Oakland City Council considering easing rules to overcome homeless shelter crisis // Oakland Tribune
'There are so many homeless people living on Oakland's streets that city officials are considering a "shelter crisis" ordinance to ease restrictions on housing for the homeless.'
'The City Council on Tuesday will vote whether to declare a crisis, which would suspend some rules and regulations considering housing, health and safety for "more flexible interpretation of standard building and planning requirements," according to a city staff report.'
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Curiosity Hacked brings the maker movement to Oakland’s students // Oakland North
'It is 7 p.m. and the young makers at Curiosity Hacked are swiftly moving between the laser cutter and their workbenches. This Tuesday, the kids have one mission in mind: creating BattleBots for the spring competition.'
'Eight-year-old Jonah Russell, who is homeschooled, is part of the team creating the robots. Sitting at his workbench, Jonah is focused on putting together the base of the robot, which consists of two wheels, five pieces of cardboard and wires to make the robot move. Once done, Jonah puts his creation on the floor as the other kids cheer.'
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Grieving their ‘little angels’: Latina women in Oakland process the loss of their children, together// Oakland North
'When she set out to memorialize her son, Nancy Macias wanted to remember him alive.'
'In 2010, Macias was 24 weeks into a difficult pregnancy. The baby wasn’t developing like he should. Some days she would get good news, but on others, everything would take a turn for the worse.'
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Connected Stethoscope Developed In Bay Area Named Among Top Inventions Of 2015 // CBS
'A connected stethoscope developed in the Bay Area has been declared one of the best inventions of the year by Time Magazine.'
Heidi Burns knows she has a heart murmur. The 26-year-old had her first heart surgery when she just a baby. But she has never heard her own heart beat until now.
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In Oakland, Shortage of 911 dispatchers makes a hectic job even more so // KQED
'When night falls in Oakland, the city’s 911 dispatchers tend to get busy.'
'Inside an anonymous-looking building in an East Oakland office park, they hunker down at workstations and stare into arrays of computer monitors displaying information on recent and incoming calls and on the status of each incident. The atmosphere is subdued, with dispatchers speaking mostly in hushed tones.'
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Salmon RIP? // East Bay Express
'Last winter and spring, thousands of adult Chinook salmon nosed upstream past Richmond, through the Carquinez Straits and into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, on their way to spawn in the Sacramento River. At about the same time, officials at Shasta Lake, a few miles north of Redding, did something that critics say was stupid, negligent, and illegal: They opened the spigot on the reservoir's outflow pipes in order to send extra water downstream for farmers — and they didn't save enough for the fish.'
'Shasta Lake's levels dropped so low, and the summer grew so hot, that even the deepest, darkest, coldest corner of the lake — the pocket of water abutting the base of the dam — grew steadily warmer. By the time the salmon had reached their summer spawning grounds, the water exiting Shasta Lake and flowing past the fish was almost 60 degrees Fahrenheit — dangerously warm for temperature-sensitive fertilized Chinook eggs. For the second summer in a row, environmentalists and fishermen say, an entire year class of the endangered winter-run Chinook was mostly annihilated.'