Category Archives: Oakland

Hundreds evacuated in Oakland after California brush fire grows out of control

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Residents told to flee as firefighters battle blaze, with two homes burned and several others damaged

A fast-moving fire fed by strong winds burned two homes on Friday and damaged several others in a hillside neighborhood in the city of Oakland, where roughly 500 people were ordered to evacuate, officials said.

Damon Covington, the city’s fire chief, said that at about 1.30pm, calls had come in reporting a fire in front of a home in the Oakland hills. Crews arrived as the inferno quickly grew with winds ranging from calm breezes to 40mph (64km/h) gusts during red-flag conditions.

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Oakland mayor denies wrongdoing in first remarks since FBI raided her home

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Sheng Thao maintains no plans to resign after authorities carried 80 boxes out of her home as part of investigation

Sheng Thao, mayor of Oakland, California, delivered a prepared statement on Monday in her first public remarks since federal authorities raided her home last week.

Thao, who is serving her first term as the city’s mayor, maintains that she did not do anything wrong and she has no plans to resign from office.

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FBI raids home of Oakland’s first-term mayor Sheng Thao

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Agents also conducted searches at two homes owned by members of the politically influential Duong family

Federal authorities have raided a home belonging to the mayor of Oakland, California, as part of an investigation that included a search of at least two other houses, officials said on Thursday.

The raid took place on Thursday morning, when FBI agents carried 80 boxes out of a four-bedroom home that property records link to Sheng Thao, who is serving her first term as the city’s mayor.

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California deploys hundreds of freeway surveillance cameras in Oakland to fight crime

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Critics say system will infringe on privacy and fuel police abuse of marginalized communities

Hundreds of high-tech surveillance cameras are being installed in the city of Oakland and surrounding freeways to help battle crime, the California governor announced on Friday.

Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in a news release that the California highway patrol (CHP) has contracted with Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company, to install 480 cameras that can identify and track vehicles by license plate, type, color and even decals and bumper stickers. The cameras will provide authorities with real-time alerts of suspect vehicles.

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Orphaned mountain lion sisters find new home at California zoo

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Willow and Maple, whose mother was hit by car on highway, were dehydrated and underweight when they were found in backyard

The two sisters are tiny – only five and a half pounds, and about two months old. They have giant eyes and mottled patches on their fur. Found in a backyard five days after their mother was hit on Highway 280 in northern California, the mountain lions headed to a new home at the Oakland zoo last week.

The sisters, now named Willow and Maple, were hungry and tired after not eating for five days. The cubs were visibly dehydrated, and underweight, and were checked for parasites and viruses by veterinarians, zoo officials said.

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California elementary school evacuated over bomb threat after rightwing harassment

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Chabot elementary in Oakland received racist and threatening emails, forcing 50 students and staff to vacate the premises

A California elementary school was evacuated on Tuesday in response to a bomb threat, days after the school was targeted online by rightwing extremists over a playdate event.

Chabot elementary in Oakland received the threat over email before school started on Tuesday, forcing roughly 50 students and staff members to evacuate, authorities said. Police found no explosives after searching the school using dogs from the bomb detection team.

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Oakland A’s fans stage ‘reverse boycott’ at plans to move team to Vegas

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  • Crowds demand owner sells team rather than relocate
  • Fans chant and throw garbage on to field in protest

Furious Oakland Athletics fans came en masse with a single message to owner John Fisher. “Sell the team!” they chanted thousands of times during the A’s 2-1 victory against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Friends Brian Guido and Scott Finney of Sacramento left work early on Tuesday because they did not want to miss the festivities a couple of hours away in Oakland.

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Once a refuge, Oakland homeless camp is dismantled: ‘My world was ripped to pieces’

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The city has evicted all the residents from Wood Street amid the worst housing and homelessness crisis ever

The Wood Street encampment in Oakland, once northern California’s biggest, has been shut down, with officials on Wednesday removing the last handful of residents who remained as the city’s plan for a phased eviction comes to an end.

Only months ago, the encampment spanned several city blocks under the off-ramp of the 880 interstate in West Oakland. In April, the city started a protracted eviction that swept through and scattered those who were living there. Up until last week, a dozen or so residents remained at the camp in what they called “the Commons”: the heart of a thriving community of outcasts. They saw themselves participating in a radical experiment in how to rethink helping the unhoused.

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Shock as 12-year-old allegedly shoots classmate in Oakland school

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Victim described as in stable condition and alleged shooter held in California city that has seen six gun deaths in recent days

A 12-year-old boy was arrested after he allegedly shot and wounded his 13-year-old classmate at a school in Oakland, California.

The shooting erupted at about 1.30pm on Monday at Madison Park academy in East Oakland. Local police said they were able to quickly detain the alleged shooter while his victim was hospitalized in what is now described as stable condition.

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I’m my high school’s first Black male valedictorian. I won’t be the last | Ahmed Muhammad

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Ahmed Muhammad, in his valedictory speech, reflected on the unprecedented circumstances that shaped the class of 2021

Ahmed Muhammad recently became the first Black male valedictorian in the 106-year history of Oakland Technical high school in Oakland, California, graduating at the top of his class with a 4.73 grade point average (GPA) and offers from 11 top universities. A video of his moving graduation speech subsequently went viral, drawing widespread attention on social media and even earning praise from the state’s governor.

“I recently became the first Black male valedictorian in our school’s history. And I want to say something about that...“

Thank you, Ahmed for your powerful words. Look out world -- Oakland Tech is coming with some serious change makers! pic.twitter.com/vqANk21T5k

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Surge in gun violence is stress test for Oakland’s defund the police campaign

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Homicides in the city have risen 314% and while some back shifting resources to prevention and healing, others want alternatives in place to keep Black and brown people safe

Since the visceral video of George Floyd pinned beneath a police officer’s knee sparked massive uprisings in US cities last summer, movements to defund police departments have grown from siloed local campaigns into a national movement. But in multiple cities, this work is being done amid a disturbing rise in gun violence that is affecting the same Black and Latino communities most affected by police misconduct.

While some crime survivors support shifting resources from police and into prevention and healing services, others who have lost loved ones to shootings and live in high-crime areas worry that depleting police budgets without proven alternatives to fill any gaps will make Black and brown communities less safe.

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DoJ to investigate federal forces’ tactics in US cities as mayors condemn Trump

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Watchdog to look at use-of-force allegations in Portland and Washington as other mayors say: we don’t need your deployments

The justice department inspector general said on Thursday it would conduct a review of the conduct of federal agents who responded to unrest in Portland and Washington DC, following concerns from members of Congress and the public.

Related: DoJ watchdog opens investigation into federal agents' actions in Portland – live

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‘Time for a new vision’: violence is a public health issue that requires community driven solutions

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Treating violence as a health epidemic can increase safety while decreasing the need for police involvement

In cities across the United States and around the world, millions of people have been protesting to demand alternatives to policing.

In Oakland, California, violence intervention programs in past years have shown there are other ways to address violence in communities than sending in armed police, ways that can quickly be scaled to both save lives and create more equitable treatment of people.

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Oakland moves to bar police from schools as bigger cities reject change

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Movement to get officers out of schools sees progress even as Chicago and Los Angeles school boards vote to keep them in place

A growing movement to get police officers out of US schools saw a major victory this week when Oakland’s school board voted to eliminate the school district’s dedicated police department.

But in Chicago and Los Angeles, despite protests by youth activists, support from teachers’ unions, and an outpouring of public support, school boards voted to keep police in public schools, at least for now.

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Half of Oakland students lack access to computers. Jack Dorsey is stepping in

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Twitter CEO’s $10m pledge will immediately help ‘put a device in the hand of every single kid’ in Oakland’s public schools

Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and Square, has announced that he will donate $10m toward computers and internet access for public schools in Oakland, a city where half of students lack reliable access to either.

Dorsey dropped the news after the Oakland mayor, Libby Schaaf, tweeted a video of one those 25,000 students without access to the technology. “Every student deserves the ability to learn from home,” wrote Schaaf.

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Changing violence requires the same shift in understanding given to Aids

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Violence is a contagious and epidemic health problem and those exposed to it deserve treatment, compassion and care, writes Gary Slutkin

When the Aids epidemic first hit in the early 1980s, I was beginning my career in epidemiology at San Francisco general hospital. There was fear everywhere, especially in cities with large LGBT populations such as San Francisco. People didn’t understand what was happening and where Aids would strike next.

Today, Aids remains a major public health threat, but anxiety over the spread has largely abated. The thing that made the biggest difference in getting us here was the shift in how the world looks at people affected by Aids: from immoral people or bad people, to people with a contagious health problem who deserve to receive compassion and care.

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San Francisco transit boss apologizes to rider detained over a sandwich

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Encounter between police officer and man eating on Bart platform prompts protests and allegations of racism

The head of a San Francisco Bay Area commuter train system apologized to a black rider who was detained and cited by police for eating a breakfast sandwich on a train platform. The official promised an investigation after an outcry from people who assailed enforcement of a no-food rule as racist.

More than two dozen people staged an “eat-in” at a Bay Area Rapid Transit (Bart) station over the weekend and others continue to protest the 4 November encounter, which ended with a 31-year-old man who was headed to work in handcuffs and unable to leave until he had told Bart police his name.

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Thirty years after devastating quake, is San Francisco ready for the next?

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The 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta quake killed 63 in 1989. Decades later, the Bay Area is still plagued by structural threats and flammable fuels

On the afternoon of 17 October 1989, a 6.9-magnitude earthquake rocked the San Francisco Bay Area, killing 63 people and causing $13bn in damages as it toppled a chunk of the Bay Bridge, colapsed a section of freeway in Oakland, and crumbled thousands of buildings from San Francisco to Santa Cruz.

Thirty years later, California will launch an earthquake early warning app, the first to cover the whole state, developed by UC Berkeley and the California Office of Emergency Services. The decades since the Loma Prieta quake have been remarkably quiet – yet it’s not a matter of if, but when, the next large earthquake will rattle the Bay Area, and the consequences will undoubtedly be severe.

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‘There’s no way to stop this’: Oakland braces for the arrival of tech firm Square

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has signed a deal to move his payments company to Oakland – which activists say will only exacerbate an already brutal housing crisis

Photographs by Jason Henry

The knocks on Maria Espinoza’s front door became a nightly occurrence.

If the 60-year-old Oakland woman wasn’t home, her frightened partner would turn off the lights and TV and remain silent. On evenings Espinoza did answer the door, her new landlord would be outside with the same question: When are you moving out?

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