Health
The Healthy Neighborhood Stores Alliance (HNSA) is a West Oakland effort to incorporate produce into corner stores that typically stock only liquor, canned goods, frozen and packaged foods, and a few household appliances.
Late last month, officials from Yosemite National Park announced that two people who visited the park in June died later from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a dangerous disease spread through the urine, saliva or feces of infected rodents.
Oakland Pride, a festival celebrating the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community, drew about 20,000 people to the city’s Uptown district on Sunday.
A low-flying helicopter will be in the Oakland skies this week to measure natural radiation levels in the Bay Area. The flyover will document background radiation in San Francisco, Oakland and Pacifica as part of a joint research and development initiative for the Department of Homeland Security’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Nearly a year after the Occupy protest coalesced in downtown Oakland, a longsuffering casualty of the protest is finally being attended to as the City of Oakland begins a full-scale restoration of the lawn of Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. The project involves the removal and replacement of all grass sod in the plaza—a new lawn, essentially, from scratch.
On a Tuesday afternoon, in a Piedmont Avenue studio between a yogurt shop and a purveyor of vintage European goods, Yania Escobar has her kinder warriors—a half dozen 3 to 5 year olds — gathered around one of the many perfect circles outlined on the gym floor in colored tape. Escobar crouches over. She steps from one foot to the other, swaying side to side, while moving her arms about in front of her.
Seven hundred people attended the fifth annual back to school event and barbecue hosted by What Now America at deFremery Recreation Center in West Oakland on Saturday.
Banana and apples trees, pomegranate, pear, and plum. Blackberries and strawberries, lemons and persimmons. Thyme, sage, and a host of other herbs. This isn’t a supermarket produce section or a busy Saturday farmer’s market—it’s an edible forest, two of them in fact, planted by students in the courtyard of Oakland International High School.
The shrieks and squeals of happy children could be heard Friday over the boombox blasting pop music at Acta Non Verba Youth Urban Farm project in East Oakland. This was a day for play, not work. Celebrating the end of 100 hours of summer labor in the garden, nine local kids ran wild and free among the garden beds arranged in neat rows on the half-acre lot.