Laurel Moorhead

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Mehserle trial to begin in May

Los Angeles Judge Robert Perry announced that the trial of Johannes Mehserle, the BART officer accused of murdering Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009, could begin in mid-May.

Pampered, massaged and $90 on your plate: The true story of Kobe beef

Kobe and Miyazaki beef producers are secretive about their methods. But many ranchers in Japan massage cattle daily. Some cows listen to classical music, a method used to relax them. “They are treated as kings,” says one Oakland chef.

North Oakland looks back on a decade of tragedy and triumph

As the decade draws to a close, we canvassed North Oakland this week to find what people thought were the most important events of the last 10 years.

Disney changing script for multicultural audiences, but do they get it right?

Many girls in multicultural, multiracial Oakland have grown up in the last several decades watching Disney heroines who don’t look like them. It’s not just that these characters are mermaids, fairies and princesses. It’s also that they are, with a handful of exceptions, white.

Season’s greetings and tasty eating: North Oakland indulges its holiday sweet tooth

What are North Oakland’s bakeries cooking up for holidays?

ATM robbery suspect turns himself in to Oakland police

Oakland resident Elgin Garrett, 45, turned himself in today in connection with a kidnapping and robbery that occurred early Sunday morning, according to the Oakland Police Department.

Three ingredients travel across the country

A container of pasta. A 10-pound tube of ground turkey. A can of tomato sauce. It was a Monday in November at a central kitchen in East Oakland and dozens of cardboard boxes were being unloaded, revealing the three main ingredients for a pasta and meat-sauce dish that would be served to elementary school kids [...]

Hooligan Toy Drive in Oakland

The Hooligans MC Christmas Toy Run had their 5th annual toy drive this afternoon in a parking lot on 51st Street and Telelgraph Avenue. The motorcycle group from Modesto comes to Oakland every year for the day to collect gifts and cash donations to make sure every patient at Children’s Hospital in Oakland has a [...]

Bakesale B’s aromas eclipsed this week by Xmas trees

The corner of 51st Street and Telegraph Avenue might normally conjure images of fried chicken and buttery rolls with sides of coleslaw and cookies from Bakesale Betty, but this time of year, it’s all about the Christmas tree at this intersection. The smells of cedar and pine hit tree-shoppers as they are greeted with a [...]

30-foot tree lit up for the holidays in downtown Oakland

The Golden Gate Boys Choir and Bell Ringers and the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir performed last night at Oakland City Center. Check this slideshow–and the 600 ornaments on the lit-up tree.

Golden Gate Donut

It was 9 a.m. on a November day in 2009, but Golden Gate Donuts seemed to be stuck in a 1970’s time warp. The orange tiled floor, the faux-wood wall paneling, and the brown Formica benches felt like a set from the sitcom Happy Days, and less like a modern-day donut shop in North Oakland. [...]

It’s on College Avenue, it’s delicious and cheese is its main ingredient

It rode on the back of a bike for a mile, it survived numerous left and right turns on the way to its final destination, and in the end this Zachary’s deep dish pizza loaded with spinach, mushrooms and cheese was well worth the wait.
Though the staff at Zachary’s on Sunday night wouldn’t allow OaklandNorth [...]

Oakland medical hub draws more alternative healers

Acupuncturists, Ayurvedic specialists, and massage therapists are responding to the growing demand in the Bay Area for alternative health care right in Oakland’s center of Western medicine—“Pill Hill.”

Summer’s best friend likes fall too

For Ici Ice Cream co-owner, Mattea Soreng, the rainy weather and cool temperature is no deterring factor when it comes to selling cold stuff. Rain or shine, the lines at Soreng’s little parlor, which Soreng and Mary Canales opened three years ago on College and Ashby Avenues, never stops. “Yesterday we sold 325 cones, and that doesn’t include people who got cups, [...]

Lawton lays on the cobwebs and truckloads of candy

Neighbors stock up, and one family gets to work on its pumpkins, as North Oakland’s Lawton Avenue braces for the yearly Oct 31 onslaught of trick-or-treaters from far and wide.

Sales low but scariness resolute at the pumpkin patch

The Piedmont Avenue patch is back, even if it’s harder to find than it used to be, and it’s still got the goods: the tongues, the eyeballs, the photos of wicked bulging-eyed children, and Oopy the daschund, who’s in costume too.