›

After a 10-month protest atop an oak grove next to Memorial Stadium, a judge ruled on Monday that UC Berkeley can now start removing up-in-a-tree protesters, as well as their ground support, even if police can't identify the protesters by name. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Richard Keller amended his ruling from a month ago. At that time, his decree gave authorities the power to strip the environmental activists off of the UC-owned land,... more ›