Doulas hope to regain momentum as Covid restrictions ease
(Pictured above: Camille Thomas with her husband, Reuben Thompson-Amarteifio, and their son, Cameron, in front of their home in San Jose last year. Photo by Stephanie Penn ’21) This story appeared in The New York Times on July 26, 2021. By Sarah Hoenicke Flores (’19) When Camille A. Thomas began feeling labor pains, her first…
Read MoreA successful lifeline for Natomas students is feeling the strain
This story appeared in The New York Times on March 24, 2021. By Erin Chessin (’21) and Brett Marsh (’21) The Natomas Unified School District, a diverse, low-income community on the northern outskirts of Sacramento, is celebrated for its pioneering mental health program. The program, created after a student’s suicide in 2014, dispatches rapid response…
Read MoreCOVID changed Chez Panisse, but Alice Waters is still taking care of local farmers
The iconic Berkeley restaurant’s new pandemic model works to preserve its suppliers and workers who make its farm-to-table philosophy possible. When Chez Panisse closed its doors in mid-March at the onset of the pandemic, staff cleaned out the refrigerators and divvied up ingredients that would ordinarily be the stars of its meticulous dishes. At the…
Read MoreOakland’s Chinatown business owners struggle to weather the pandemic
Tamera Moore and Qinghui Kong on November 5, 2020 Charles Hong is the second-generation owner of Shandong Restaurant. His father started the business in 1991, and the restaurant has been in Oakland’s Chinatown for almost 30 years now. “Before COVID I could put around 12 tables and serve 50 people at the same time,” Hong said. Now, he…
Read MoreEpizootic: How Infectious Disease Can Move From Wildlife to Humans — and Back to Wildlife
Lessons from the history of plague in California by Elena Conis and Daniel Roman September 27, 2020 Plague’s story in the U.S. begins 120 years ago, in the basement of the Globe Hotel, a cheap rooming house on Dupont Street in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Wong Chut King, a 41-year-old lumberyard worker who had immigrated from China’s Guangdong Province…
Read MoreCookies Help Bridge Barriers in Oakland
September 30, 2020 By Shuang Li OAKLAND — When Black Lives Matter protests erupted in downtown Oakland, Alicia Wong and her husband, Alex Issvoran, knew what they could do to support the protesters — make fortune cookies. Their company, the Fortune Cookie Factory, is one of the oldest family-run businesses in Oakland’s Chinatown. They…
Read MoreStrange Bacteria Are Attacking California’s Trout Supply
When an infection was detected at a hatchery, officials, already under statewide shelter-in-place orders, moved to institute a lockdown of their own. Sept. 29, 2020 JUNE LAKE, Calif. — On a Friday in late July, Tamara Jimenez waded into one of the many glimmering lakes dotting the Eastern Sierra. Behind her, on a small beach,…
Read MoreAn Update on Project Roomkey in Tuolumne County
A pandemic program publicized by the state faced challenges in implementation. By Tessa Paoli and Nina Sparling Sept. 21, 2020 Anita Nadolsky, 59, thought she had finally caught some luck. In May she became one of several dozen homeless people in Tuolumne County to get shelter through Project Roomkey, a much-publicized California program intended to move medically vulnerable…
Read MoreStudents, teachers working through COVID-19 challenges in Cuyama Valley as school commences
Aug 14, 2020 When Cuyama Valley students go back to school Monday they’ll put down their pens and start typing on their keyboards, despite a lack of reliable internet connection in the remote farming region. Cuyama Joint Unified School District relied on pen and paper after schools closed this spring due to COVID-19, but students’ entire…
Read MoreAn Interview With the Health Officer for Santa Cruz
Dr. Gail Newel has taken the heat as Santa Cruz went from being one of the safest coastal counties in the state to the site of a recent surge. Aug. 10, 2020 SANTA CRUZ — On a Sunday in mid-July, Dr. Gail Newel tried to take a “Covid Sabbath.” Dr. Newel, the Santa Cruz County…
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