Though the thermometer hovered in the upper 40s and seemed even cooler beneath a mantle of oak leaves and an overcast sky, the crowd that gathered near Memorial Stadium Saturday was anything but cold. -more-

Rejecting the pleas of angry neighbors and threats of a lawsuit, the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) voted 5-3 early Friday to approve the “Trader Joe’s Building.” -more-

A marathon Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) session Thursday ended with approvals for two major housing projects, new bus yard, a new home for Freight & Salvage and demolition of the Drayage. -more-

Oakland’s newly elected state assemblymember, Sandré Swanson, has proposed setting up a Select Assembly Committee to investigate state takeovers of California schools, and the idea has already gotten support from key legislators from the affected districts. -more-

Freelance journalist Sarah Olson does not want to testify at First Lt. Ehren Watada’s court marshal in February. At around 8:45 a.m. on Thursday, she received a subpoena from the U.S. Army telling her to do so. -more-

Over the weekend, talk at parties was how the project now known as Trader Joe’s got the green light from Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board to set up shop on University Avenue, accompanied by several stories of market-rate condos-in-waiting and a big parking garage. One Berkeley-reared guest at Saturday night’s event thought Trader Joe’s was a nice addition to Berkeley because it’s owned by a southern California family, and expands by bootstrapping, one store at a time. Well, no, we said. Since 1979 it’s been part of a German billion-dollar conglomerate, though the whole empire is indeed owned by two German brothers in a family trust. She seemed shocked, almost disbelieving, so cleverly has TJ’s (as it’s called by its devotees) marketed its downhome image. Founder Joe is long gone. But it treats its employees very well, she said. Well, yes, as long as they don’t try to organize a union, we said. That also seemed to surprise her. -more-