California will lift its indoor mask requirements Tuesday for unvaccinated people and March 12 for schools and child care facilities, state officials said Monday.

TRIGGER WARNING The fireplace is crackling and an out of tune piano is being played by an underweight teenager. My body has been filled with anxiety for hours because I ran out of my medication. I haven’t been able to eat any solid foods and I’ve been opting for Kate

Last week, I left you with skepticism.  After years of resistance, I picked up Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing. I was admittedly prepared for a predictable read.  I was ready to meet another advocate for mindfulness in these pages, repackaging the message of Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts for

Amidst the roses, romantic dinners and candy, danger lurks on Valentine’s Day and other days, with romance scams on the rise across the Bay Area, FBI officials said Friday. Victims in the FBI’s San Francisco division lost more than $64 million to romance scams in 2021, compared with $35 million

My name is Alex Mak, I’m the managing editor and co-owner of BrokeAssStuart.com. You may recognize my byline as I’ve personally written over 1,000 articles for BAS, and I’ve edited and published 3 times that many by independent writers from our community. What many of you already know about independent media,

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Oakland-based writer Jenny Odell had taunted me from bookstore shelves for years.  I was drawn to the title because I was drawn to the premise: To do nothing.  It was attractive, but almost cruel in its simplicity.  Nothing? How could I

Unless you are Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, working out every single day probably seems like an insurmountable feat of discipline. But I have good news for you! Even the busiest and most overtired person can totally do it. It’s just a matter of tricking yourself into doing it with a

TRIGGER WARNING (I write these pieces so people in similar situations realize they’re not alone.) These are some excerpts of my writing as a teenager. It’s mind blowing to see the shift in perception over the years. I never could have imagined a life without drugs or desiring them everyday,