Mills College takes on the nuances of transgender admits

Mills College student body president Skylar Crownover stands in front of the senior wall on the Mills campus.

Mills was the first U.S. women’s college to create a formal written admissions policy that includes transgender and gender fluid applicants. The policy went into effect this semester and the changes are making waves among Mills students and alums, as well as other women’s colleges around the county.

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This is Halloween (in Oakland)

Halloween is always a time for creepy good fun in Oakland, so this year, we’ve dragged some of our favorite spooky stories up from the vault a little early to help you get into the … er, spirit. Check out these stories of hauntings, Halloween-themed scraper bikes, a bar that really knows how to decorate and much much more…

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Oakland’s first Youth Poet Laureate finalists announced

Now that the finalists in Oakland’s first Youth Poet Laureate competition have been announced, the poets have until September to hear the final results after the last panel of judges make their decision. While waiting to find out who will be named the first Youth Poet Laureate, the finalists are preparing for the first group performance at the Art & Soul Festival this summer in Oakland.

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Rally the Troupes drag show comes to Mills College

Landa Lakes (back left) and her crew perform at the first Rally the Troupes social justice burlesque show in Oakland, at Mills College.

A man dressed in jeans and a t-shirt kneels on the ground, his hands held at an awkward angle by the chains that bind him to a drag king who is standing behind him wearing a sharp suit. Like a marionette, he is forced to bring his trembling hands to his face and smoke. The scene unfolds next to a 4-foot cardboard replica of a cigarette, as Maroon 5’s “Harder to Breathe” blares from the speakers.

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Haunted Oakland: Searching for the ghosts of Mills College

Mills College, located in East Oakland, is thought by some people to be one of the most haunted places in Oakland. The campus een includes a small cemetery, where school founders Cyrus and Susan Mills are buried.

Oakland has accumulated many paranormal tales: A ghost at the-now-defunct Holmes Book Company on 14th Street allegedly liked to throw books around, and customers reported feeling uneasy while browsing shelves alone; Ghostly orbs have been said to appear in photographs taken at Preservation Park downtown, particularly at the historic Pardee Home, the house of former California governor George Pardee; One man told Oakland North that he felt an overwhelming sense of “pure evil” while visiting the master bedroom during open house on Mall Court in Oakland.

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