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Tales of Two Cities: Locked Up

Welcome back to the Tales of Two Cities podcast!  This episode is about being locked up. This week we’ll meet formerly incarcerated people who share their experiences behind bars and also learn about the ways they’re getting their lives back on track after their release. We’ll also look at a different kind of lock up as we hear about animals who are affected by isolation and confinement. We will follow rodent-trapping researchers in an effort to study mammals and also…

The East Bay in myths and memorials

On an ordinary Monday, we sent the reporters of Oakland North and Richmond Confidential out into our cities with a goal: Capture the spaces that are famous for their legends, their myths, their memorials to the people who made the Bay Area great and to the moments in history that still haunt us. Each reporter took a camera, notebook and pen–and one or two took their audio equipment as well. Their goal was to sit quietly in the space for…

Tales of Two Cities Podcast: Guilty Pleasures

Welcome back to the Tales of Two Cities podcast!  This episode is all about our guilty pleasures. This week we’ll take you to Zoonie’s Candy Shop in Oakland to relive your childhood, learn about how people who have shopped too much are managing all the stuff they have, and hang out with a group of friends trying to solve a murder mystery—and who want you to know that games aren’t just for kids. And finally, we’ll meet up with the…

Panel discusses resolving homelessness in the East Bay

Over the years, Nella Gonçalves has become very used to hearing a certain question: “Ew, you work with the homeless? Don’t they stink?” Gonçalves is the deputy director of Beyond Emancipation, an organization that helps foster youth transition into lives as independent adults. Gonçalves meets a lot of very young people in very difficult positions; she said there’s not a single youth she works with who wouldn’t know what it’s like to fear homelessness. Yet, she observed, even though barely…

Will the Pacific Northwest measles outbreak jump over to the East Bay?

In 2015, a measles outbreak spread across California, sickening hundreds of people. The outbreak spread across the West Coast as well as Mexico and Canada, and led the California legislature to outlaw vaccine exemptions based on personal beliefs. Removing the exemption has caused vaccination rates across the state to increase dramatically, including in the Bay Area. But some Bay Area residents worry current outbreaks in Washington and Oregon may soon jump state lines into California.

Milo Foundation fundraising for kennel repairs

Since opening its doors as a no-kill rescue over two decades ago, the Milo Foundation has helped place over 8,000 animals into their forever homes. But after all those years of temporarily housing animals, the non-profit’s kennels are beginning to show some serious wear and tear. On top of that, founder and director Lynne Tingle says the recent rains have only served to exacerbate the problem because their dogs are not getting out as frequently and chewing right through the…

At the Day of Learning, museum visitors reflect on Richmond’s Jewish history

Although she has been living in Richmond for about 20 years, Margaret Lee had not been aware of the mark her fellow members of the Jewish community have left on the city. In fact, attending last week’s “Day of Learning” at the Richmond Museum of History, a gathering commemorating the Holocaust, was the first time she had engaged with the stories of other local Jewish people, she said. The gathering was one of the events held in conjunction with the…