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Friends, family mourn Richmond woman killed in Oakland

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…

Retrospective: Archives show difficult road for Richmond middle class

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…

Weekend marches turn violent as Berkeley protests police killings of unarmed black men

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.