Community Cookbook featured recipe: Rustic Rice

We’re having a great time collecting your favorite Thanksgiving Day recipes for our Community Cookbook and we hope you keep sending them! (Just email lillian.mongeau@oaklandnorth.net. Subject: RECIPE. And include a few words about where the recipe came from.) Today, our featured recipe comes to us from Tonya, no last name given, who wrote that she’s been making this hardy dish for nearly 15 years. The best part of it is that it travels well and can be prepared a day…

This weekend in Oakland

Weekend Events Calendar: Friday, 11/19, 8 p.m.: Season Opening of Oakland East Bay Symphony, featuring guitarist Carlos Santana and composition for full orchestra by multi Grammy-winning songwriter Narada Michael Walden. Performances both Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.(Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakland) Friday, 11/19, 8:30 p.m.: San Francisco Bay Area International salsa congress, a salsa dancing extravaganza, featuring performances, workshops and competitions all weekend long. Runs November 18th to November 21st. Website: www.sfsalsacongress.com. (Oakland Marriott City Center, 1001 Broadway, Oakland) Saturday,…

Jolted by Clorox jobs move, Oakland hunts for business, jobs

As Oakland looks forward to a new mayor in the coming year, it faces giant-sized challenges in employment and business development that would be daunting for any city administration. Unemployment stands at 17.3 percent, compared to a national rate of 9.6 percent, and several large companies have deserted the city, taking hundreds of jobs with them. So business organizations and city officials are focused on strategies to make Oakland a business-friendly environment to attract new companies and new jobs.

This weekend in Oakland

Weekend Events Calendar:

Saturday, 11/13, 9 a.m.: “A Caregivers Town Hall,” A support, education and resource fair. (Jack London Aquatic Center, 115 Embarcadero, Oakland)

Saturday, 11/13, 11 a.m.: Phat Beets Produce Food N’ Justice Workshop Series. Beginning with a tenants’ rights seminar, the five-workshop series will run through December 11. (North Oakland Arlington Medical Center, 5715 Market Street, Oakland)

Saturday, 11/13, 1 p.m.: Ten-year anniversary celebration of the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, including speakers, panels and workshops focusing on independent media’s role in social and environmental justice movements. (Continental Club, 1658 W. 12th Street, Oakland)

Saturday, 11/13, 5 p.m.: Opening reception for exhibition of artist Jennie Ottinger, titled “Due By.” Exhibition will run through January 8. (Johansson Projects, 2300 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland)

Saturday, 11/13, 5 p.m.: The Chabot Space & Science Center will host “Gala Benefit for Planet Earth” to celebrate Bill Nye’s climate lab exhibition, featuring special guest Bill Nye the Climate Guy. (Chabot Space & Science Center, 10000 Skyline Boulevard, Oakland)

Community protests police shooting and gang injunction

Community activist groups held marches Thursday to protest Monday’s fatal police shooting of East Oakland barber Derrick Jones and the recent gang injunction by the Oakland Police Department. Derrick Jones, 37, was shot to death Monday by two police officers near the Kwik Cut Barber Shop on Bancroft Avenue, which he owned. Later in the week, Oakland police served notices to at least 10 people accused of being gang members in an injunction filed by the city attorney Wednesday. Dozens…

Breaking: Jean Quan is Oakland’s new mayor

City council member Jean Quan has become Oakland’s newest mayor, according to a provisional announcement made by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters Wednesday evening. After the official count ended, Quan received 50.98 percent of the vote, beating former state senator Don Perata, who garnered only 49.02 percent.

Adoptable Animal of the Week: Zahara

Oakland North is continuing with our new feature. Every Tuesday, Oakland Animal Services will spotlight an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s Zahara the rabbit.

Pretrial motions set to begin in journalist murder case

Pretrial motions are set to begin as early as next week for former Your Black Muslim Bakery owner Yusuf Bey IV, 24, and bakery associate Antoine Makey. The men are being charged with three counts of murder, including orchestrating the murder of Oakland Post reporter Chauncey Bailey, who was investigating the bakery’s finances when he was shot and killed on his way to work in August of 2007.

Get all of Oakland North’s Mehserle trial coverage; Follow us tomorrow

After his July conviction for involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 shooting death of Oscar Grant, former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle will be sentenced Friday morning. His punishment could range from probation to 14 years in state prison. The Los Angeles County Superior Court judge who will sentence Mehserle will also consider his attorney’s request for a new trial. Oakland North will provide coverage throughout the day of the sentencing, as well as of gatherings scheduled to take place in Oakland. You…