General

Richmond’s Living Legends

“Rosie the Riveter” is the iconic symbol of female independence and strength, celebrating the female workers who played a pivotal role in World War II shipbuilding. The museum, operated by the National Park Service, features photographs, films and educational exhibits all about the welders and other skilled trades taken up by women after the men went off to war duty.

Morrison was one of the “Rosies,” and they are still contributing. Now, they tell first-hand accounts of working at the shipyards just a few yards away.

Patients struggle, doctors worry in aftermath of hospital shutdown

In the months following the April shutdown of Doctor’s Medical Center, doctors and patients have dispersed to other care centers. Some have had to go only across the street in San Pablo, while others must find care much farther away in Pinole, Walnut Creek, Martinez, Concord, Oakland or Berkeley. The distance takes a toll on former patients, and that concerns some doctors.

Locally Richmond: Omni Movement

Omni Movement is a mixed martial arts and athletic training facility in Point Richmond. The center, which has been unofficially open since this summer, offers an open gym, and training in Thai kickboxing, dynamic stretch, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Olympic weightlifting and sports performance.

A new Great Migration: the disappearance of the black middle class

After the great recession of 2008, inequality widened along racial lines as people lost their homes, often their only major asset. Earlier this month the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington, D.C. think tank, reported in “Billionaire Bonanza: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of US,” that the average white family today has net assets of $141,900, compared with the $11,000 for African American families. This hollowing out of the African American family asset base is a nationwide phenomenon that can be explained by the shrinking African American middle class. It’s even more a factor in “strong market” regions like the Bay Area, where housing costs are soaring.

Spike in homicides adds to unfinished agenda awaiting Magnus successor

It wasn’t quite dark in central Richmond, a little before 5 p.m. the day before Thanksgiving. A 13-year-old girl was walking down a flight of stairs, two people were driving north in a white sedan on Carlson Boulevard “when they shot into the direction of the Pullman Townhouses, and kept on driving,” police said. The 13-year-old was shot in the leg, just above the knee. Police said the girl, treated and released at a local hospital, “was not the intended…