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The Golden State Valkyries made history in becoming the fasting rising star in WNBA history when they won the league championship on Saturday. Along the way, they brought in more revenue than any other women’s sports team and captured the hearts of people in the Bay Area. BART’s Red Line went Valkyries lavender Wednesday morning as fans filled trains heading to the Embarcadero, where the team’s Victory Parade was expected to kick off at noon. At Oakland’s MacArthur station, BART…
Drums pounded as members of Danza Xitlalli, an Aztec dance group, circled the lawn of the Oakland Museum of California on Sunday, turning counterclockwise, then clockwise, to open the museum’s annual Día de los Muertos celebration. As the crowd swayed with the dancers, heads tilting as they turned, feet tapping the ground, others put the final touches to their altars, placing candles, marigolds and bundles of sage with the photos of their loved ones and their favorite things. Día de…
By 8:45 a.m. on Saturday, more than 50 vehicles stuffed with unwanted furniture, children’s toys, construction materials and mattresses had lined up on Edgewater Drive in East Oakland. Crews were directing cars into a lot where drivers would find roll-off dumpsters, lightning loaders and machinery for processing mattresses. According to Oakland Public Works Department staff, some people had parked the night before, wanting to be first to dispose of their waste at Oakland’s second Bulky Block Party of the year….
Oakland City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a 45-day moratorium on the approval of data centers in the city, with a provision for extending the measure if needed. Introduced by Councilmember Carroll Fife, the temporary pause will prevent the city from approving land use agreements or entitlements for data center development, while allowing city staff to determine what regulations Oakland needs, conduct community engagement and study potential impacts, including energy and water use, public health and environmental concerns. Supporters of…
For Oakland, AI governance isn’t an abstract and distant policy debate but an urgent issue. Positioned in the backyard of Silicon Valley, Oakland has become attractive to tech companies: from a proposed data center downtown to AI manufacturing startups and Tesla robotaxis in West Oakland’s historic American Steel Blocks building. Technology expansion could reshape land use, power grids and municipal resources. Ensuring local control was a key topic at Oakland Tech Week, which wrapped up over the weekend, after a…
Wearing a hand-crafted fish-themed jacket, James “Jamie” Freid showed off his rainbow-painted ukulele to a group of about 20 onlookers. They smiled at the Kermit the Frog design he painted on the front and elements he woodburned on the back. This art piece was one of several Freid, 31, shared last week as the public toured Creative Growth, an art center in Oakland that supports artists with developmental disabilities. Freid, who has autism, led the tour as part of Creative…
“Black mothers and infants have been dying at alarmingly high levels for far too long.” This statement is the opening line of the California Department of Public Health’s 2023 report on Black maternal and infant health. In California, Black women face the highest pregnancy-related mortality rate. In Alameda County alone, Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts, while Black infants are four times as likely to die before their first birthdays….
Ali Adams dedicates much of her free time to cleaning up trash along Courtland Avenue and Redding Street in Oakland’s Maxwell Park neighborhood. She says the illegal dumping in her neighborhood reminds her of Detroit, where she grew up. “It seems that as time goes on, we’re supposed to be getting better with these things but at a certain point, it’ll tip if people just continually dump,” Adams said. “That’s kind of what I was starting to see here.” Adams…
On the first Friday of the month, Telegraph Avenue fills with the sounds of music, conversation and laughter as crowds move between rows of food stands, clothing vendors and live performances. The smell of grilled meat and fried foods wafts through the air, while children take turns dancing in the middle of the street, drawing cheers from a circle of onlookers. Nearby, vendors greet customers by name, while people stopped to browse colorful displays of Oakland-themed apparel, and handmade art…