Politics
A container of pasta. A 10-pound tube of ground turkey. A can of tomato sauce. It was a Monday in November at a central kitchen in East Oakland and dozens of cardboard boxes were being unloaded, revealing the three main ingredients for a pasta and meat-sauce dish that would be served to elementary school kids in the Oakland Unified School District that Thursday. In a matter of hours, stainless steel racks filled with clumps of pasta, each in open-faced cardboard…
Demonstrators rallied for press freedom and decried what they characterized as police brutality in downtown Oakland on Monday, as they protested felony arson charges filed against a Bay Area journalist. The journalist, who works under the name JR Valrey, faces accusations that he burned property during a January 2009 protest against the police shooting of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART station. The small group of protestors, which numbered about a dozen as downtown workers milled past the Rene C….
Gangs are a complicated reality in Oakland, a city haunted by violence and the negative reputation that comes with it. But this fall, the nationwide broadcast of “Gang Wars: Oakland” added a new layer of complexity to many viewers’ already complicated feelings about what that violence means and how outsiders perceive it.
Despite recent consternation in the blogosphere and rumor mill, no cutoff looms yet for Oakland’s bid to be a host city for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, the worldwide soccer championship, according to a USA Bid Committee spokesperson.
Out of the Closet, a chain of second-hand stores, marked Tuesday’s World AIDS day by offering on-the-spot HIV tests at all its locations, including the five Bay Area shops. “In a clinic setting, people are nervous,” one of the test counselors said in Oakland. “This is more casual–it’s kind of better for the community.”
Oakland North visits the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist library on Telegraph Avenue, whose catalog includes some 30,000 titles on political economy, revolutionary tactics and radical thought.
Members of the BART Police Department Review Committee raised questions Wednesday about the police practices at the West Oakland BART station on Nov 21 that resulted in the arrest and injury of an intoxicated train passenger.
Tighter enforcement of parking rules in Oakland has angered the city’s cab drivers, who complain about a lack of taxi stands.
A group of UC Berkeley students gathered in the lobby of the UC Regents Administration building in Downtown Oakland Monday afternoon, reportedly to discuss the announced 32% rise in undergraduate student fees with UC President Mark Yudof.