They had prayed and protested, gone to jail and gone to the media. On Tuesday, death-penalty foes celebrated a partial victory: the life of Michael Morales, the man who had stabbed, raped and bludgeoned to death 17-year-old Terri Winchell in 1981, would be spared—for a few months at least. -more-
Keith Stephens was “a good kid, very kind-hearted and giving,” said Latisha Stephens, his oldest sister. -more-
A controversial trustee on the Alameda County Medical Center Board of Directors has been removed by the president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors because of complaints from fellow board members, but there is question whether Supervisor Keith Carson has the legal authority to do so. -more-
Lucky for diners at Le Bateau Ivre, there’s ample parking available right out front. For motorcycles, that is. -more-
Berkeley City Councilmembers voted unanimously Tuesday to order the closure of Dwight Way Liquors, ending a decade-long and often confusing regulatory battle. -more-
Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and UC Berkeley’s representation on the panel helping formulate a new downtown plan were among the issues confronted by the City Council Tuesday. -more-
Members of four city panels filed into the North Berkeley Senior Center Wednesday night to hear the university’s first formal presentation of its plans for the Memorial Stadium area. -more-
Planning commissioners Wednesday voted to delay extending a provision of the city’s condominium ordinance setting cost levels for mandated “inclusionary” units. -more-
Less than a month after Director Sharon Jackson hastily departed from the Berkeley Housing Authority, a new chief has stepped in to lead the agency through tough times. -more-
It was one of those beautiful sunny days in Berkeley that makes you want to take the longest route to the Saturday morning farmers’ market. -more-
One of the important functions of the Police Review Commission is to recommend policy changes, based on the complaints the commission sees, according to Deputy City Attorney Sarah Reynoso. -more-
Table tennis is coming of age in America, according to players and coaches who descended on Berkeley from around the world last weekend. -more-
“A Portrait of Mills: Photographs by Imogen Cunningham,” like other significant art exhibitions, instructs while it gives pleasure. Visitors will find in it, to their satisfaction, some of the iconic images for which the artist has long been famous as well as images with which they are unfamiliar. -more-
Berkeley students who don’t pass the high school exit exam may still walk with their peers on graduation day, the school board ruled Wednesday. -more-
The Berkeley Board of Education approved an environmental impact report (EIR) of the East Campus/Derby Street field Wednesday, re-igniting debate over whether a baseball diamond will be built there. -more-
Berkeley’s city councilmembers face an array of business tonight (Tuesday), starting with a workshop on condo ordinance changes, then moving on to a regular meeting that will feature landmarks, a liquor store and ADUs. -more-
Two Richmond quarries are a threat to public safety, a Richmond councilmember and a state agency both say. -more-
UC Berkeley officials will give the public and three city commissions a brief presentation of their plans for development at and around Memorial Stadium on Wednesday evening. -more-
The Peralta Community College District brought out the big guns to the district Board of Trustees meeting last week, with presentations by Chancellor Elihu Harris, two vice chancellors, and the chief financial officer to try to end the continuing controversy over the district’s office of International Affairs. -more-
With a possible teachers strike looming over stalled contract talks, the state-run Oakland Unified School District received a blow this week when the Service Employees International Union backed out of a tentative contract agreement that would have run through 2008. -more-
In the past week, Berkeley High School (BHS) student leadership has made changes to the school’s controversial attendance policy. -more-
Daily Planet reporter Judith Scherr received a literate and thoughtful letter this week from a Contra Costa Avenue resident about the stabbing which occurred recently at a teen party on that street. The writer said that “I would like to offer a question that is worth some commentary. The question is—did the neighbors in the homes adjacent to the party exercise any social responsibility in contacting the Berkeley Police Department prior to the party getting out of hand and in offering assistance immediately after the stabbing?” -more-
UC Berkeley clericals will get pay raises of about 12 percent—the first increase since 2002—but they’re not dancing in Sproul Plaza. -more-
To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit -more-
It feels like a bad dream. Poorly drawn cartoons in an obscure Danish newspaper spark deadly riots. In northern Nigeria at least 16 people die, many of them Christians, when rioters torch churches, shops and vehicles; in Libya 10 people die in clashes with police; in Afghanistan 12 people are killed and 20 injured. The Danish consulate is burned in Beirut. 300 Palestinian protesters attack an international observers’ mission in Hebron throwing rocks and bottles. Riot police in Delhi fire tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of student protesters; in Kashmir a general strike is called. And a Pakistani Imam announces his mosque will give $25,000 and a car to anyone who kills the single cartoonist he believes produced the offensive drawings. He says a local jewelers’ association would give another million. -more-
Cleanaircoalition.net is now signing up people and families from the communities of Berkeley, Albany and El Cerrito. There is a growing number of individuals who feel it is necessary to turn up the heat on Pacific Steel Company (PSC). Specifically, we intend to file multiple lawsuits through Small Claims to force PSC to give us a better solution than the “settlement” BAAQMD has arranged or, failing that, make us pay us for PSC’s constant black air. We have contracted with Neighborhood Solutions and they are on board working and consulting with us to help this move forward quickly. -more-
To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit -more-
Since buying my first bungalow in Berkeley 19 years ago, I have restored eleven other houses, consulted on many others, and written six best-selling books about bungalows, including Bungalow Kitchens, Bungalow Bathrooms, and Bungalow: The Ultimate Arts and Crafts Home. -more-
I took the oath to become an American citizen this week. Presidents’ Day is a perfect time to take the monumental step of becoming a citizen of this great country. After all, on Monday Americans celebrate the birthday of two men who helped form the America that made it possible for this to happen. -more-
Have you noticed there is a concerted effort on the part of the city to eliminate public parking? The idea of demolishing one of the best downtown parking lots (Hink’s) in the city, and replacing it with scores of housing units that have half as much parking as they will need for themselves and none for the public. Brilliant! Oh, and while we are at it, let’s eliminate half of the parking lot for the Ashby BART station (does anyone really use BART anyway) and install more housing and businesses, using the same model of no public parking. Is the strategy for downtown revival to provide a captive audience of shoppers within these housing developments only and to heck with shoppers from the rest of the city or other areas of the East Bay? Have you ever tried to find parking downtown on a rainy winter evening to do any shopping? And we wonder why businesses are closing and leaving? -more-
Eugene Jarecki’s documentary Why We Fight is playing at several Bay Area theaters, including downtown Berkeley’s Shattuck Cinemas. Although it won the grand jury prize for documentaries at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and made a much-touted appearance on the BBC, for a considerable period it appeared that the film wouldn’t be seen in the United States. Finally Sony agreed to distribute Why We Fight and it opened nationwide on Feb. 10. -more-
There is a certain boy-caught-with-matches quality to the Bush administration’s reactions regarding the U.S. port terminal transfers, like the little kid who has been busy setting fires all over the neighborhood and then finds, to his horror, that his own playhouse is suddenly threatened. -more-
Symbiotically, the University of California and the city of Berkeley are partners, not always in harmony. Since 1873 when students, professors and their educational accouterments moved from downtown Oakland to the new site above Oceanview, both have prospered. -more-
For an object lesson in preservation go to the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Parker Street where the old Gorman building has emerged from an exemplary rehab project. This historic structure with roots deep in the 19th century can now ably serve the 21st. -more-
Dear Matt Cantor, -more-
We’re nearing the end of bare-root tree season, but we can buy and plant a tree any time of the year here, lucky us. But picking out the right tree in a nursery can be confusing, and a tree is (one hopes) an investment that we’ll be living with for years. -more-
My friend Andrew is back in town for some high-level, covert schmoozing. I last wrote about Andrew Boyd in 2004 when he was in the Bay Area directing a street theater effort against the Bush administration’s economic policies. Andrew is the founder of Billionaires for Bush, a do-it-yourself grassroots media campaign using humor and drama to expose politicians who support big business interests at the expense of everyday Americans. -more-
You’ve probably seen Canary Island pines around Berkeley, though I don’t know of any that are official street trees. They’re spotted in groups around the UC campus—there’s one near the Campanile—and they show up in various civic plantings, on big lawns and open spaces. They’re big trees—the largest pine native to the “Old World”—with a soft look when they’re mature. -more-
Start your spring cleaning and decluttering early. There’s less than a week left to get rid of your extra and unwanted, but useable, belongings by giving them to the White Elephant Sale (WES) at the Oakland Museum of California -more-
Travel writer Jeff Greenwald, primed to be the raconteur of stories from his books, improvised on the spot in answer to Strange Travel Suggestions, climbs the stage at The Marsh-Berkeley, and begins to explain his props: a gameshow-like wheel, the rim covered with odd symbols—and a huge Tarot card, featuring the romanticized image of The Fool from the Rider Pack, carrying a bindle on a stick and proceeding trippingly over a cliff while dandling a rose, as a little dog prances by his side ... -more-
Early on in the documentary Occupation: Dreamland, soldiers of the 82nd Airborne are seen patrolling the streets of Falluja, talking with the city’s residents along the way. At one point an Iraqi man stands before a soldier and tells him that the Iraqi people simply cannot accept colonialism, that resistance is an innate part of the Iraqi identity. “Bear with me,” he says to the soldier. “This is something that is pent up inside our hearts … know it, record it, transmit it.” -more-
At 20 paces Ivan Thompson is a dead ringer for the late Hunter S. Thompson—a lean figure in jeans and 10-gallon hat, mysterious and rugged with eyes concealed by large dark sunglasses. However, Ivan—the self-styled “Cowboy Cupid” of director Michèle Ohayon’s documentary Cowboy del Amor, opening today at Shattuck Cinemas in downtown Berkeley—has none of the gonzo journalist’s mumbled, eccentric rapid-fire cadences. Instead he is a plain-spoken, down-to-earth southwesterner with the twangy, no-nonsense voice of a man who has spent his life on ranches, working hard and scraping by amid the tumbleweeds and dust. -more-
Symbiotically, the University of California and the city of Berkeley are partners, not always in harmony. Since 1873 when students, professors and their educational accouterments moved from downtown Oakland to the new site above Oceanview, both have prospered. -more-
For an object lesson in preservation go to the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Parker Street where the old Gorman building has emerged from an exemplary rehab project. This historic structure with roots deep in the 19th century can now ably serve the 21st. -more-
Dear Matt Cantor, -more-
We’re nearing the end of bare-root tree season, but we can buy and plant a tree any time of the year here, lucky us. But picking out the right tree in a nursery can be confusing, and a tree is (one hopes) an investment that we’ll be living with for years. -more-
Two local singers who are starting to make their mark in the national and international opera world will come back to Oakland as featured soloists in Friday’s Oakland East Bay Symphony concert, conducted by Michael Morgan at the Paramount Theater in Oakland. -more-
You’ve probably seen Canary Island pines around Berkeley, though I don’t know of any that are official street trees. They’re spotted in groups around the UC campus—there’s one near the Campanile—and they show up in various civic plantings, on big lawns and open spaces. They’re big trees—the largest pine native to the “Old World”—with a soft look when they’re mature. -more-
