Here's what's happening in the Bay Area as curated by KALW news.
UC Berkeley black students demand fixes to 'hostile’ climate // SF GATE
"Black students at UC Berkeley often feel isolated and even oppressed, says a campus group that wants the nation’s premier public university to step up recruitment of African American students and improve support for them.
"So in the time-honored tradition of Berkeley activism, the Black Student Union hammered out 10 demands, delivered them to the chancellor, and set a deadline to meet them."
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San Francisco Mayor Eyes Firing of Police Over Racist Texts // NBC Bay Area
"The mayor of San Francisco said Tuesday that four police officers under investigation in the sending of racist and homophobic texts will be fired if the probe determines they sent the messages...
"Authorities said the texts feature the repeated use of the phrase 'white power' and references to burning crosses and the Ku Klux Klan."
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Landlord Hikes San Francisco Tenant's Rent by 400% // NBC Bay Area
"The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Deb Follingstand used to pay about $2,100 a month for her two-bedroom apartment in Bernal Heights, where she’s lived for about 10 years.
"But earlier this month, the Chinese medicine practitioner got a notice that her landlord was raising the rent to $8,900 a month, and increasing the security deposit to $12,500. She posted the notice on Facebook, which was shared 5,500 times by Tuesday morning. When an NBC Bay Area reporter knocked on her door early Tuesday morning, she declined to speak.
"It’s not clear if what the landlord did is legal."
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“The Run and Only” basketball league gives the NBA a run for its money // Oakland North
"Two years ago, Jake Anderson took three friends from India to an NBA basketball game. To his surprise, his friends weren’t very impressed with what they saw. 'We thought basketball games were fast and entertaining. This was the opposite,' one of them said. That was when Anderson realized he had to do something to save the sport he loved. One year later he created a community-based league called 'The Run and Only.'
'We take players that are terrifically talented and we break them up by their neighborhoods, so they are playing for real pride,' said Anderson. But pride is not they only element that sets this league apart from standard basketball play. The teams only play with four people on the court at a time, there is a 16-second shot clock, there are no timeouts, no free throws and no half-time. 'By extracting all of the slowness out of the game, we find a way to speed the game up, make it condensed and more exciting,' said Anderson."
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Starbucks’ campaign to talk race with baristasstarts slowly // SF Gate
"It’s easier to make coffee than to make the world better, Starbucks was finding out Tuesday as its new foray into race relations got off to a decaffeinated start.
"The coffee chain, in a widely publicized campaign, is encouraging its baristas to talk to customers about race relations. Baristas are supposed to scribble 'Race Together' on customers’ paper cups. Then, when customers ask what it means, baristas are supposed to 'start a discussion about race,' according to instructions sent to all 12,000 stores.
"In downtown Oakland, baristas were ready to start talking."
