Dara Kerr

Published August 28, 2020 on CNET News
Labor activists are targeted in a social media campaign as gig economy companies spend millions to prevent workers from becoming employees.

Published June 19, 2020 on CNET News
To track down the suspects, the FBI pieced together surveillance videos, cellphone records and social media conversations.

Published March 26, 2020 on CNET News
The gig economy companies promised workers paid leave if they got the virus or were quarantined. Here are stories from five people who’ve struggled to get help.

Published August 13, 2019 on CNET News
Waking up with bedbug bites can be a nightmare. It’s also a costly and traumatic problem for Airbnb guests and hosts.

Published April 12, 2019 on CNET News
Drones, cameras and sensors are being used to monitor what many call a desperate situation at the southern border. More tech may not help.

Published November 28, 2018 on CNET News
Injured scooter riders are flooding US emergency rooms. Accident rates could be as high as 1,000 per month.

Published October 25, 2018 on CNET News
Salesforce has thrown in nearly $5 million to support a ballot measure that aims to help the homeless. Lyft and Twitter’s CEO have contributed $225,000 to defeat it.

Published May 30, 2018 on CNET News
For Bird, Lime and Spin: Betrayal, clipped brake cables and chop shops. And that’s just in San Francisco.

Published May 17, 2018 on CNET News
In an about-face, Uber shows it’s #TimesUp for forced arbitration that kept claims out of court. Still, class-action suits are off-limits.

Published April 27, 2018 on CNET News
Dara Khosrowshahi isn’t your typical tech bro. Uber insiders say that may be just what the ride-hailing service needs.

Published March 23, 2018 on CNET News
After watching a dashboard video of the fatal collision, some autonomous-vehicle analysts say the car’s sensors should’ve detected the pedestrian.

Published February 9, 2018 on CNET News
A surprise settlement ends the case before it reached the jury. Here’s an inside look into how it went down.

Published December 21, 2017 on CNET News
The ride-hailing company is bleeding drivers and has spent the last six months trying to make things better. Drivers say they still want more.

Published August 25, 2017 on CNET News
Twenty years ago, Diana walked the minefields of Angola. Today Google Earth, drones and brave Angolans are still working to clear the mines.

Published June 20, 2017 on CNET News
The rival companies banded together and spent millions of dollars on political campaigns and state lobbying to get the ride-hailing law they wanted.

Published May 22, 2017 on CNET News
Facebook started the trend. Now more than a dozen tech firms offer benefits that pay for female staff to put their eggs on ice.

Published December 22, 2016 on CNET News
Security guards working at Uber’s San Francisco facility for self-driving cars dismantle a nearby tent city, according to homeless people who were displaced.

Published August 31, 2015 on CNET News
Wedged between techie territories like Palo Alto and Menlo Park, this once down-and-out California town is trying to turn itself around while still keeping its identity.

Published June 21, 2015 on CNET News
On-demand smartphone apps are known for addressing the whims and desires of the comfortable. It turns out they can also serve the greater good.

Published April 25, 2015 on CNET News
After allegedly being raped by her Uber driver in Delhi, an Indian woman sues the US-based ride-hailing service on its home turf. She’s asking Uber to “overhaul” its safety measures around the world.

Published February 24, 2015 on CNET News
In the high-stakes Silicon Valley case of he-said, she-said, lawyers for both sides argue over whether an atmosphere of gender discrimination persisted at Kleiner Perkins.

Published October 8, 2014 on CNET News
When you agree to Uber’s terms and conditions, you basically sign your life away, consumer advocates say. So then, what happens when a driver hits you on the head with a hammer, as one passenger claims?

Published January 13, 2014 on CNET News
More militaries and armed groups are using social media as a weapon of war — but when ground skirmishes are mirrored by cyber-social battles, managing the message can get messy.

Published February 18, 2013 on 7×7
After rooting around a box in the back of his workshop, Jared Rusten pulls out an ordinary-looking block of honey-colored wood. He carefully shaves off a few curly strips and says, “smell that.”

Published August 29, 2012 on California Home + Design
Barry McGee has several aliases. Some know him as Twist, others as Ray Fong (he goes by Lydia Fong too). Then there’s Raymond Virgil and Bernon Vernon. All of these figures combined create McGee—the illusive, legendary, cult artist.

Published July 3, 2012 in the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen magazine
En una tarde acalorada de noviembre en 1974, Dolores Alfaro y su esposo descendieron del volcán Chichontepec de El Salvador. Habían estado cosechando granos de café en una de las plantaciones que salpican las escarpadas laderas y volvían a casa con canastas de mimbre. Caminando por el bosque, Alfaro vio media docena de camiones verde olivo, repletos de soldados, que bordeaban la cúspide de un cerro y entraban lentamente en el pueblo.

Published February 28, 2012 on Guernica
About 100 occupiers gathered for a rally in front of Oakland City Hall a couple of weeks ago. Bowls of rice and beans were doled out, TV news vans lined the street and a helicopter buzzed overhead. A few people toted cardboard signs with slogans like “End Police Violence” and “#OO.” This rally’s goal was to support those arrested in Occupy Oakland police sweeps.

Published August 24, 2011 in the East Bay Express
The supermarket chain’s own data shows that its plans to greatly expand its two Rockridge stores depend largely on the same customers.

Published June 8, 2011 on The Bay Citizen
Nearly 30 years ago, Dan Fontes was under a highway painting on a massive round concrete support beam. With cars speeding by, he diligently worked on his piece of art: a realistic depiction of a 30-foot tall giraffe craning its neck up toward the freeway. As Fontes painted, a police car pulled up.

Published May 25, 2011 on Oakland North
On Saturday, May 21, a colossal global earthquake—the likes of which no one has ever felt before—was supposed to tear across the Earth. Saturday was to be the first day of the Rapture or Judgment Day, according to predictions by Harold Camping. But May 21 came and went.

Published May 2011 in Brink
Salvadorans have determined to acknowledge and investigate the atrocities of their country’s civil war. Our reporter shines a light on a buried war crime that should change the way the current generation understands its history.

Published December 24, 2010 on The Bay Citizen
Behind a 12-foot-high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire on a dead-end street underneath one of Oakland’s major freeways there is a concrete skate park called Bordertown. This site is now at the center of a controversy between between the City of Oakland, Caltrans and the skaters who built the park.

Published November 15, 2010 on The Bay Citizen
On Broadway, in downtown Oakland, a small coffee shop called the Bulldog has a couple of round tables out on the sidewalk where people sit, read the paper and drink coffee, shaded by big blue umbrellas. To the unsuspecting eye, it looks like a regular business you’d find in any downtown city.

Published August 19, 2010 on Oakland North Teresa Rowe and Kristin Orbin have waited in line to get married at San Francisco City Hall two times in the past two weeks and were planning on a third. When Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled to strike down Proposition 8 on August 4, saying that the […]

Published July 29, 2010 on The Bay Citizen
Francisco Ballesteros stands on Old Tunnel Road, halfway to the crest of the Oakland hills, and looks down into a small valley where a herd of sheep and goats are grazing. “I have seven new babies,” he says, then gingerly starts making his way down a dirt path toward the animals.

Published July 9, 2010 on Oakland North
As the sun set behind City Hall and the City of Oakland’s official rally came to an end, a few people in black hoodies began weaving throughout the crowd, pulling bandanas up over their faces. What had been a peaceful afternoon demonstration — against the outcome of the trial regarding the shooting of Oscar Grant — was about to become a chaotic night.

Published December 13, 2009 in The New York Times Magazine
Imagine robots that obey injunctions like Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative – acting rationally and with a sense of moral duty. This July, the roboticist Ronald Arkin finished a three-year project with the U.S. Army designing prototype software for autonomous ethical robots.

Cover story published September 9, 2009 in the East Bay Express
Coach Alonzo Carter tasted fame as a dancer for MC Hammer. But his career was short-lived, like those of many athletes. That’s why he expects his players to succeed in the classroom.

Published August 20, 2009 on CBS News.com
For bone cancer patient Nicole McLaughlin to get proton-beam radiation therapy–a treatment to which she owes her life–it took traveling across the country to what then, in 1999, was the only facility providing such technology.