Despite objections from several students, faculty and the Albany City Council, a University of California committee Wednesday approved UC Berkeley’s plan to demolish some of its most affordable housing and uproot one of the area’s last vestiges of farmland. -more-

Longs Drugs is apparently coming to downtown Berkeley and checking its beer and wine selection at the door. -more-

The Fine Arts Cinema is officially dead, and Patrick Kennedy, the owner of the massive apartment and commercial complex rising on its former site, doesn’t hold out much hope for a new theater on the site—spelling the end of repertory cinema in the city t hat first raised it to an art form. -more-

Summit Health, the parent company for Alta Bates Summit medical center, was the target of a lawsuit filed in Federal court Wednesday that alleges the company overcharges uninsured patients and does not fulfill its obligations as a non-profit entity under U.S. tax law. -more-

Nothing can stop a group of determined Berkeley volunteers this summer, not even engine failure, monsoon season, or long hours in the hot, humid, sun. Not when the election is on the line. -more-

There have been a number of sideways glances in the liberal press (yes, there is a bit of a liberal press, still) at the rowdy proletarian gusto with which Michael Moore goes after his targets in Fahrenheit 9/11. I often count myself as one of the genteel middle-aged ladies in matters like this. Still, I can’t go along with Ellen Goodman’s call for more sweet reasonableness in the effort to change hearts and minds. Or rather, I’m afraid that only sweet reasonableness won’t do it. -more-