Members of Oakland ARPB Toastmasters Lia Bolden and Bruce Taylor took first and second place in this year’s area-wide speech contest. Contestants were competing for the opportunity to move on to the District 57 semi-finals. Toastmasters International’s District 57, also known as the Redwood Empire (www.d57tm.org), encompasses most of Northern California, east and north...

Assemblymember Sandré R. Swanson (D-Alameda) will present a Woman of the Year Award to longtime Oakland community leader Regina Jackson, executive director since 1994 of the East Oakland Youth Development Center. Jackson will receive the award during a special ceremony on the Assembly Floor in Sacramento at 11:30 a.m., Monday, March 26. The event...

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor A  newly-released book on the events surrounding the Bailey murder by Chauncey Bailey Project investigative reporter Thomas Peele, “Killing The Messenger” (Crown Publishers), seeks to confirm the conclusion that the leader and two members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, and they alone, were responsible for Chauncey Bailey’s death. But Peele’s...