A federal appeals court in San Francisco has upheld a lower court ruling that allowed the merger of Alta Bates and Summit medical centers. -more-

I want to thank you for your excellent coverage of the Berkeley Arts Festival and to respond to Polly Armstrong’s May 1 Perspective piece. I, too, question the attack on the manager’s report. It is the report that should be scrutinized not the kind of paper it is printed on. -more-

The big new traveling exhibition now at UC’s Berkeley Art Museum, “China: Fifty Years inside the People’s Republic,” is in the first place a sweeping range of documentation, and is co-sponsored by the School of Journalism, where the dean is Orville Schell, a China specialist. But it is displayed in an art museum and the photographs are mostly grouped by the individual photographers, so we are invited to consider them as works of art, as visual expressions that go beyond normal reportage. -more-

ACTORS ENSEMBLE OF BERKELEY -more-

You could say that the Berkeley High softball team got a “victry” against Amador Valley on Tuesday afternoon. That is, the ’Jackets may well have scored a victory, if they hadn’t been missing an “o.” -more-

Wednesday, May 3 -more-

Plans by the historic Claremont Hotel to add 90 additional guest rooms have ignited a reaction from neighborhood groups concerned about increased traffic. -more-

I was disheartened to read Monday’s opinion article, “Affordable Housing Projects Threatening to Metastasize.” Mr. Walter Wood’s misrepresentation of affordable housing development is based on uninformed assumptions. -more-

ASHKENAZ -more-

Alameda-Contra Costa Athletic League golf powerhouse Alameda already had the league’s lone North Coast Section team berth secured going into Monday’s ACCAL championship tournament at the Chuck Corica Golf Complex. But with three at-large individual berths up for grabs, the afternoon was hardly meaningless for the second-place St. Mary’s boys golf team. -more-

Rick Young has been doing some long-term parking – without the benefit of an automobile. -more-

Sometimes the “field” part of track and field can be overlooked in favor of the more glamorous sprint and hurdles events. But without star thrower Kamaiya Warren, who virtually guarantees the Panthers two first-place finishes in every dual meet, St. Mary’s High’s ultra-successful girls track team would not be the same high-scoring threat to the NCS title it figures to be later this month. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District should examine an alternative option for the East Campus playing fields project. -more-

Representatives from the city, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Shorebird Nature Center broke ground Saturday on an energy-efficient, straw-bale, 860-square-foot building. -more-