Protest

There were rock stars and rappers, and there were nurses to take blood donations. Music boomed off the sides of skyscrapers for blocks around. In between patriotism-tinged performances, earnest announcers climbed onto a stage in a square, under a sign that read "Saving Lives," and told hundreds of cheering youths about all the good things that would be done with the donated blood. Monday was Generation Day in Moscow, an event of vague origin, organized by networks of pro-Kremlin youth groups apparently to drown out another event.

TAIPEI, Taiwan - For decades, relations between Taiwan and its giant neighbor China have been one of the great success stories of the ending of the Cold War. Slowly but surely, the two nations have pulled back from half a century of bellicose confrontation and in recent years embraced a level of political and economic cooperation that seemed to promise new riches for both. But today, for many Taiwanese, the bloom is off the rose. This disenchantment lay behind the outbreak of angry protests from Taiwanese students that are in their third week.

SACRAMENTO -- California prison officials have put 14 inmate leaders of a statewide protest over solitary confinement conditions into yet deeper isolation. The protest is now in its 10th day, with 2,312 inmates refusing state meals and 271 refusing to go to work or attend classes. Lawyers for inmates in the Secure Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison arrived to find their clients had been moved to administrative segregation, used to punish inmates who have violated rules.

Twenty picketers were arrested Wednesday for blocking traffic at UC Santa Cruz as unionized teaching assistants and tutors began a strike at two UC campuses. The walkout at Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley is expected to extend for a second day Thursday and include the system's other seven undergraduate campuses as well, union leaders said. The United Auto Workers Local 2865 - which represents about 13,000 teaching assistants, tutors and readers - called the strike to protest what it said were unfair labor practices and intimidation by UC administrators.

About 25 University of California healthcare workers were arrested Friday afternoon in Westwood during a protest over staffing levels, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. In a planned act of civil disobedience, the protesters blocked the intersection at Westwood and Wilshire boulevards and refused to leave, said LAPD Sgt. A. Bone. Officers arrested them and took them to the West Los Angeles community police station for booking.  The protest began about 2 p.m. LAPD officers were monitoring the event to make sure that the protesters didn't get run over by traffic, Bone said.

The inflatable puppy in a hot dog bun was designed to turn heads and stop traffic. And no doubt it would on so many other corners, in so many cities other than this one. Even at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, it was a bit odd to see a bunned, 10-foot-long dog lying on its side, with big black eyes and a belly striped with ketchup and mustard. But was it any odder, really, than to walk through a web of Spider-Men - one rail-thin, one chubby, one wearing a bulging fanny pack?

A demonstration in support of anti-government protests in Venezuela is scheduled Saturday afternoon at the federal building in Westwood, one of more than 100 taking place across the U.S. and the world, organizers said. The protest is being organized by Jovenes Independientes (Independent Youth), a group of Venezuelans living in the U.S., that sprung up since the protests aganist the government of that country's president, Nicolas Maduro, began about 10 days ago. Demonstrators gathered outside the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles Friday night to protest the failure of Gustavo Dudamel, conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and a Venezuelan, to speak out against Maduro.

Environmental activists showed off a new form of protest throughout the country and around the world Saturday: a "Global Frackdown. " On Saturday, activists at roughly 100 events around the globe were scheduled to protest a controversial oil and gas extraction practice called hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Organizers dubbed their activities in North America, Europe and Australia a " Global Frackdown. " More than 50 Code Pink members gathered near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Police used tear gas and rubber bullets Thursday night to disperse thousands of protesters in Sao Paulo who had been chanting, "The love is over -- Turkey is right here" before fleeing the law enforcement onslaught. At least 55 people were injured and 60 arrested during the fourth  demonstration in a week. The protests were originally aimed at a hike in the city's bus fares, but diverse groups came together after serious clashes with police Tuesday. In Thursday's violence, two journalists from Folha de S. Paulo, Brazil's highest-circulation newspaper, were struck in the face with rubber bullets, the paper reported.

Community activists pledged Monday to continue fighting the construction of an immigrant processing center on the Central Coast, despite a bitterly contested vote in which a local city council advanced the project in the face of fervent public opposition. "The fight is not over," said Hazel Davalos, head of the Santa Maria chapter of Coastal Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, an organization that helps working families in the region. The federal government wants to replace an aging, dilapidated facility in Lompoc - a smattering of trailers that were installed on the grounds of a prison to process immigration cases.

Dozens of students rallied at a meeting of the California State University governing board Wednesday, chanting and hoisting signs that urged the chancellor and trustees to roll back "success fees" that are raising costs on many campuses. More than 100 students marched in front of the police-guarded entrance of the chancellor's Long Beach office shouting, "We got 99 problems and student debt is one," and "No cuts, no fees, education should be free. " Campuses in San Diego and Fullerton recently joined nine others in enacting the fees to help pay for more classes, faculty hiring, counseling and other services.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Calm seas returned Wednesday to aid the search for the missing Flight 370, but public protests and the first legal filing on behalf of a passenger hinted at a stormy forecast for Malaysia and its state-supported airline. Executives of Malaysia Airlines said Tuesday that they would pay at least $5,000 to each of the families of the 227 passengers aboard the Boeing 777 that disappeared March 8, but the gesture appeared to provide little comfort to distraught relatives, about 100 of whom marched to the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing, where some clashed with police.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's currency is called the real, which in Portuguese means both "royal" and, simply, "real. " But with prices skyrocketing ahead of the World Cup finals this summer, some locals in this famed beach city have created a mock currency they've dubbed the "surreal. " Adorned with the mustachioed face of Salvador Dali, the bills exist only as an Internet meme. Still, they have become the symbol of a digital protest movement. Fed-up Rio residents have taken to social media to share photos of price tags, receipts and menu items so pricey, it almost seems they could only have been dreamed up by the Spanish surrealist artist.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Government forces used water cannons and tear gas Wednesday to turn back opposition marches in the capital, where borough mayors defied a Supreme Court order that they clear street barricades. Clouds of gas hovered near the entrance to the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas and at the adjoining Botanical Garden, where protesters had converged to join a march headed to the public defender's office. "It was horrible. I had to run a long way," said Maria Alfonzo, a 22-year-old science student who was leaving the campus when she was overcome by the gas. "The National Guard is supposed to protect us, not threaten and mistreat us. We should have the right to protest.

Dina Felix walks her sons to and from their Head Start program at the Kedren Community Health Center every day. She doesn't mind the trek across train tracks. The excitement of her 3-year-old, Kenneth, about school is worth it. But the 36-year-old Felix may not be making the trek much longer: The center could close by summer, news that prompted more than a dozen parents and children to voice their concerns Thursday. The protesters gathered at the center's administrative office on 111th Place in Los Angeles to express concern over the threat to their children's education.

  Ang Lee's acclaimed 3-D movie "Life of Pi" is a front-runner to win a top visual effects award at the Oscars. But some of the people who worked on the film's dazzling visual effects aren't celebrating. In fact, they're planning to stage a protest to call attention to their own plight -- and that of California visual effects workers in general. A group of visual effects workers has arranged to have a plane fly a banner over the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood during the red carpet Academy Awards pre-show to protest their circumstances.

JERUSALEM -- Thousands of young ultra-Orthodox men protested Thursday night against a government proposal to, for the first time, draft them into the military. More than 20,000 protesters gathered at an Israel Defense Forces recruiting office in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem. Some threw stones at police and set garbage cans on fire, according to a police spokesman. Others carried signs condemning government “edicts” and saying, “Your fate is in your hands.” “We say 'no' to the enlistment of yeshiva students, even if all of us will be forced to go to jail en masse," protest spokesman Pini Rosenberg told the Israeli news website Ynet.

An American journalist said she was quitting a Russian-backed TV station in an on-air protest Wednesday, telling viewers "I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government, that whitewashes the actions of [President Vladimir] Putin. " Liz Wahl, an anchor for the English-language network RT, made her announcement after criticism that RT, also known as Russia Today, had taken a sympathetic stance on the Russian intervention in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. A day earlier, RT journalist Abby Martin made on-air remarks critical of the Russian government's actions in Crimea, telling viewers , "What Russia did was wrong.

E-cigarettes have been promoted as a safer alternative to cancer-causing tobacco products that can wean heavy smokers off their habit. But on Tuesday, Los Angeles officials joined a growing list of cities that treat e-cigarettes just the same as regular cigarettes, banning their use in parks, restaurants and most workplaces. The decision came after an impassioned and at times highly personal debate at the City Council that highlighted the backlash the smokeless cigarettes have generated as their popularity grows.