SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
June, 23 2010, 05:39pm EDT
Contact:
Kristina Johnson,
Sierra Club
Kristina.johnson@sierraclub.org (415) 977-5619
Frank
Jackalone, Sierra Club
frank.jackalone@sierraclub.org, 727-804-1317
700 "Hands Across the Sand" Events Opposing Offshore Drilling, Supporting Clean Energy Largest Gathering Against Offshore Drilling in History
Saturday, June 26
Nationwide
Thousands of
citizens from every state in the U.S., Puerto Rico and D.C., and 20
countries
WHAT: Citizens will gather on beaches and
inland communities and join hands to recognize the tragedy in the Gulf
and call for clean energy, no more offshore drilling
WHEN:
Saturday, June 26
WHERE: 700 events nationwide and
worldwide. NOTE: A complete list of events, all of which begin at 11
a.m. local time this Saturday, can be found
here:https://www.handsacrossthesand.org.
A list of key events the
media may wish to cover follows at the end of this advisory.
VISUALS:
Citizens will gather with signs and props and will join hands along
scenic stretches of beach and inland cities and communities
Background:
Hands Across the Sand was founded by Florida restaurant owner and
surfer Dave Rauschkolb. The Sierra Club has organized hundreds of Hands
Across the Sand events as part of its Beyond Oil campaign, aimed at
ending America's oil dependence over the next 20 years. https://action.sierraclub.org/Hands
SUGGESTED
EVENTS FOR MEDIA:
Denver
Rocky
Mountain Lake Park -- 3151 W 46th Ave, Denver, CO 80211 Interstate 25
to west bound Interstate 70. Exit I70 at Lowell Blvd. South on Lowell
Blvd.
Contact: Loraine Perkins, loraine.perkins@comcast.net, 303-325-6475
London
St
James Park, Westminster Tube end, by the Lake -- A walk will take place
afterwards in the local area between the Houses of Parliament and BP
headquarters.
Contact: Charlotte Pulver at charlottepulver@yahoo.co.uk
Miami
South
Beach, 5th Street and Ocean Drive
Contact: Jonathan Ullman, jonathan.ullman@sierraclub.org, 305-283-6070
or
Mike Gibaldi, Miami@surfrider.org, 305-389-4615
New
Jersey
Asbury Park Boardwalk at Langosta Lounge
1000
Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park, NJ
Seaside
Heights Boardwalk at Grant Avenue Entrance
Next to Casino Pier in
Seaside Heights, NJ
Atlantic City Beach in front of Boardwalk
Hall, just off Kennedy Plaza
Mississippi Avenue and Boardwalk,
Atlantic City, NJ
Contact: Grace
Sica, Sierra Club, 732-841-6103
New York City
Brooklyn,
Coney Island -- Take the subway to Coney Island Stillwell Avenue
Station and cross the street when you come out of the station
Contact: anneocraig@gmail.com
San Francisco
The
Beach at Crissy Field -- located on the San Francisco Bay north of
Mason Street and the Exploratorium with a great view of the Golden Gate
Bridge.
Contact: Jeramiah Dean, jeramiah.dean@sierraclub.org, (510) 848-0800
Santa Monica,
California
To the north of the Santa Monica Pier, on the
beach (to the right of the pier facing the ocean)
Contact: Stefanie
Sekich-Quinn, Ssekich@surfrider.org, 619-807-0551
Seaside,
Florida -- where Hands Across the Sand got started
On the
beach behind Bud & Alley's Restaurant
Contact: Dave Rauschkolb, drmail61@gmail.com, 850-865-1061
Tampa
and St. Petersburg
St. Pete Beach -- Tradewinds Island
Resort, 5500 Gulf Blvd.
Contact: Cathy Harrelson, cathy_bam@earthlink.net, 727-415-8805
Virginia Beach
Oceanfront
between 19th & 31st Streets
Contact: Eileen Levandoski, Eileen.Levandoski@sierraclub.org, 757.277.8537
Washington,
D.C.
On Pennsylvania Avenue NW, in front of the White House
Contact:
Whit Jones, whit@energyactioncoalition.org, 914-671-1880
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
(415) 977-5500LATEST NEWS
Cornell Becomes Latest University to Submit to Trump's 'Extortion' Over Student Protests
The government claimed that Cornell had violated civil rights law by allowing students to protest against Israel. Even though the agreement required the school to admit no wrongdoing, it still agreed to pay a $30 million fine.
Nov 07, 2025
Cornell University became the latest school to cave to demands from the Trump administration on Friday, inking a deal that would restore $250 million in unpaid research funds stripped by the federal government as part of its crusade against higher education and efforts to punish schools that allowed students to freely express pro-Palestine views.
Following a months-long investigation by the government for allegedly violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the Ivy League school agreed to pay a $30 million fine to the government, which claimed that Cornell had violated the law by not sufficiently cracking down on student protests against Israel's genocide in Gaza. The administration accused the school of failing “to protect Jewish students.”
In March, the Department of Education launched investigations into 60 major US universities, with Education Secretary Linda McMahon describing students' peaceful demonstrations against Israel that had swept campuses the previous year as "relentless antisemitic eruptions."
As The Guardian reported earlier this week, the civil rights investigation at Cornell had been spurred by a nonspecific, anonymous complaint that a professor “is supporting Hammas [sic] and their beliefs. He is literally brain washing students to hate and discriminate towards a certain religions [sic]–Jews." The complaint demanded that the professor be "black listed" from teaching.
Following this complaint, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights announced an investigation into the school for "failing to respond to incidents of harassment."
In a letter to the school community on Friday, Cornell's president, Michael Kotlikoff, said that the resolution made explicit that its agreement to pay out the lofty fine to the Trump administration was "not an admission of wrongdoing" by the university.
In addition to paying the fine, the school also had to set aside another $30 million to invest in "research programs that will directly benefit US farmers through lower costs of production and enhanced efficiency.”
And while Kotlikoff said he would refuse a deal that allowed the government to “dictate our institution’s policies,” the agreement requires the school to comply with several of the Trump administration's ideological goals.
It agreed to restrict its use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and turn over data on the racial makeup of its student body to demonstrate that it is complying with the 2023 Supreme Court decision outlawing affirmative action. It also agreed to train staff using a Justice Department memo ordering colleges to abandon "transgender-friendly” policies.
Cornell also agreed to "conduct annual surveys to evaluate the campus climate for Cornell students, including the climate for students with shared Jewish ancestry." The school specifically agreed to query students about "whether they believe the changes Cornell has made since October of 2023," when Israel launched a two-year genocide in response to Hamas attack, "have benefited the Cornell community."
The Trump administration has notably ordered schools to abide by a wide-ranging definition of "antisemitism" that not only punishes displays of bigotry against Jewish people, but also criticisms of Israel's government and policies.
Cornell also agreed to seek out “experts on laws and regulations regarding sanctions enforcement, anti-money laundering, and prevention of terrorist financing,” suggesting that the school will be expected to discipline and investigate pro-Palestinian organizations on campus, which the administration has baselessly accused of "material support" for terrorism.
Cornell's agreement with the administration comes as students at more than 100 campuses across the country have launched demonstrations against Trump's efforts to coerce schools into signing his “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” in exchange for priority federal funding and other “positive benefits.” Critics have described it as a "loyalty oath" and an "extortion agreement."
Though several schools have declined to sign onto the compact, Cornell is not the first school to bend to the Trump administration's demands to restart the flow of federal funding: Brown University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia have all cut similar deals.
Jameel Jaffer, the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, has argued that there was little basis for Cornell to be fined for civil rights violations.
"If the Trump administration had evidence that Cornell systemically discriminated against Jewish students in violation of Title VI, it wouldn't let the university off the hook for a $30 million investment in research about AI, robotics, and farming," Jaffer said. "But, of course, there's no such evidence. The settlement only confirms what we already knew—that the Trump administration's Title VI allegations were baseless and made in bad faith."
"That doesn't mean there weren't antisemitic incidents on Cornell's campus. There were. But there's just no support for the notion that Cornell or other major American universities were indifferent to antisemitism," he continued. "The problem wasn't that universities were indifferent to antisemitism, but that they allowed trustees, advocacy groups, demagogues, etc. to pressure them into treating as 'antisemitism' all kinds of political expression and advocacy that was entirely legitimate."
A report from the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association, which analyzed discrimination complaints sent to the Civil Rights Office found that "all but one of the 102 antisemitism complaint letters we have analyzed focus on speech critical of Israel; of these, 79% contain allegations of antisemitism that simply describe criticisms of Israel or Zionism with no reference to Jews or Judaism; at least 50% of complaints consist solely of such criticism."
Though the payout was far less than the $200 million settlement Columbia agreed to pay earlier this year, Spencer Beswick, a postdoctoral associate at Cornell's Humanities Scholars Program, wrote on social media that his university was guilty of "capitulation to extortion."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'I’m Scared For My Parents': Oregon Teen Pleads With City Council to Rein In ICE
“As a 16-year-old, I shouldn’t be scared," said the boy at a meeting in a Portland suburb. "I should be focusing on school.”
Nov 07, 2025
The testimony of a 16-year-old from Hillsboro, Oregon at a city council meeting this week gave a clear picture of what it's like to be a young person in a community that's been targeted by President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign, with the boy describing his fear of being detained by masked federal agents at school or of his parents being taken away while they are at work.
“I just want to tell you guys that I’m scared for my parents to walk out the house because I might not be able to say goodbye to them if they go to work,” the teenager, who was identified as Manny, told Hillsboro City Council on Tuesday at a meeting where residents of the Portland suburb gave more than three hours of public testimony on the impact of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in the town.
The Portland Immigration Rights Coalition told Oregon Public Broadcasting this week that at least 135 people have been arrested by ICE and other federal agencies in Washington County, where Hillsboro is located, since Trump deployed them to the Portland area.
The county, which is the most diverse in Oregon, declared a state of emergency this week over immigration enforcement, allowing officials to use $200,000 in contingency funds for community organizations that help residents impacted by the surge in arrests.
Manny was one of many residents who spoke at the meeting, calling on city councilors to do more to oppose the federal operations and demand that city police work to protect the community from ICE.
“I might not ever be able to say bye or see [my parents] again if you guys don’t side with us," he said in the statement, which went viral on social media after the meeting. "And I’m scared because of it, because they fought so hard to come here and choose a life for their kids.”
Devastating— “I’m afraid for my parents to leave the house. They treat us like dogs because of the color of our skin. I shouldn’t be scared, I should be focusing on school.”
A 16yo American living in fear of the Trump regime’s ICE goons terrorizing brown people pleads for help. pic.twitter.com/fDgKfLPeHl
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) November 6, 2025
He drew applause when he said Trump "acts like a child," and went on to describe the anxiety he lives with daily as federal agents make arrests in the area.
"I'm scared that I'm never going to be able to see all my friends again, I'm scared that their parents are gonna be gone one day, I'm scared that all of us are gonna have to fend for ourselves, and I'm scared that one day at school, that I'm gonna get held by people... that I can't identify because they wear masks," he said.
“As a 16-year-old, I shouldn’t be scared," he added. "I should be focusing on school.”
Other residents described being afraid to send their children to school, and Juan Pedro Moreno Olmeda, a soccer coach at Hillsboro High Shool, was joined by several students as he described the toll ICE arrests are taking on children in the community.
"We recently had one of our teammates lose a father and two uncles, and another lose their older brother; they were taken by ICE,” Moreno Olmeda said. “I want you to look at these kids and think about all the sacrifices that they would have to go through to become that financial pillar for their household. They would maybe have to stop going to school. They would have to give up on soccer for sure. They would have to find jobs in order to become that pillar for their household.”
Hillsboro resident Sandra Nuñez-Smith added that her brother had been arrested by ICE in front of his stepson.
“He had just gotten into his car, and his stepson was barely getting into the back seat when he was pushed out of the way by an ICE agent—or bounty hunter—so they could get to my brother,” she told council members. “He was wrongfully taken due to a paperwork error at the county clerk’s office. He was not given his rights or due process, and no effort was made to investigate the current status of his case.”
Hillsboro is a sanctuary city and its police do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, but Mayor Beach Pace and Police Chief Jim Coleman said last month that city authorities also "cannot intervene in ICE operations and cannot assist or protect individuals from federal arrest or legal consequences if they interfere with ICE operations."
Manny was among the residents who called on the City Council to pass ordinances to protect residents, hold masked and unidentified agents accountable for assaulting and detaining people, and provide guidance to local businesses on prohibiting ICE from their premises.
Police, said Hillsboro resident and former Washington County sheriff’s deputy Red Wortham, "can set a standard. They can document what happens, respond to emergency calls, and make it clear that follow-up will occur later."
"It is a significant failure of law enforcement to ignore calls," said Wortham, "about terrifying, dangerous, armed takeovers of cars, businesses, and people by seemingly private armed thugs in masks.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Consumer Sentiment Falls to Near-Record Low as Trump Wrecks Hope in US Economy
"Americans are losing faith in the economy because they're losing ground," said one policy expert. "Every day it becomes clearer that President Trump has no real interest in improving the lives of American families."
Nov 07, 2025
Consumer sentiment in the United States has fallen to a near-record low and Americans' view of current economic conditions has deteriorated under President Donald Trump's administration, which is overseeing and contributing to price increases, large-scale layoffs, looming insurance premium hikes, and devastating cuts to food aid.
The University of Michigan's closely watched Surveys of Consumers released updated data on Friday showing that consumer sentiment has fallen over 6% this month compared to October as Americans increasingly fear that the government shutdown will have "potential negative consequences for the economy."
"This month's decline in sentiment was widespread throughout the population, seen across age, income, and political affiliation," said Joanne Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers. "One key exception: consumers with the largest tercile of stock holdings posted a notable 11% increase in sentiment, supported by continued strength in stock markets."
The latest consumer sentiment survey posted a reading of 50.3, the second-lowest level since 1978.
The university's "current economic conditions" index, meanwhile, fell to an all-time low of 52.3 in November, down nearly 11% from last month.
"Middle-class and lower-income Americans are scared right now... about the shutdown, high costs, and potentially losing their jobs in the next 12 months," wrote Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.
Middle-class and lower-income Americans are scared right now...about the shutdown, high costs and potential losing their jobs in the next 12 months.
Consumer Sentiment fell to the 2nd lowest level ever in the U Michigan Survey of Consumers.
The "current economic conditions"… pic.twitter.com/0XGjf3DhFC
— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) November 7, 2025
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in response to the consumer sentiment data that "Americans are losing faith in the economy because they’re losing ground."
"Every day it becomes clearer that President Trump has no real interest in improving the lives of American families," said Jacquez. "His economic mismanagement has left households buried under record debt and rising prices. It's no surprise consumer sentiment is at its lowest point since 2022, and households are turning to leaders who didn't just learn the word 'affordability.'"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular