It looks like the proposal for a baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom is dead. And while we cannot directly claim a victory, this is certainly good news.

So what will happen now? Mayor Wilder believes that with Global Development Partners gone the hounds of reinvigorated development may be yelping in packs at the city’s door. If so, we need to stay involved.

Shockoe Bottom is no less endangered now than before and the Burial Ground is under an even more direct threat. This fight is far from over and we will need your continued support and involvement to win.

Good news Richmond! When you get your bills this month, you can know that the Department of Public Utilities will not cut off anyone’s gas this winter. This is a new policy that was started in November of 2005. This information, however, was only made public at a City Council meeting last night, after supporters of a moratorium made the DPU present their actual policy. Thanks to the Defenders for Freedom Justice and Equality, a Richmond-based community group, it is now public knowledge that there will be no gas cut-offs through March 31st.

Each winter, paying for heat is a major challenge for the area’s low-income residents. Last year between Dec. 21 and March 20, there were 1,713 gas cut-offs, according to Department of Public Utilities spokesman Bill Farrar. The department provides gas, water and a combination of gas and water to approximately 111,000 residential customers.

A representative of the Defenders, a Richmond-based community organization, will be making the request to not cut off gas to any homes this winter at the first City Council meeting of 2006, scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 9, on the second floor of City Hall, 900 E. Broad St.

Your support is needed! We hope everyone will join us at council that evening,” said Defender Dieyah Rasheed. “This is an important issue for the city’s working poor.”

Hello Friends and Supporters of the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project,

Over the last year, we have provided funding for a dozen individuals across Virginia and contributed to others across the nation as part of our work with the National Network of Abortion Funds. Members of RRFP also drove several folks to and from their abortion procedures across the state and DC. RRFP has been collaborating with area activists to create visibility and awareness around issues of access to reproductive health. As we embark on another eventful year, we invite you to work with us to further reproductive justice in our area and beyond.

The new year brought a new hope into the Zapatista struggle in Chiapas, Mexico, as the EZLN launches "la otra campana" an organizing project seeking to involve all Mexican people who are seeking a new kind of politics, one from the left and from below.

For complete audio, video and photo coverage go to:
San Diego IMC

The Virginia Coalition for the Homeless and Social Action Linking Together are hosting a Lobby Day on January 19, to push for support for the Virginia Fair Wage Act.

A short training will be provided, and folks will team up to meet with members of the Commerce and Labor Committee (where the Act will be introduced), as well as their local representatives.

George Waksmunski, field organizer for the Virginia Public Service Workers Union, supports the transit union's strike in New York City. "Their struggle for better wages and benefits represents a check on the balance of power that is capitalism. The continued crushing of the working class must stop."

On Sunday December 11th activists from Harrisonburg finished up a weekend of action against prisoner abuse by driving to Red Onion State Prison to deliver a petition informing the warden that the people of Virginia will not stand for abusive practices. The week of protest had begun with an action at the Richmond City Jail.

In the foreward to Andrea Smith’s Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, Winona LaDuke aptly suggests that, in order to build an effective movement for peace, we must first challenge the violence of historical and contemporary colonialism. As a Native American Studies scholar at the University of Michigan, grassroots activist, and co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Smith’s community work and recently published book embodies this mission. Conquest is not only an informative account of the role of sexual violence in Native American history, but also helps us to understand how to confront this form of violence in the twenty-first century

Bill Frankel-Streit is a resident of the Little Flower Catholic Worker farm in Louisa County, Virginia. But recently he and a group of activists from the Christian group Witness Against Torture have been camping outside the gates of the US military's detention center at the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

On the evening of December 10th, 2005 a forum was held at Paper Street Info Shop in Richmond to discuss the condition of the prison system in the United States. A racially diverse crowd of about 30 people were in attendance. Earlier in the day a group of protestors gathered outside the Richmond City Jail to bring attention to abhorrent and unsafe conditions that the inmates are forced to endure. Both of these events were part of International Human Rights Day.

Several activists, some local some not, discussed the current state of prisons in Virginia and abroad.

Richmond Friends Meeting and the Richmond Peace Education Center will sponsor a two day workshop designed to create a program of action focused on alternatives to military service for young people. It is intended to help counter the increasingly strong push of military recruiters to fill their quotas, especially in local high schools. The program will be held at the Friends Meeting, 4500 Kensington Ave. on Friday, January 27th from 7-9 p.m. and continue Saturday, January 28th from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.