Community
The number of uninsured California residents has dropped from 22 percent to 11 percent. But challenges remain for the Affordable Care Act, especially for families with mixed immigration status.
Mills was the first U.S. women’s college to create a formal written admissions policy that includes transgender and gender fluid applicants. The policy went into effect this semester and the changes are making waves among Mills students and alums, as well as other women’s colleges around the county.
After a summer of bombing and fighting between Israel and Gaza, Jewish leaders in Oakland are grappling with how to address the violence and ongoing Middle East tension within more traditional thoughts about the fall’s Jewish High Holidays, which focus on starting new and letting go of the past.
Local health officials are urging parents to immunize their children against pertussis—the scientific name for whooping cough—and other vaccine-preventable diseases. But that is a tall order in a region where some families still have limited access to healthcare, and more parents are filing Personal Belief Exemptions.
As Vicky Chen, the teen librarian at the Rockridge Library Branch, attempted to settle the chaotic rush of middle school students visiting the youth section after school, a student suddenly asked, “Ms. Vicky, how can a book be banned?” Chen, along with other Oakland librarians, highlighted banned books at their respective branches by creating displays for Banned Books Week, which ran from September 21 to 27, an annual event that celebrates the freedom to read. At the Rockridge branch, Chen’s…
Every week, Oakland North will publish a photo submitted by one of our readers. This week’s image is by Dan Krewson.
In dual news conferences in Oakland and Washington D.C., Congresswoman Barbara Lee and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Tuesday that Oakland and Richmond have been named by the Justice Department as part of a new national program that Holder called an “all-hands approach to curbing endemic violence” in five U.S. communities with high violent crimes rates. “If we want to reduce violence in our East Bay communities, we must work together,” Lee (D-Oakland) told reporters Tuesday morning, alongside other…
Vegan burgers and soul food and burritos (oy vey!) … This week, Oakland’s plant-based eaters add another nosh to the list. Sarah Kagan, 26, launched Kosher* vegan catering business, Sarah Sunshine, just in time for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana.* Rosh Hashana, which fell on September 24, 2014, celebrates the start of the Jewish new year, 5775. It is followed by ten days of atonement, which ends in one of the holiest days under Jewish tradition, Yom Kippur. Fish-free…
Robert Rodgers has been in the driver’s seat for a long time–for the last eight years, as a driver for the elderly patients of Alzheimer’s Services of the East Bay. As he retires, he reflects on his career and the passengers he’s known.