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For Immediate Release
June, 18 2014, 12:37pm EDT
Contact:
Ophir Bruck, 415-609-2409, ophirbruck@gmail.com, Divestment Organizer with Fossil Free UC and the California Student Sustainability Coalition
Jay Carmona, 510-502-0752, jay@350.org, National Divestment Director
Oakland City Council Votes to Divest from Fossil Fuel Companies
Oakland becomes 5th California city to divest; Council, 350.org urge CalPERS to act
WASHINGTON
The Oakland City Council today unanimously approved a measure divesting city funds from all investments in any company "whose primary business or enterprise is extraction, production, refining, burning and/or distribution of any fossil fuels." The council recommended that city pension funds also divest and urged the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), one of the nation's largest managers of public pensions, with $288 billion in retiree assets under management, to follow suit and eliminate fossil fuel companies from their portfolios.
Oakland becomes the fifth city in California to pass a fossil fuel divestment resolution and the 25th city in the nation, joining the ranks of San Francisco, Seattle and Portland.
"I'm thrilled that Oakland City Council took a strong stand to divest from fossil fuels companies that emit heat-trapping greenhouse gases, and to protect our communities by opposing the transport of hazardous fossil fuels by rail through the heart of Oakland," said Dan Kalb, Oakland City Councilmember, and author of the Council resolutions. "Divesting from a dirty energy economy will add Oakland's voice to a growing movement that makes it clear that the old way of fueling our economy is not sustainable for our cities and our planet."
The move is part of a fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement, which has spread to over 500 campuses, cities, faith communities, labor unions and pension funds around the nation, calling on institutions to take bold action against climate change by aligning investments with a clean and equitable energy future. So far, 12 colleges and universities, 27 cities, two counties, 30 religious institutions, and 27 foundations in the U.S. and around the world have pledged to divest or have done so already.
Ophir Bruck, an Oakland resident and organizer with Fossil Free UC, the University of California divestment campaign, said Oakland's action could embolden the Board of Regents of the nation's leading public university to act: "This move positions Oakland as a climate leader and should encourage the UC Regents, who are exploring the possibility of divesting UC's $88 billion portfolio from fossil fuels, to stand on the right side of history by divesting for our future."
Efforts on the measure were spearheaded by 350 Bay Area, a regional group aligned with the international climate change organization 350.org, which supports fossil fuel divestment efforts worldwide via its Go Fossil Free campaign.
Added Oakland resident and 350 East Bay divestment activist Janet Cox: "I was really glad to the Council take a strong stand in support of the environment and the fight to halt devastating damage to the climate. Governments and NGOs are going to have to act if we're going to survive climate change, and this resolution puts Oakland in the vanguard. Oakland will be able to lead on this critical issue."
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
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'A Chilling Alarm': Trump Admin Kills Civil Rights Settlements Supporting Trans Students
"There is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel," said a leader at the National Women's Law Center.
Apr 06, 2026
Continuing the assault on transgender people that President Donald Trump launched as soon as he returned to power last year, the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights rescinded portions of settlements intended to protect trans students at five school districts and one college.
The department framed the move as "freeing schools" from the Biden and Obama administrations' "illegal and burdensome enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972," a landmark civil rights law that bars sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.
According to The Associated Press, "One of the school systems, Delaware Valley School District in rural eastern Pennsylvania, received notice of the change from the Trump administration in February and has since voted to roll back its antidiscrimination protections for transgender students."
The administration also rescinded provisions of resolution agreements with Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware and Fife School District in Washington, as well as California's La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, Sacramento City Unified, and Taft College.
This is a cruel step by the Trump administration that will make our schools less safe and welcoming for all.Trans kids deserve what every student deserves — a school that supports their freedom to thrive.
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— ACLU (@aclu.org) April 6, 2026 at 6:05 PM
"The Trump administration has opened at least 40 civil rights investigations into educational institutions that provide protections for transgender students," and filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota, The New York Times reported. However, "Education Department officials said there was no precedent for the federal government terminating previously negotiated civil rights settlements with schools. Civil rights lawyers who worked under Democratic and Republican administrations said they were unaware of previous examples of such a move."
Advocates for trans people sharply condemned the rollback, which came on the heels of last week's International Transgender Day of Visibility.
"This sends a chilling alarm that trans students really are a target of this administration," Shelby Chestnut, executive director of the California-based Transgender Law Center, told the Times. "It's extremely concerning. Students should be safe to go to school and get an education."
Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women's Law Center, said in a statement that "there is absolutely no basis for what the Department of Education is doing, and it is unimaginably cruel. Title IX exists to ensure that students are protected from discrimination and treated with dignity so that they can learn and thrive in our schools. It's always been about that. It's what students, families, lawmakers, and advocates fought for when Title IX was passed decades ago. But the Trump administration's Department of Education has spent its limited resources to strip Title IX of that very purpose."
"Real complaints of discrimination and sexual assault are going unanswered by the Department of Education while conservative lawmakers continue to escalate their attacks on a small minority of students," Patel noted. "Parents, teachers, and students need the department to focus on addressing real harms on campuses instead of rolling back policies that keep all students safe."
"We should all be alarmed at the Trump administration's cruel escalation of their anti-trans agenda," she added. "When they push laws that explicitly target trans people or attempt to use scientifically inaccurate language to define sex, they are also inevitably targeting all women and girls. They want to control what we do, how we look, and how we act until we are pushed out of public life. But we are not going anywhere."
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As President Donald Trump escalated his threats to commit war crimes in Iran if its government does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian officials on Monday rejected what they called an inadequate ceasefire proposal and insisted on a guarantee that the US and Israel will not only stop their attacks, but also refrain from future aggression.
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“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said.
This, after the president on Sunday told Iran to “open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell."
Trump—who recently threatened to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages"—said Sunday that he is unconcerned about committing war crimes in Iran, absurdly telling reporters that “the time the Iranian people are most unhappy... is when those bombs stop.”
Pour stressed that Iran can't trust Trump, who Iranian officials and others have accused of using nuclear negotiations as a cover to impose demands and buy time to prepare for more war.
Just hours before Trump announced his decision to bomb Iran in February, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, the mediator of talks between the US and Iranian governments, said that a "peace deal is within our reach."
Iran's government was willing to make unprecedented concessions regarding its nuclear program up until the US and Israel began bombing the country on February 28. Every US administration since that of former President George W. Bush—including Trump's—has concluded that Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
The US and Israel also launched attacks on Iran in the summer of 2025 amid ongoing negotiations with Tehran.
A senior Iranian official speaking to Drop Site News Monday on condition of anonymity said that “it is our assessment that the Trump administration, owing to legal constraints within the United States concerning the prosecution of the war as well as the need to maintain control over financial markets, requires a short-term pause in the conflict."
“Our assessment indicates that this proposal has been drafted solely on the basis of the mediators’ perception of the minimum demands of the parties for halting the war,” the official continued.
“Tehran does not consider a temporary ceasefire to be a logical course of action, inasmuch as the window for the United States’ exit from the conflict has already been delineated," they added. "Should the requisite political will exist, the parties are in a position to establish a permanent ceasefire and thereafter concentrate their efforts on diplomacy.”
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Around 2,000 Iranians have been killed over 37 days of intense US-Israeli bombardment, according to Iranian officials and humanitarian groups. This figure includes over 200 children, more than 100 of whom were killed in the February 28 US cruise missile attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab.
At least 13 US service members have been killed and hundreds more wounded by Iranian counterattacks, which have also killed at least 14 Israelis and more than two dozen people in Gulf Arab nations.
More than 1,400 people have also been killed by Israeli attacks on Lebanon, where over 1 million others have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon.
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Eight Palestinians were reportedly killed and a number of others wounded on Monday in an Israeli airstrike east of the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.
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Iranian American Group: Congress Must Use 'All Tools' to Probe Trump Assault on Civilians
"Any actions that violate US and international law regarding the conduct of war must be thoroughly investigated and appropriate accountability pursued," said the head of NIAC.
Apr 06, 2026
As President Donald Trump's Tuesday night deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face more war crimes approached, the National Iranian American Council on Monday urged Congress to investigate the Republican leader's remarks as well as the US-Israeli destruction of Iran's civilian infrastructure that has already occurred.
"The US-Israel war on Iran increasingly appears aimed not at defeating a military adversary but instead at breaking the nation of Iran," said NIAC president Jamal Abdi in a statement. "The past days have seen repeated US-Israeli attacks on civilian targets in Iran, including Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, one of the world's preeminent universities; a major petrochemical plant in Asaluyeh; and the B1 bridge in Karaj, Iran."
Since the US and Israel launched the war—which has not been authorized by Congress—on February 28, they have struck at least tens of thousands of civilian sites, including energy infrastructure, homes, hospitals, and schools. While surrounded by children at a White House event on Monday, Trump attempted to defend his threat to consider "blowing everything up" in Iran if the government doesn't reopen the key shipping route by 8:00 pm Eastern time Tuesday.
Abdi argued that "as Americans, we should be outraged that our government and Israel's have so blurred the lines between civilian and military targets and are openly threatening to engage in war crimes that have little to no military value while inflicting disproportionate civilian harm."
"NIAC calls on the US Congress to thoroughly investigate the targeting and threatening of civilian sites in Iran, including by utilizing all tools at Congress' disposal including subpoena power to secure documentary evidence and testimony from relevant officials," he said. "Any actions that violate US and international law regarding the conduct of war must be thoroughly investigated and appropriate accountability pursued. We cannot allow such brazen disregard for civilian life to be normalized."
So far, nearly all congressional Republicans—who have majorities in both chambers—and a short list of Democrats have blocked attempts to end Trump's illegal assault on Iran via war powers resolutions, even though the US Constitution explicitly empowers only Congress to declare war. Similar measures for Trump's military misadventures elsewhere have also failed.
Still, Abdi said that "NIAC also reiterates that Congress must pass a war powers resolution directing the president to remove US forces from Iran as soon as possible, including by ending the congressional recess early. Moreover, NIAC calls on the United Nations and other international institutions to intervene and put a stop to these advertised crimes before they take place."
United Nations figures—including Secretary-General António Guterres, High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, and special rapporteurs—have repeatedly called for an end to the regional war, which critics argue violates the UN Charter. However, as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, the US has veto power, which hamstrings the body's ability to respond.
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Citing a senior Iranian official, Drop Site News reported Monday that "Tehran rejects any agreement for a temporary ceasefire to end the war" and "would only accept an agreement that leads to a permanent end to the fighting."
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