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Welcome back to the Tales of Two Cities podcast! This episode is all about our guilty pleasures. This week we’ll take you to Zoonie’s Candy Shop in Oakland to relive your childhood, learn about how people who have shopped too much are managing all the stuff they have, and hang out with a group of friends trying to solve a murder mystery — and who want you to know that games aren’t just for kids. And finally, we’ll meet up…
When the Oakland teachers’ strike began, many volunteers joined forces to create “solidarity sites” across the city to support the teachers by giving students a safe place to stay while classes were cancelled. Bushrod Recreation Center was one of the fifteen recreation centers open for parents to drop off their kids so they wouldn’t have to cross the picket lines. Here, children got to play basketball, make crafts, and enjoy free meals provided by Bread for Ed, a food fund…
If there is one celebration that cannot be stopped, it’s the Mardi Gras parade in Oakland. Whether there is sunshine or it is raining cats and dogs, the good times have to roll on Fat Tuesday. Despite the gloomy weather, people from across the Bay Area came to Oakland last week to celebrate the rich cultural tradition of New Orleans, twirling their parasols and handkerchiefs, and joining the “second line” in the street as drummers and the brass band, the…
The City of Oakland is working to provide safe sites for homeless living in their RVs and more sanitation services at encampments in an effort to help address the city’s homeless crisis.
Over the years, Nella Gonçalves has become very used to hearing a certain question: “Ew, you work with the homeless? Don’t they stink?” Gonçalves is the deputy director of Beyond Emancipation, an organization that helps foster youth transition into lives as independent adults. Gonçalves meets a lot of very young people in very difficult positions; she said there’s not a single youth she works with who wouldn’t know what it’s like to fear homelessness. Yet, she observed, even though barely…
On Friday afternoon, just as Oakland’s school board meeting was supposed to start, a union representative wearing red–the symbol of the “Red for Ed” movement that has galvanized teachers’ strikes across the nation–stepped in front of the crowd and announced that teachers and school officials had reached a tentative four-year agreement. If ratified, it will end the strike that has shut down Oakland schools for the last seven days. Among the provisions: Teachers will receive an 11 percent raise, as…
After more than five hours of public comment and heated debate, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday to approve nearly all of an ad hoc committee’s recommendations to demilitarize the county’s controversial Urban Shield annual training program. They voted 4-0 to eliminate SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) deployment exercises and the event’s weaponry and military gadget show, shifting the focus of the training event to natural disaster preparedness. The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office launched the annual Urban…
In 2015, a measles outbreak spread across California, sickening hundreds of people. The outbreak spread across the West Coast as well as Mexico and Canada, and led the California legislature to outlaw vaccine exemptions based on personal beliefs. Removing the exemption has caused vaccination rates across the state to increase dramatically, including in the Bay Area. But some Bay Area residents worry current outbreaks in Washington and Oregon may soon jump state lines into California.
Oakland activists Lead to Life melt guns into shovels and use them to plant trees.