Month: January 2010

January 31, 2010

Teenagers, their families and adult students seeking a key to higher education attended the Black College Expo in Oakland Saturday. “While African-Americans and Latinos graduate high school at just over a 50 percent rate, the biggest challenge to college cited by black, Latino and Asian-American students gathered at the expo was paying for college,” reports the Bay Area News Group. On Thursday, Montrera Middle School will mark the 50th anniversary of its wood shop program, the oldest in California. The…

January 30, 2010

Happy Saturday, Oakland! Construction on the new Tidewater Aquatic Center is making it tough for cyclists to access the Bay Trail. The trail has been closed since last summer, and will likely not be open again until the fall. A defunct Oakland cotton mill and three other Bay Area structures have just received historic status. The Warriors fell to the Charlotte Bobcats last night,

Bridge tolls to rise, airport connector has another shot at federal funds

On the day President Barack Obama was delivering the State of Union speech emphasizing jobs and the economy, 2,800 miles away from the Capitol carpenters and union members gathered in front of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission building in Oakland to try to save the $70 million in stimulus money that could put them back to work.

“Farm to School” allies plan healthy food campaign

When it comes to food systems, there are as many definitions of “local” as there are varieties of apple. Given federal, state and local regulations, what reforms are truly feasible? Activists gathered Thursday evening in the Oakland Unified School District’s administrative hub to plan and define their healthy food campaign.

January 29, 2010

Good Morning, North Oakland! The assault trial of four members of the now-defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery begins today in Oakland. They are charged with badly beating a 42-year-old man on Dec. 31, 2008. Oakland police have identified the seventeen-year old killed in last night’s drive-by shooting on the 3500 block of Allendale Avenue. Two other men were also shot, and one remains in critical condition. The City of Oakland is suing a local company, claiming that the company was…

Oscar Grant Settlement

Good morning, Oakland! BART has reached a $1.5 million settlement with the mother of Oscar Grant’s daughter Tatiana. The woman filed a $50 million lawsuit against the transit agency after Grant was shot on a station platform on Jan. 1, 2009. An East Bay man who objects to the devilish connotations of the name “Mt. Diablo” is petitioning a federal agency to change the peak’s name to “Mt. Ronald Reagan.”  The Contra Costa Board of Supervisors will discuss their options…

Oakland sends sound of hope to Haiti

On Sunday evening in Oakland, approximately 3,700 miles away from devastated Haiti, more than 180 Bay Area musicians got together to deliver the sound of hope to the Haitian people.