In the East Bay, Oakland Sin Fronteras, a coalition of organizations that support workers and immigrant rights, held a march to recognize and celebrate International Worker’s Day and in solidarity with Palestinian people. Nearly a thousand or more protesters marched down Telegraph Avenue and Broadway on their way to a rally at City Hall’s Frank H. Ogawa Plaza.

The Port of Oakland shutdown, which was organized by several groups including Bay Resistance, Anti-Police Terror Project and Palestinian Youth Movement ended up not taking place as the port shut down in advance of the protest. A smaller group did gather at the West Oakland BART station in the late afternoon.

Protests also place in San Jose, San Francisco and at college campuses including UC Berkeley and Stanford, where tent cities have been erected in solidarity.

— by Nollyanne Delacruz

Bouncing back after a four-year hiatus and attracting thousands of contestants and more than 500 robots, the four-day event features tiny quarter-sized autonomous robots, hockey and soccer-playing humanoid robots, art robots and more.

This year’s participating countries include Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, UK, USA, and Ukraine.

RoboGames, the world’s largest robot competition, hosted its annual international event presented by Visit Tri-Valley. The family-friendly celebration of all things robotics showcased hundreds of robots from across the globe competing in more than 40 robot events, including a 250-pound robot combat, humanoid kung-fu, soccer and 11 events just for kids, along with demonstrations by leading robotics industry designers and engineers.

RoboGames was founded by David Calkins in 2004 as the ROBOlympics.

“From year to year, it’s inspiring to witness the increasingly global impact of RoboGames,” Calkins said.  “We are really excited to be entering the 16th year of this truly one-of-a-kind event.”

In March, McDonald’s halted operations of its company-run restaurants in Russia. Although some run by franchisees stayed open, the action by the multinational fast-food chain was among the most visible responses by foreign companies to Russia sending troops into Ukraine.

Two months later, McDonald’s decided to leave Russia altogether and sold its 850 restaurants to Alexander Govor, who held licenses for 25 franchises in Siberia.

The sign reads ‘The Name Changes, Love Remains’. The first of former McDonald’s restaurants is reopened with new branding in Moscow. The corporation sold its branches in Russia to one of its local licensees after Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.

The logo is different, but still evokes the golden arches: a circle and two yellow oblongs — representing a beef patty and french fries — configured into a stylized M.

Fifteen of the former McDonald’s were set to reopen in Moscow on Sunday. Oleg Paroev, the chain’s general director, said he aims to have 200 open by the end of the month.

Click here if you’re unable to view the photos on your mobile device.

After a weeks-long delay, crab fleets on Wednesday were allowed to pull up their first haul from the waters off the San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin and Sonoma coasts.

By early afternoon, crews that faced gnarly weather in the Pacific were arriving at Fisherman’s Wharf, Half Moon Bay’s Pillar Point and Bodega Bay.

“I would have been out there longer, but the weather picked up fast,” said fisherman Mike Dvorak, who still managed to haul four big pails of crabs into Pillar Point, where he sold them at $10 a pound off his boat, the Tonita. With eager buyers lined up in anticipation, he ran out quickly. Other fishermen sold their crabs for $11.50 a pound at a nearby seafood market.

The traditional Nov. 15 start to the commercial season was delayed this year, as it has been other years, by the risk of whale entanglement in fishing lines. California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife gave the go-ahead after ocean surveys showed whales moving out of harm’s way and heading to their southern breeding grounds.

Groceries, fish markets and restaurants have been able to offer Dungeness for most of December — thanks to an early start to the crab season in far Northern California and from Monterey Bay south — but the fresh Bay Area haul should greatly bolster supplies.

“It’s not a banner catch but there will be plenty of crabs available for people to enjoy,” said Ben Platt, president of the California Coast Crab Association.

Your New Year’s crab has arrived thanks to these fearless fisherman who just braved some gnarly weather out in the mighty Pacific! #dungeoness #crab #newyear #halfmoonbay ⁦@mercnews⁩ ⁦@EastBayTimes⁩ ⁦@OakTribNews⁩ pic.twitter.com/v4ugfpFgHZ

— Tyska (@Tyska) December 29, 2021

They also captured images of return and reopening: Children in school and worshipers in churches, high school sports and senior birthday parties and live theater. They documented a mass vaccination campaign that saw lines of cars stretching down streets and millions of shots administered, even as families continued to mourn those they had lost from COVID-19.

And then, those moments of everyday beauty in the place where we live: Encroaching fog, birds in flight, the crashing ocean. Perhaps these are especially meaningful amid so much tumult — and so much that remains unknown as we begin a new year.

Presenting 2021, through the eyes of Bay Area News Group photographers.

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Located in the heart of Bethel Island, the Delta Coves housing development is the largest and most upscale project ever on this 3,400-acre rural island surrounded by levees. Here 494 waterfront homes have risen or are being built, each with private, individual docks.

In addition to luxury houses ranging in price from $1.3 million to $1.7 million, the new humanmade lagoon community in the heart of Bethel Island features a clubhouse, with a swimming pool, fitness facilities and an outdoor event space. Fifty-one homes have been built so far, with 121 currently under construction. There are 11 model homes open now, with 14 different floor plans.

“This is going to be a really beautiful club for a wonderful life on the water,” Nick Taratsas, general manager of DMB Development, said of Delta Coves, the long-awaited project that weathered zoning battles and saw a parade of would-be developers struggle to make it happen.

Taratsas said the project will have 11 model homes showcasing different options. Several developers will offer houses from 1,800 to 4,800-plus square feet.  A new model home grand reopening took place several weeks ago, and the project is expected to be fully complete in 2025. For more information, go to deltacoves.com.

Bay Area News Group’s Judith Prieve contributed to this report.

After 92 years, the western wear and tack shop, along with its iconic horse statue “Gus,”  will be just a memory to many.

Owner Rory Janes said the Pleasanton store will be closing due to downtown area becoming more restaurant-centric as opposed to retail-oriented. They’re liquidating their entire inventory, and everything from boots to jeans are marked half off.

Christesen’s sister store, Baughman’s Western Outfitters in downtown Livermore, will continue to operate.

Gus the horse will be donated to the Museum on Main two doors down and it remains to be seen if he’ll still hold his post on the sidewalk.

Manager Freddy Schoorl, has worked at the Pleasanton location for 22 years and admits that online buying has hurt their business.

“It’s sad to see retail going by the wayside,” Schoorl said.

Longtime customer Nancy St-Laurent, of Pleasanton, picked out several pairs boots while lamenting the loss.

“It’s so sad. The horse is always there. As much as the Pleasanton sign is Pleasanton, the horse is Pleasanton,” St-Laurent said.

Stay tuned for more coverage as we document the store’s last day of business on Sept. 26.

Now, the tiers are gone. So are capacity limits at restaurants, bars, gyms, places of worship, amusement parks and theaters. Indoor and outdoor gatherings of any size are permitted. And vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks in most settings.

Many Californians, of course, have been eating out, exercising, going to movies and gathering with loved ones for months as coronavirus cases have declined, vaccination rates have increased and the state has loosened its rules. Our return to “normal” has been steady but gradual, accompanied along the way by both uncertainty and hope.

In that sense, today’s official reopening is less a dramatic shift in daily life (though life will look different: all those exposed chins and noses!) than a celebration of the progress we’ve made after so much loss and loneliness. That celebration consists of coffee dates and commutes, bowling and swimming and music. It symbolizes the return of our life together — just in time for the long, bright days of summer.

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Before this past year, images of pandemics were mostly those of strangers in century-old black and white photographs, grainy unrecognizable faces, people from a bygone era peering at us safely from the remote dustbins of history.

That all changed in 2020.

Now we are the new faces of pandemic. Our families, our friends, our neighbors.

Bay Area News Group photographers documented this past year as we began isolating from each other to stop the deadly spread of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

From those early days when the virus seemed safely anchored in purgatory aboard an ill-fated cruise ship off the Golden Gate, to that St. Patrick’s Day eve, when we all faced our first day of lockdown.

Through the chaotic rainbow-colored tiers of repeated closings, openings and reclosings, as our schools, businesses, sports and the arts all grappled to make the best of a scary time — and to make it through to better days. Along the way, families generously shared their stories of love and painful loss.

And finally, through the pain of our political divides during the bitter election year, to the racial reckoning sweeping the streets of our democracy, and a never-ending string of deadly regional wildfires.

These photographs offer a small mirror of ourselves as we fought through it all to keep our health, our dignity and our humanity. We look back now one more time at these images of ourselves, before they too join the next dustbins of history.

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Three massive cranes arrived Wednesday morning in San Francisco Bay on their way to the Port of Oakland.

Taller than Oakland’s storied Tribune Tower building, valued at $30 million, the largest container cranes ever to enter the city arrived on Wednesday from China.

Stevedoring Services of America invested $30 million in the ship-to-shore cranes for their site at the Oakland International Container Terminal.

With the crane booms raised, they will tower more than 400 feet above the wharf in Oakland. The new cranes are needed to service the ultra-large container ships arriving at the port.

Big ole cranes destined for the Port of Oakland getting delivered today. pic.twitter.com/DkU9EZcUOA

— Karl Mondon (@karlmondon) December 30, 2020

The ship Zhen Hua 35 stopped in Drakes Bay so the crew could lower the booms of the cranes, allowing it to pass under the Golden Gate and Bay bridges. With that maneuver completed, the booms were raised once the vessel arrived at its anchoring spot in the bay.

The ship will remain anchored in the bay for several days before docking at the Port of Oakland.