Oaklanders march for peace, to protest city homicide rate

About 600 people marched from Allen Temple Baptist Church in East Oakland to City Hall to protest crime and violence in Oakland on Saturday. Soldiers Against Violence Everywhere, a community and church coalition, organized the march and rally as a response to the 75 homicides reported in the city from January to August, 2011.

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Youth Radio launches new digital media workforce program

Leaders from Oakland’s Youth Radio program announced on Monday that the group is launching a new digital media workforce program, which will provide young people in the Bay Area with free media skills training courses, which vary from online journalism to mobile application development.

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Oakland airport to offer direct charter flights to Cuba

Just six months ago, because of travel sanctions against Cuba, a U.S. citizen could have faced up to a $55,000 fine and possibly served jail time if they traveled Cuba without going through a restrictive licensing process that allowed only specific groups of people to travel to the country. And even if they did attempt to get a license, most U.S. citizens didn’t qualify for it. Now, after an easing of travel restrictions by the federal government, many people will be able to easily get a license and catch a direct flight to Cuba straight from the Oakland International Airport.

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Bicycle and pedestrian trails will improve with recent $10.2 million grant

Representatives John Garamendi, Barbara Lee and George Miller, along with East Bay Regional Park District Officials, will be at the Oakland Airport/Coliseum BART Station today at noon to celebrate a recent grant to improve bicycle and pedestrian trails in the Bay Area. Last week, the US Department of Transportation awarded the Park District with $10.2…

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BART Airport Connector breaks ground in Oakland

Community leaders and officials from all levels of government symbolically break ground to commemorate the new Oakland Airport Connector.

After more than two decades of debate and a recent sprint for the final bits of funding, on Wednesday a group of local, state, and federal officials broke ground to mark the start of construction on BART’s long-awaited Oakland Airport Connector. A dozen local political officials donned hardhats and gathered around a mound of dirt tidily piled in a corner of the station’s parking lot; in unison, they sank the golden blades of their ceremonial shovels into the earth.

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New project urging more women of color to vote

By KRISTINE WONG Oct. 30 – Decades ago, Barbara Lee—now the outspoken Democratic congresswoman from the East Bay–deliberately chose not to register to vote. As a Mills College student in 1972, Lee was required to work for one of the presidential campaigns, or risk failing a class. “For the first time, I said ‘I’m going…

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