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Next weekend Californians will march to demand a “real” climate change leadership

In early January, Eileen Alden and Supreet Singh Manchanda sat in front of a computer, opened a Kickstarter account and wrote: “Have you ever asked yourself why there are no Sikh superheroes? Isn’t it time to see a hero in a turban for a change?” They set an ambitious goal for their project: to raise $5,000 to produce a comic book with a Sikh hero. The campaign took off and was even selected as a KickStarter staff pick. In 27…

Since its founding in 1995, Oakland Dollars for Scholars has had trouble rounding up funds for their scholarship recipients. The non-profit community organization seeks to pry open the doors to higher education that rising costs have closed to many students in traditionally-underrepresented communities. But with more donations coming from board members than from the community, scholarship amounts and the number of recipients they can serve have been uncertain each year. “We haven’t really been able to rally support from the…

It started with a bargaining tactic, and continued on Wednesday afternoon as a group of about 70 parents, students, and teachers walked down Park Boulevard carrying signs and shouting that they wanted a fairer contract. The march led to a packed school board meeting, as teachers, parents, and community members eagerly waited to speak about an item that didn’t appear on the agenda: contract negotiations between Oakland’s teachers and the school district. Negotiations between teachers, psychologists, counselors and the district…

In honor of Black History Month, the American Red Cross is commemorating the development of modern-day blood banking, pioneered by an African-American surgeon—Dr. Charles Drew. They have organized more than a dozen blood donation opportunities throughout February in the East Bay. “We need people of all ethnicities to donate,” said Sara O’Brien, the external communications manager of the American Red Cross for the Northern California region. The Northern California branch will be part a nationwide effort to encourage a diverse…

Mustafa Ahadi came to the United States as a refugee after working as a medical translator with the US Armed Forces in Kabul. “This is a good country to find the dreams,” he says.

The 2014 season for the Oakland Athletics was full of ups and downs. The A’s got off to a great start, achieving a 59-36 record, which was the best in baseball by the All-Star break. Oakland also had the best run differential in all of baseball and had six players selected to the All-Star game, more than any other club. However, A’s general manager Billy Beane made a blockbuster trade on July 31, sending Cuban slugger Yoenis Cespedes to the…

Children of all ages swarmed in and out of planetarium theaters at the Chabot Space and Science Center this weekend for the 7th annual Bay Area International Children’s Film Festival. With two full days of short films from all over the world geared for different age groups, co-founder Jim Capobianco said the festival was meant to inspire kids and their families to be creative, and to expose them to other cultures and filmmaking. “I wanted to find films that were…

Here are some of our favorite and most-read stories from 2014. We’ll be back in 2015!