community
Things were looking up for Rusamie Ashly Phongphoumy, who had long dreamed of a better life. On the night of Nov. 29, her boyfriend proposed to her. She accepted. The couple made plans for the future. But all that ended the next day, when she was killed in a West Oakland market, allegedly by a jealous ex-boyfriend. The 19-year-old Kennedy High graduate, who answered to her middle name, had been trying for the past few months to end the relationship…
A Richmond man taking part in protests against police force in Oakland recently was assaulted by masked men who took issue with his attempts to put out a dumpster fire in the street.
Najari Smith launched a bike recovery program as executive director of Rich City Rides. For him, the business of hunting down stolen bikes is personal.
As Richmond prepared to enter the 1960s, the city was about to encounter an era of rapid change. In November of 1959, readers opened the pages of the city’s daily newspaper, the Richmond Independent, to be confronted with Thanksgiving sales and headlines about next fall’s presidential race (“State GOP Supports Nixon”). The advertisements reflected an idyllic version of late 1950s America: A well-dressed businessman, hands clasped in his lap, dozes with a smile as a cherubic young boy gazes up…
With national protests erupting over the non-indictment of the police officers involved in the Brown and Eric Garner cases, Richmond served as a rare example of a peaceful protest on Tuesday.
Josephine Lico has seen a century of history and bears the scars of the city where she spent her life.
In reaction to the recent non-indictments of police killings of unarmed black men, hundreds marched throughout Berkeley Sunday night. Riots broke out around 10 p.m., as a mass of protestors vandalized and looted storefronts along the downtown corridor and Telegraph Avenue. Sunday night was also marked by clashes between violent protestors and non-violent ones.
From December 2011 to August 2013, the Easy Go program, funded by nearly $1.8 million in Chevron tax settlement, provided subsidized electric car rentals, bike rentals, kids cabs, van services and AC Transit Easy passes for Richmond residents.
Of the city’s full-time employees, 346 – more than half of all workers – surpassed the six-figure mark. The median household income in Richmond is $54,000.