Oakland Ca

Several years ago the Oakland Museum of California was scheduled to host a traveling exhibition about photographers who died in Vietnam. So curator Marcia Eymann began to work on a companion show about the war's effect on the state. The photography show never made it to Oakland. But Eymann was so impressed by what she learned about the repercussions of the Vietnam War on California that the museum decided to make that the subject of a full-blown presentation. The result is "What's Going On?

Gambling halls and arts education may make strange bedfellows. But over the last three years, five Los Angeles-area card clubs have showered more than $100,000 on a Bay Area school for the arts some 400 miles away. The gifts offered more than a chance to help inner-city kids. They were an opportunity to please the state official who asked for the money, directly oversees the clubs and is widely viewed as the front-runner to be California's next governor: state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown.

Oakland wasn't named for its redwoods, that's for sure. Yet a magnificent redwood forest once thrived at what is now the eastern edge of the metropolis. Oakland's redwoods are removed from other areas of coast redwoods--the Santa Cruz Mountains to the south and the state and national parks on California's north coast--which makes a walk in Redwood Regional Park all the more special.

Oakland pot activists fresh off a victory at local polls on the taxing of medical marijuana took their first official step Tuesday toward asking California voters to legalize pot. A proposed ballot measure filed with the California attorney general's office would allow adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of pot. Homeowners could grow marijuana for personal use on garden plots up to 25 square feet.

At first it seemed quixotic. But today, billions of dollars in California pension funds have been pulled out of South Africa. And as Nelson Mandela concluded his U.S. tour, people who set out to force California to pull its money out of South Africa were basking in the belief that they played a part in freeing the anti-apartheid leader. "It's an affirmation of our work," Pedro Noguera said of Mandela's visit.

Faced with an explosive increase in his city's murder rate, Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris called Tuesday for emergency measures to combat violence, including a voluntary 10 p.m. curfew for juveniles, mandatory arrests in family assault cases and closure of liquor stores and bars where drugs are a problem.

In the neighborhood where four Oakland police officers were killed last weekend, a large makeshift memorial still adorns a sidewalk with flowers, notes and photographs of the slain police. Across the street lies another, smaller sidewalk memorial -- this one for the parolee who killed the officers. A cluster of African American women in front of the police memorial argued last week about a candlelight vigil planned for the felon, whom police had just linked by DNA to the rape of a 12-year-old.

Through wisps of fog that often hover below Rudolph Henderson's hilltop mansion, vineyards stretch toward a faint silhouette of San Francisco's skyline, painting a breathtaking picture. It was here, in this secluded hideaway, that Henderson enjoyed a lavish lifestyle far removed from the inner city's drugs and crime, where he used his ties to Colombia's infamous Medellin cocaine cartel to build the largest illegal narcotics trade in Oakland.

William McElroy has lived in the shadow of the Nimitz Freeway for most of his life. As a teen-ager growing up in a grimy, blue-collar section of Oakland along 12th Street, he watched workmen in the 1950s raise the heavy, double-decked highway just a few blocks from his home. Over time, the Nimitz became one of those dominating landmarks one hardly notices.

A windblown wildfire fueled by dry brush whipped through the fashionable Oakland and Berkeley hills Sunday, killing 10 people, destroying more than 200 homes and forcing the evacuation of thousands of people in one of the worst brush fires in Bay Area history. Among the fatalities were an Oakland firefighter and an Oakland police officer, Mayor Elihu Harris announced late Sunday night.

Just a few blocks off Oakland's busy Jack London Square, Walter Hoye, a soft-spoken Baptist minister, was standing outside an abortion clinic, doing his best not to get arrested. Dressed in black and wearing his "Got Jesus?" ball cap, Hoye, 52, of Union City, Calif., held the hand-lettered sign he always brings: "God loves you and your baby. Let us help you." His black wire-rimmed sunglasses, perched halfway down his nose, gave him a faintly Hollywood air.

A transit officer said Tuesday that an unarmed man who was fatally shot by another officer at an Oakland train station failed to obey her commands before his death. Bay Area Rapid Transit Officer Marysol Domenici testified during the fourth day of a hearing to determine whether former BART Officer Johannes Mehserle will stand trial for murder in the death of Oscar Grant.

A former bakery handyman pleaded guilty Thursday to killing two men, including an Oakland journalist who was writing about the bakery's finances. Devaughndre Broussard, 21, entered his plea to two counts of voluntary manslaughter as part of a deal with prosecutors. Broussard admitted to fatally shooting Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey in August 2007 and another man, Odell Roberson Jr., a month earlier. Bailey's sister, Lorelei Waqia, and father, Chauncey Bailey Sr.

In the neighborhood where four Oakland police officers were killed last weekend, a large makeshift memorial still adorns a sidewalk with flowers, notes and photographs of the slain police. Across the street lies another, smaller sidewalk memorial -- this one for the parolee who killed the officers. A cluster of African American women in front of the police memorial argued last week about a candlelight vigil planned for the felon, whom police had just linked by DNA to the rape of a 12-year-old.

A new Oakland-based union -- the product of a brutal fight between the elected leaders of healthcare workers in Northern California and their superiors in Washington -- announced Tuesday that it had gained its first members. North American Healthcare agreed to recognize the National Union of Healthcare Workers as the representative of more than 350 nursing home workers at four of the company's facilities in Northern California, the union said.

By day, it's far too quiet at the site of a planned housing and retail development on a former Navy base in Oakland. At night, neighbors can hear the thieves come out. They rip out copper wire, haul away pipes and take anything else they can steal from dozens of buildings on the site, abandoned after Irvine developer SunCal Cos. fell victim to the economy.

An armored car guard accused of slaying his partner and stealing $300,000 remained on the loose Wednesday while police questioned an alleged accomplice and recovered most of the money. In a predawn raid, a SWAT team burst into a Sacramento motel room rented to Thomas Wheelock, 20, and found cash stuffed in paper bags beneath the mattress. The money was still in the plastic wrapping of Oakland-based Armored Transport of California, where Wheelock had worked, authorities said. "Mr.

The shotgun death of a man on the final day of the year boosted Oakland's 1986 homicide record to 146, highest in the history of the city. The previous record was established in 1980. Cleo Hildreth, 40, was fatally shot as he drove his 1978 Cadillac Seville along MacArthur Boulevard near 106th Avenue at about 3 a.m. Wednesday. The victim drove wounded for about a block before he lost control and smashed his car into a series of store fronts.

An outside party will take over the Bay Area Rapid Transit agency's investigation of all officers involved in the shooting of an unarmed man at a train station platform, BART officials said Thursday. Oscar Grant, 22, was fatally shot in the back while lying face down at the Fruitvale station early New Year's Day. Alameda County prosecutors have charged former BART Officer Johannes Mehserle with murder. He has pleaded not guilty.

The family of a 22-year-old man shot to death by a transit police officer on New Year's Day urged Oakland residents Thursday to remain calm and deplored the violence that erupted during a protest over the shooting a day earlier. The city bristled with anger and sorrow as store owners cleaned up the debris from the vandalism during Wednesday night's protest and officials announced that the Oakland Police Department would join in the investigation of Oscar J. Grant III's death.