Public Policy
On a sunny January morning, two Oakland women took up banners and headed to San Francisco to participate in a demonstration. Both had ended a pregnancy and both have since found healing in activism. But a few blocks separated the two. One was part of the “14th Annual Walk for Life West Coast,” and the second was countering that walk at the “Rally for Reproductive Justice.” At the intersection of 7th and Market streets, a modest crowd of 50 people…
In Oakland, city officials and immigration advocacy groups are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best after an alarm was sounded earlier this month, notifying the Bay Area that federal immigration officials could be planning massive raids on undocumented immigrant communities in the coming weeks. On January 16, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that federal immigration officials are preparing to arrest more than 1,500 undocumented people in Northern California. This news came the same day that the Oakland…
On Thursday morning at the youth center at Skyline High School in Oakland, about 10 women sat around a table and practiced shouting. “I want to speak with my lawyer!” demonstrated Antonio Medrano, the chapter chair of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California’s Berkeley/North East Bay chapter. He stood in front of them and said, “Repeat it!” The women repeated the sentence with louder voices: “I want to speak with my lawyer!” They were participating in a…
Jason Muñiz stands in the door frame that separates his classroom from the bright hallway full of lockers, with his hands holding onto the frame behind him. He looks back and forth from the high school students who are greeting each other before taking a seat inside the classroom, and welcomes the ones who are just walking in. When the school bell rings, Muñiz walks to the front of the classroom, closing the door behind him. “Thank you for being…
This article is part of “Birthing Inequity,” an Oakland North project on maternal and infant health disparities in Oakland. See the full multimedia report here. In 2003, while she was carrying her third child, Tanisha Fuller had to convince her hospital caretakers that something was really wrong. Six months pregnant, and unsure of what was happening to her, she’d rushed to the emergency room with pain in her back, feeling like she couldn’t breathe. At the hospital, she was told that…
It’s every high schooler’s prom dream: good music, hot dates, no parents, and weed. Tons of it. Hosted by Ganja Goddess, a cannabis collective that organizes “weed retreats” for women, the Ganja Goddess Gala was a chance to re-do prom the way the collective members wanted to. With a balloon arch, a photo booth, a DJ set, a dance floor, enough sparkly plastic crowns to go around (because “everyone’s royalty tonight,” one organizer said), and buffet tables piled high with…
Chief Anne Kirkpatrick responded publicly to allegations that she potentially violated the sanctuary city policy during the raid that led to the arrest of Santos de Leon
Under the regulations issued by the Trump administration in early October, more employers, based on their religious beliefs or moral convictions, could choose to deny contraceptive coverage to their employees.
A new study from UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland and All In Alameda researched the effects of providing “food prescriptions” to prediabetic children and their families.