Marching in the street last night in solidarity with the Quebec student strike.

Yesterday marked the hundredth day of Quebec student's strike, the fourth day since the Quebec government passed an oppressive law intended to break the strike, and, as hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets in defiance of the law, possibly the single largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.

In New York, student groups and other activists made common cause with the Quebecois strikers, picketing the provincial government's offices in midtown, holding a teach-in, and marching through Manhattan, filling the streets.

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The 99 percenters' continual assault against banks starts today with what is being dubbed another "Week of Action" (They might as well start calling it the year of action) that started yesterday with a rally at Union Square that will culminate on Tuesday with what, they say, will be a massive convergence in Times Square.

Each day has been dedicated to a different cause.

Today, they're focusing on Homes, Jobs, and Services, and the schedule includes a rally at Rockefeller Park at 2pm, followed by a screening of "Making change at Walmart Worker's Stories" at 7pm on 155 East 42nd Street.

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Journalists, protesters, and their lawyers announcing a federal suit against the NYPD this morning.

There are fewer than 24 hours to go before Occupy Wall Street activists, unions, and immigrant groups launch a day-long series of protests that may well constitute some of the largest demonstrations in the city's recent history.

All indications are that the police are getting ready too: large groups of officers were seen drilling in riot gear on Randall's Island on Thursday, and sources have told the Voice's Graham Rayman that officers assigned to police the May Day protests have been ordered to bring "hats and bats."

Mayor Bloomberg had little to say when the Voice asked him about police tactics yesterday, but a swarm of new lawsuits is explicitly challenging the way the NYPD handles protesters.

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James King

This is a guy dancing on top of the monument in front of Cooper Union. We have no idea how the hell he got up there.

We snapped the above photo in front of our office this afternoon. It's of a protester -- pissed off about something (tuition, apparently) -- dancing on top of the roughly 40-foot monument in front of Cooper Union. The sign he's holding reads "No Tuition It's Our Mission" -- which apparently is in response to the college's decision to start charging graduate students tuition to attend the college.

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The heat must be getting to a few peoples' heads. At around 9pm last night, a loose pack of around 50 to 60 protestors took to the streets, looting and vandalizing storefronts and property in the East Village. Their targets: the windows of the Starbucks on Astor and the newly opened 7/11 on St. Mark's. More >>

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Following last week's Occupy Wall Street action that brought the movement back into the streets and the news, protesters marched against police brutality from Zuccotti Park to Union Square today. As with last week the Voice's Nick Pinto is out in the streets following the activity. You can read his real-time account on Twitter. Following a quieter winter, the march is seeing a resurgence, that will further be marked by the extensive actions planned for May 1. Detective Rick Lee told Nick today: "it's going to be a very long summer."

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Steven Thrasher

Following Wednesday's "Million Hoodie March" for Trayvon Martin -- the Florida 17-year-old who was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in February -- one New York church is asking people to wear hoodies to service Sunday. "Come to our multiracial/multicultural community, Middle Church, on Sunday; wear your hoodie and plan to pray for healing," Senior Minister Jacqui Lewis wrote on her blog on the Middle Collegiate Church's website. The hoodie has become a symbol of the racial profiling at the center of the uproar surrounding the case. Martin, a black man, was wearing one when he was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer who had described Martin has suspicious in a 911 call.

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Singing protestors interrupting foreclosure auctions at Queen's Supreme Court last month

For the past few months, The Voice has written about these protestors interrupting foreclosure auctions at supreme courts across the city by singing out loud. Dubbing it the "People's Bailout", the protesters believe their actions raise awareness to the country's dangerously high foreclosure rate and the unfair court system handling such cases. And each time, specifically the last action in Queens Supreme Court on February 17, resulted in arrests.

Well, the next People's Bailout is scheduled for this Friday (in Queens again), and it's gotten religious.

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Steven Thrasher

A child on his mother's shoulders at the Trayvon Martin rally

It was not the promised presence of people wearing hoods that first got our attention at tonight's rally, but the Skittles.

We were a bit skeptical when we arrived at the Trayvon Martin rally in Union Square and saw a hollering woman tossing bags of Skittles out at the audience. People were grabbing them like giveaways in what initially looked like the world's most inappropriate viral marketing campaign.

We had forgotten, however, that 17-year-old Trayvon Martin had gone to a nearby store for a bag of Skittles and an AriZona iced tea before he was shot by George Zimmerman. Many protestors in Union Square were pointing out: "That's all he was armed with."

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C.S. Muncy

Occupy Wall Street protests on Saturday at Zuccotti Park.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg has a solution for the tense police-protester relationship at Occupy Wall Street: barricades.

At a press conference this morning, the mayor, responding to reporters' repeated questions about the arrests of more than 70 occupiers over the weekend, said that the New York Police Department was simply controlling a rowdy crowd, legally using barricades to stop them from camping out in Zuccotti Park, and protecting the protesters' rights to demonstrate.

"Just trying to cause chaos doesn't do anything to advance anybody's cause. It doesn't make society better," Bloomberg told reporters. "If you have something really to say that would be a great contribution, nobody can hear you when everybody's yelling and screaming and pushing and shoving. But it makes great theater."

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