East Bay (California)

East Bay (California)

Editor's note: We prohibit the use of bots and any other artificial methods of voting. Suspicious activity could lead to the disqualification of candidates and a permanent suspension of the Athlete of the Week poll. No voting by email: Votes by email and after 5 p.m. Wednesday are not counted. Welcome to the Bay Area News Group (Mercury News & East Bay Times) boys Athlete of the Week poll.

A Russian missile strike on port infrastructure in Odesa in southern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded 27, Ukraine's emergency service said Saturday, as a Kremlin envoy was set to travel to Florida for talks on a U.S.-proposed plan to end the nearly four-year war, The discussions are part of the Trump administration's monthslong push for peace that also included meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin earlier this week.

It's outfitted with pickleball courts, a fitness center, a sauna, a kitchen and wine bar - and despite its designation of "social club," it's open to the public. Early morning pickleballers can enjoy daily rotating pastries, breakfast sandwiches, egg bites and chia seed puddings; lunch offerings include cold sesame noodles, an umami kale chop salad, tuna and caper on focaccia and Bad Walter's ice cream for dessert.

School leaders announced last week that Aurora School, a private north Oakland school serving 76 students in kindergarten to eighth grade, would be welcoming students and educators from the Children's School beginning next year. "The more and more that we were in discussions, the more we found in common and more potential we saw in taking the best of each of our communities," said Lynsey Kamine, the head of school at Aurora School. "We also want to offer a route for the legacy of Mills' early childhood program and lab program to carry on." Aurora is expecting around 20 students to enroll from the Children's School, Kamine said.

The Martinez man was gifted a "Godzilla rage room" for his birthday. It was complete with a mini cardboard replica of Tokyo. He dressed as the iconic giant lizard to destroy the city. His wife posted about the experience on social media, saying it was a "stress outlet" for him after a tough year.

ASHLAND The natural gas pipeline that exploded Thursday morning near Hayward was installed in the 1940s and was damaged during recent road construction work, according to a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary investigation. The findings come just days after a line carrying natural gas line that was inadvertently cut and in the process of repairs exploded, a blast that sparked a three-alarm fire in a neighborhood in Ashland and injured six people.

Lincoln-San Jose had just gone up by six points with 1:47 to play and needed one stop to win its first state football championship in school history. Valley Center would have none of it. The San Diego-area school got the ball back at the 22-yard line with 1:42 left and drove 78 yards in five plays and 70 seconds. The all-important extra point, which Lincoln had missed moments earlier, gave Valley Center the 36-35 win.

The Nosh food awards are in! Hear about Oakland's Best New Restaurant (Lucuma), Best Bar Overall (Tallboy), Best Coffee Shop (Mother Tongue Cafe & Bar), and much more. See all the Nosh winners in 2025. Also in this episode: Oakland finally sells $285 million in Measure U bonds for roads and housing after years of delays, OUSD's school board faces tough decisions on $100 million in cuts, the city attempts to reform its notoriously difficult permitting system.

Coach John Beam changed my life when I was a 14-year-old kid on the Skyline High football field. I still remember getting flattened in a varsity drill and looking up to see Beam standing over me, demanding more because he saw more. That was his gift. He coached football, but he taught manhood: accountability, discipline, belief in yourself long before you earned it. Beam fought for me in the classroom, pushed me on the field and helped me get to college when the odds weren't in my favor.

Roca, the former general manager at the now-closed Peruvian restaurant Piqueo's in Bernal Heights, manages the front-of-house. Morris, who's worked as a residential remodeling project manager, runs the bar and back-of-house. Roca is Peruvian, but Morris is the cook, and learned about Peruvian cuisine from Roca's family. Roca and Morris, also completely transformed the space, which was formerly a branch of Wise Sons deli. There's a handmade straw octopus hanging above the bar, a quipu suspended like a jellyfish, blue kit-kat tiles.

It is not a binding agreement,

Oakland's transportation department expects the city administrator to accept and appropriate $800,000 in grant funds from CalStart, an environmental nonprofit, for the electric bike lending program launched in September. The funds will mostly be used to cover rising bicycle and insurance costs, and the costs of administering the program for four more years. That's according to a staff report that will be considered at an upcoming Dec. 9 meeting of the Public Works and Transportation Committee, where members will discuss a resolution that includes the grant. The item will then require approval by the full city council at a subsequent meeting.

Perhaps the best thing about holiday shopping is getting it done, but the process can be much more satisfying if you're supporting Oakland and Bay businesses and entrepreneurs along the way. Look no further than this roundup featuring over 20 holiday markets from Friday, Dec. 5, to Saturday, Dec. 20. Whether you are looking for artwork for your walls, handmade items for your kitchen, niche jewelry, rare plants, ceramics or other handmade gifts, these markets will have everything you need to complete your holiday wish list.

If you witness abuses by federal law enforcement agents in California, you can now report it online to the state Department of Justice. On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the launch of an online portal where anyone can report potentially unlawful activity in California by federal law enforcement, including officers or agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, or federalized National Guard soldiers or airmen.

In voting La Loulou the best wine bar in the East Bay, Nosh readers noted the carefully curated wine selection, the bright and fun ambiance, and ... the bathroom?The loo at La Loulou is completely covered in disco ball material with disco balls hanging from the ceiling and a neon sign reading "you look good" above the mirror, putting a punctuation mark on the Piedmont Avenue wine bar's welcoming, playful style.

Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft is the mayor of Alameda. (photo courtesy of Maurice Ramirez BANG archives) Today's small businesses face many challenges, though, from tariffs and economic uncertainty to finding workers and competing with online retailers. They need your support. So this holiday season (and the rest of the year, too!), explore the many retail opportunities our island offers and grab a coffee, snack or meal along the way. Invest in your community!

The morning of Jan. 17, 2025, federal prosecutors filed into a windowless room at the San Francisco federal building and lined up solemnly behind the podium. They were about to announce a bombshell political corruption case. Hours earlier they had unsealed an indictment charging Oakland's newly recalled mayor Sheng Thao, her romantic partner Andre Jones, and two local recycling moguls, David and Andy Duong, with orchestrating an elaborate bribery scheme.

The monthly magazine and website International Living has just released its Annual Global Retirement Index, which evaluates the world's top destinations for retirees across categories including cost of living, healthcare, housing, visas, climate, and ease of integration. The new No.1 for 2026 is a sun-soaked country in Southern Europe whose thousands of picturesque islands have made it a tourism hot spot, but International Living says it has everything it takes for a permanent stay as well.

Turo, which is like Airbnb for cars, should have ensured the host followed its own policy requiring vehicles to be clean at pickup. A dirty car prevented you from documenting preexisting damage, violating the company's terms (Turo's guidelines state hosts must clean the vehicle before each trip). Alberta's Consumer Protection Act also requires businesses to act in good faith, which Turo ignored by rubber-stamping blurry photos and refusing to address your evidence.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Friday, once again shunning efforts by his European Union partners to isolate Moscow over its invasion of neighboring Ukraine nearly four years ago. The trip to Moscow is the second since last year for Orban, who is widely considered Putin's closest partner among all EU leaders.

Over the years, some Oakland roads have used different speed limits on different sections; Broadway, for example, has a 25-mile-per-hour speed limit between 27th Street and Piedmont Avenue, and a 20-mile-per-hour speed limit between 27th Street and Water Avenue. The change will set the Broadway speed limit at 20 miles per hour all the way from downtown to the beginning of the Piedmont Avenue neighborhood. International Boulevard will be reduced to 25 miles per hour on every block between 1st and 42nd avenues.

The carmaker posted Sunday on X that its main path to getting FSD green-lit for Europe is through RDW, the organization that handles the approval and registration of vehicles in the Netherlands. While Tesla said in its post that RDW has committed to granting Netherlands National approval in February 2026, the authority denied this in a statement posted to its website Monday.

If you are curious about what is new in tech including artificial intelligence, Oakland Tech Week will have a workshop or panel for you to check out. The events are happening all across town through Friday, Nov. 21. One other event I'm excited to check out is Oakland Theater's Project production of "Cabaret." The preview begins this Friday, Nov. 21 and Saturday, Nov. 22 with opening night on Sunday, Nov. 23.

Dakota Pekerti, who runs Kamu Siapa Kitchen, a Berkeley-based Indonesian pop-up and cooking class series, won't call himself a chef, but he's spent years cooking for others and helping them develop their own cooking skills and concepts. He teaches small classes of up to four people on how to plan a pop-up event, recipe development consultation, Sambalogy (an intensive study of Indonesian Sambal), and meal prep.

Cedric Irving Jr., the man accused of fatally shooting legendary Oakland football coach John Beam last week, is facing murder charges. At a press conference inside the René C. Davidson Courthouse Monday afternoon, Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson announced the charges against Irving, which include murder and enhancements for the use of a gun, which would add time to any sentence he might receive if found guilty.