Economy
This Thursday kicks off the American Dream Event, a free, five-day financial fair for homeowners who are looking for ways to lower their monthly mortgage payments and for homebuyers who want to take out a loan.
In the past year, the amount of illegally dumped junk has shot up by 34 percent, according to the Oakland Public Works Agency, which logged almost 18,000 incidents in 2012. San Francisco, which has twice the population of Oakland, had just 22,000 incidents.
Fire stations throughout Oakland are shutting down for days at a time in response to a cost saving measure that came out of City Hall last year.
Occupy Oakland marked its two-year anniversary Thursday with a celebratory gathering at Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland.