“It will be a great experience,” said my fellow reporter after he suggested I go on a ridealong with a Richmond police officer. “They’ll strap you in a bulletproof vest, take you for a spin at night, and you’ll see some crazy stuff.” For a visiting reporter from the Netherlands, this sounds promising.
Around two hundred people gathered Friday at the Richmond BART for a rally in celebration of Earth Day. During the event, organized by Occupy Richmond, protestors carried signs, sang songs and chanted slogans against Chevron.
An unusually large number of people attended Tuesday’s city council meeting in Richmond. Many carried banners or wore bright colored shirts with slogans like “Don’t kill our jobs,” which others changed in “Don’t kill our kids” later in the evening.
This week Richmond was visited by a group of youth ambassadors from Shimada, Japan. The Richmond-Shimada Friendship Commission (RSFC), which celebrates its fiftieth birthday later this year, hosts a group of about six Japanese students and a teacher twice a year. Every summer, a group from Richmond travels to Shimada to live there for a month.
A recent report by the United Nations calls for a worldwide tax on soft drinks—exactly like the one Richmond will be voting on this November.
The USS Iowa, a World War II-era ship that’s the fastest battleship ever built, stands out in the Richmond marina. The 887-foot long gray hull dwarfs the surrounding ships and containers that are scattered around the harbor.