Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, November 20, 2024…
- Several California tribes are renewing their push for the federal government to protect their ancestral lands. They’re urging the Biden administration to create three new national monuments across the state before the end of the year.
- On Wednesday, unions representing tens of thousands of healthcare, professional, service and technical employees at the University of California launched a two-day strike.
Tribes Push For 3 New National Monuments Across California
There’s desert landscape along the California-Arizona border that is the ancestral land of the Quechan Tribe. It harbors an intricate trail system used to exchange news with other tribes, geoglyphs and petroglyphs carved into rock and earth, and sacred formations like Indian Pass.
But the area has been under constant pressure from mining activity. For decades, Quechan leaders have fought to stave off companies in search of gold and other minerals. Older mines have left deep fissures in the earth that still remain decades later.
That’s why this year the Quechan Tribe is asking the Biden administration to make this land a new national monument — an area of protected public land similar to a national park. That would block any future mining and would also open the door for the tribe and the federal government to work together to manage the region.
Their proposal is one of three Indigenous-led campaigns for new national monuments reaching from the Imperial Valley to the Shasta-Trinity highlands in Northern California. Together, they could spur the federal government to protect close to 1 million acres and give several tribes more of a say over land that was taken from them generations ago.
UC Workers Launch Two Day Strike
More than 4,000 health care, research and technical workers at UCSF authorized their union to call a strike over what they say is the university’s failure to bargain in good faith about short staffing and other top concerns. The members’ vote passed with 98% support, according to the University Professional and Technical Employees Local 9119, which represents more than 19,000 physician assistants, optometrists, clinical lab scientists and other UC employees statewide.