Oakland families mark National Missing Children’s Day

Seven-year-old Jose Hernandez swiped through images on his mother’s tablet device in Oakland’s Verdes Carter Park as they took their place in a swelling crowd of parents and other children waiting for events marking the National Missing Children’s Day to begin.

Solar eclipse draws hundreds to Oakland’s Chabot Space and Science Center

Chabot Space and Science Center, America’s largest public telescope facility, was the vantage point of choice for viewing the annular solar eclipse in Oakland this weekend, as more than 450 astronomy enthusiasts and families thronged the hilltop observatory to see what astronomers say is the first in a “triple play” of spectacular celestial events this summer.

Oakland’s Civicorps Elementary School to shut down

When the class of 2012 graduates at Oakland’s Civicorps Elementary School on June 8, it will be the last time that any of the 150 students currently attending the K-5 charter school will be setting foot on its campus. The school’s management is shutting the school down after 10 years of operation, citing budgetary constraints.

Faultline Art Space opens in Fruitvale

It’s been nearly three decades since the Bhopal disaster left thousands dead in India, altering the face of one of the world’s largest agriculture economies following a leak of methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals at a plant run by Union Carbide India Limited. Today, attitudes towards the excessive use of chemicals in India have changed, but the pollution of public water systems with industrial waste from plants run by major chemical manufacturers continues with very little regulation. This was…