Protests shut down Port of Oakland

Thousands of protesters blocked the Port of Oakland Nov. 2, bringing work there to a halt, as the city’s teachers and nurses and many businesses honored a general strike call. Protesters also blocked downtown streets, and seized an abandoned building near City Hall. Police only intervened in the wee hours of the next morning, evicting the occupied building, using tear-gas and rubber bullets and arresting some 80.

Photo: Climate Connections

Downtown Oakland explodes as police evict occupiers

Police fired tear gas into a crowd of several hundred protesters backing the Occupy movement who attempted to retake an encampment outside Oakland City Hall that officers had cleared 12 hours earlier using smoke grenades and arresting 75.

Mumia Abu-Jamal gets reprieve from Supreme Court, hails Wall Street protests

In a podcast from Death Row at a “super-max” prison in Pennsylvania, Mumia Abu-Jamal spoke in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Supporters are demanding he be transferred from Death Row after a favorable Supreme Court ruling.

Federal appeals court blocks (parts of) Alabama immigration law

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked portions of Alabama’s controversial immigration law in response to a motion filed by the Justice Department and a coalition of immigrants rights groups after a lower court twice refused to block the law.

DoJ asks federal appeals court to block Alabama immigration law

The Justice Department filed a motion in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to halt enforcement of a controversial Alabama law that imposes harsh restrictions on access to public services and employment for undocumented immigrants.

Sharia and the left: between fundamentalism and xenophobia?

Xenophobes and Christian fundamentalists are behind the anti-sharia measures now passed or pending in more than a dozen states—but secular progressives resist efforts to impose sharia on the unwilling in the Muslim world. Can we avoid confusion?

California unlikely to meet deadline to reduce prison population: report

California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office released a status report concluding that California is unlikely to meet the US Supreme Court’s two-year deadline to reduce the state’s prison population by 34,000 inmates.

Brutal ICE raids continue —despite Obama’s new policy

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is under fire for recent brutal raids against immigrant families from California to Virginia. Obama has called off the ICE workplace raids, but continued so-called “anti-gang” sweeps.

California prison hunger strike grows to thousands

The California Department of Corrections reports that at least 6,600 prisoners in at least 11 of the state’s 33 prisons have joined the hunger strike initiated by some 400 inmates at the Pelican Bay facility on July 1.

Georgia to appeal immigration law ruling

Georgia’s Attorney General Sam Olens pledged to appeal the recent federal injunction of the state’s new immigration bill, modeled on the controversial legislation in Arizona, which is also currently enjoined.

US Border Patrol shoots Mexican migrant at San Ysidro

The US Border Patrol shot dead a Mexican national who was among three men allegedly attempting to cross the frontier at San Ysidro—almost exactly a year after a similar incident at El Paso.

Mexico, Central American countries join challenge to Georgia immigration law

The governments of Mexico and several other countries filed amicus briefs in support of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) class action lawsuit against Georgia’s harsh new immigration law.