Six months after a hacker broke into a UC Berkeley research computer containing the names and Social Security numbers of more than 600,000 health care workers and patients, the university has suffered another embarrassing security breach: the theft of a laptop containing personal information on nearly 100,000 graduate students. -more-

The West Berkeley warehouse, declared a fire hazard by city officials, could have a potential buyer who wants to preserve the building as a live-work space for artists. -more-

Forget the gaping, empty stare and the gross green garb. New owner John Gordon said that when he is finished, the bedraggled old Victorian on College and Ashby avenues is going to make a dramatic comeback. -more-

A key state official with a vital say over the funding of the planned Ed Roberts Center says he can’t make his decision and placed the blame this month on city officials. -more-

Many Berkeley residents looking for a cheap and easy way to dispose of computer monitors, televisions, herbicides or other toxic substances lying around their house can now have the items picked up at their doorstep. -more-

The assistant Alameda County district attorney in charge of juvenile prosecutions says that he has not yet seen a report on a female student accused of bringing a gun on to the Berkeley High campus one month after Berkeley police officials say they sent it to the district attorney’s office. -more-

The 16-year-old girl who authorities say slashed the throat of a Berkeley woman near the Rose Garden was with a county worker, assigned to juvenile hall, at the time of the attack, said County Supervisor Keith Carson. -more-

The Berkeley Federation of Teachers has publicly rejected the Berkeley Unified School District’s offer of a 1.2 percent teacher pay raise, saying that the contract offer would actually amount to a $2,000-a-year net loss to teachers when coupled with the district’s medical benefits proposals. -more-

A Berkeley developer’s plans for a $700 million luxury casino resort at the foot of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge will move another step closer to realization Thursday night. -more-

CORRECTION -more-

Click here to view the latest work by Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitas› -more-

Dateline New York, Spring Break, 2005: Now that I’m a coed, after a 31 year hiatus, I get to celebrate spring break with my fellow party-going students. I don’t remember spring break being a big deal when I was an undergraduate, or if we even had spring break, but then I don’t recall much about 1970 through ‘74. -more-

Knife Robbery -more-

There is a dire need for more foster parents, as well as for “fost-adopt”” parents (adults who are approved to pursue the adoption of foster children), throughout the county and state, and in many other parts of the country. -more-

Have you smelled it? For more than three decades, Berkeley residents have told stories about encountering the mysterious, Oceanview burnt pot handle smell. These citizen accounts often describe this nauseous odor as “burning rubber” and “toxic.” In fact, this northwest Berkeley phenomenon of the burnt pot handle smell has generated more nuisance phone calls to city officials and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) than any other environmental concern in Berkeley. -more-

Sometimes news consumers should take a breather, stand back, and try to make sense out of what we are hearing. By juxtaposition maybe we can learn more than facts. I would like to consider three stories side by side: the 59th Street/ Shattuck Avenue neighborhood activist, Patrick McCullough, who shot and wounded a young neighbor who was allegedly part of a North Oakland drug gang; the young Ashley Smith who “disarmed” the Atlanta gunman with religion and pancakes, and my own story. -more-

In 1965, the late Hunter Thompson got his first break as a journalist when he was asked to write an article for the venerable Left journal The Nation, about Berkeley after the Free Speech Movement. -more-

At the height of the “Berkeley insurrection” press reports were loaded with mentions of outsiders, nonstudents and professional troublemakers. Terms like “Cal’s shadow college” and “Berkeley’s hidden community” became part of the journalistic lexicon. These people, it was said, were whipping the campus into a frenzy, goading the students to revolt, harassing the administration, and all the while working for their own fiendish ends. You could almost see them loping along the midnight streets with bags of seditious leaflets, strike orders, red banners of protest and cablegrams from Moscow, Peking or Havana. As in Mississippi and South Vietnam, outside agitators were said to be stirring up the locals, who wanted only to be left alone. -more-

Edward Rowland Sill was once as well known as Mark Twain or Bret Harte. He was certainly important here in Berkeley—the first star to appear in the galaxy of poets we’ve come to associate with our city. -more-

This jewel box of a bookstore/newsstand sits a half-block north of the UC Berkeley campus, where it serves a select clientele. The person browsing beside you might be a nationally renowned author who teaches at the nearby UC journalism school, or a Los Angeles Times or San Francisco Chronicle columnist who lives nearby. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 29 -more-

There are only a few fernleaf Catalina ironwood trees in public places in Berkeley. These include a couple on the west end of Ohlone Park; in Strawberry Creek Park, where the creek was daylighted, near Bonar; and a row of them against a wall on the Camellia Street side of REI’s San Pablo Avenue store. Once you’ve seen this distinctive small tree, you’ll likely start noticing more. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 29 -more-

The military recruitment budget is $3 billion annually; 90 percent of the people killed in war are civilian noncombatants; 91 percent of Berkeley High students believe the war in Iraq is wrong and illegal; 65 percent of veterans never get their education benefits; 33 percent of homeless men are veterans…. -more-

More than two dozen tenants of a West Berkeley live-work warehouse that was declared “an extreme fire and life safety hazard” will be able to stay in their homes for two extra weeks under the protection of the Berkeley Fire Department, the city’s fire marshal announced Thursday. -more-

Aimee Allison has come a long way from the 17-year-old kid at Antioch High who joined the Army Reserves to get an education. The 35-year-old Stanford graduate and Green Party candidate for Oakland’s District 2 write-in election (to replace a councilmember who quit) spoke at Wednesday’s Berkeley High military recruitment teach-in, explaining how she joined the Army. -more-

Aimee Allison has come a long way from the 17-year-old kid at Antioch High who joined the Army Reserves to get an education. The 35-year-old Stanford graduate and Green Party candidate for Oakland’s District 2 write-in election (to replace a councilmember who quit) spoke at Wednesday’s Berkeley High military recruitment teach-in, explaining how she joined the Army. -more-

As Berkeley seeks to close an $8.9 million budget deficit, the City Council Tuesday voted to ensure that an unanticipated $3.4 million property tax windfall doesn’t bail out threatened programs. -more-

Opposition from Republican lawmakers has apparently halted a bid to name Berkeley’s main post office after the 93-year-old local civil rights icon Maudelle Shirek. -more-

Poitier McDaniel, 26, gets his daily exercise Thursday by lifting a chunk of old concrete on Ashby Avenue.. -more-

The 16-year-old girl charged with slashing the neck of a 75-year-old Berkeley woman will undergo a psychiatric evaluation and remain in custody, her attorney said Thursday. -more-

After two years of fierce debate, the parents, students and staff of Jefferson Elementary School will decide if they want their building to continue to bear the name of a slaveholder. -more-

The story sounds familiar. A teenager shoots five of his fellow high school students, his grandfather, his grandfather’s wife, a security guard, a teacher and himself. Newspapers report he wore a long black coat, and may have posted messages on neo-Nazi websites. It is said he was teased at school. -more-

NO BRAINS -more-

Click here to view the latest work by Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitas› -more-

We have a break in the rain so I’m sitting out here in my backyard listening to my 10-year-old son and his buddy setting up GI Joes in preparation for war. That Jason even has such a vast army is somewhat startling to this middle-aged hippie who refused to buy him a single toy gun until a few years ago, when I broke down in the middle of an unusually hot summer and bought water pistols for both my son and daughter. Since then, I have been needled, harassed and otherwise tricked into purchasing numerous toy soldiers and their gear, all of which Jason insisted were just for display but I now see are being readied for serious battle. -more-

Cops Take a Blow -more-

Berkeley Fire Marshal David Orth has classified the Drayage building as an “extremely hazardous situation,” even though he knows of no fire incidents or injuries in the past 20 years connected to the residents living in this “situation.” Mr. Orth brushes off this strong history as “lucky.” -more-

Becky O’Malley’s latest editorial demonstrated a surprisingly shallow understanding of the current contract negotiations between teachers and the Berkeley Unified School District and the realities of teaching in Berkeley. -more-

The City Council’s decision to create a Creeks Task Force to review the Creeks Ordinance and to make recommendations back to the council provides the City of Berkeley with a great opportunity to protect creeks while at the same time being sensitive to private property interests and concerns. -more-

Well, maybe not driving six white horses, but Jeannette Rankin of Montana will be coming to Berkeley in a performance of the play, A Single Woman, based on the words and the writings of this unique, pioneering woman. Jeannette Rankin was the first woman to be elected to Congress in 1916, before universal women’s suffrage; she was a pacifist who voted against entry into World War I; then, gerrymandered out of office, she was re-elected in 1940, and was the lone vote against participation in World War II. She was much reviled for this, but she was a feisty woman and ably defended her decision. -more-

Under the tracery and flaring supports of the Eiffel Tower, there’s a dining room and a fainting couch on the Berkeley Rep Thrust Stage: Kent Dorsey’s design. -more-

Gideon Lazarus has a lot going on in his life, but discusses it calmly, with flashes of wry humor that make others laugh. -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 25 -more-

Ah. Rugged mountains. Creamy porridge. Jagged peninsulas. Irish soda bread. Sparkling blue vistas. Guinness stout. Verdant glens. “Shorties” biscuits. Rolling hills. Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes. -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 25 -more-

The only dignified voice to appear in the midst of the outrageous media circus which has been created around the slow death of Theresa Marie Schindler Sciavo has been that of the disabled community. Ms. Schindler Sciavo is familiarly called in the media by her childhood nickname, Terri, reflecting her dependent status in recent years as a childlike love object for her birth parents and as the legal ward of the husband she married at a young age. Since she can no longer speak for herself, a great deal of space has been devoted to speculation about what she “would have” or “might have” wanted, with no concrete information available to answer this question. -more-

This month the United States celebrates National Free Newspaper Week, and on April 1, an auspicious date with lively associations, the Berkeley Daily Planet will be celebrating our second anniversary of revived publication, timed to coincide with the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the city of Berkeley. It’s hard to believe it’s been two years, but here we are, doing well and even expanding. -more-