It started with a tough choice for a local first grader: Look cool by joining in on teasing a biracial girl about her skin tone or stand up for a friend whose families visited each other often? It ended with a white family rethinking everything they thought they’d taught about tolerance, and a biracial family moving out of the region, feeling unsupported and alone. Mayumi Elegado, our publisher and editor-in-chief, spoke directly with Megan and Ambrose Seifert about their experience and view of the school’s inadequate response to the incident.

School’s out for summer, but we’re all still on Zoom. Our local Sierra College was the very first community college in California to make the leap to distance learning on March 8, doing so 11 days before Gov. Gavin Newsom was to announce the official stay-at-home order March 19. An English professor Christina Nemec wrote a Moonshine exclusive describing the transition.

Fire season is here! So how does preparation for such a natural disaster change in light of the coronavirus crisis? Moonshine Ink hosted its fourth Tahoe Talks, Fire in the Face of COVID-19 to answer just that question. We discussed with local fire experts and area leaders to understand the realities of such a possibility during an already fragile timeframe.

A Truckee town hall calls attention to race relations in the community, sparked by worldwide protests over the death of George Floyd and an email by Truckee police Chief Robert Leftwich that leaked out. Story and broadcasting by Alex Hoeft.

The coronavirus crisis is still here … but so is rent. With a dip in jobs around tahoe, rental assistance has seen a huge upswing, and tensions between landlords and tenants are high. Story by Becca Loux, broadcast by Alex Hoeft.

Reporter Becca Loux brings you onto the scene of Truckee’s peaceful Say Their Names Vigil Tuesday, June 2 at 5 p.m., with demonstrators showing support for the Black Lives Matter movement by holding up signs displaying the names of Black Americans killed at the hands of police or lynched, from one commemorating Emmett Till, killed in 1955, to many showing George Floyd, killed May 25 of this year.

Despite the precarious times, morale is up at Tahoe hospitals because of generous support from local eateries and community foundations.

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