Two problem cops have left the Berkeley Police Department, Chief Doug Hambleton told the Daily Planet Tuesday. -more-

As the Donahue Gym at Berkeley High School exploded in thunderous applause during the host school’s 63-14 win over El Cerrito High on Feb. 16, it was not the game that was the center of everyone’s attention, but the man who helped win it. -more-

Two protests—one Monday and another this Thursday—are adding new fuel to the growing controversy over the proposed $500 million pact between a British oil company, UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois. -more-

Zachary Running Wolf, the activist who launched the tree-sit at UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium, spent the weekend in jail, charged with threatening campus police. -more-

Making Telegraph Avenue work for business owners and those who own the buildings the merchants rent, as well as for shoppers, students, street vendors, residents and folks who hang out in the area is a jigsaw puzzle whose odd-size pieces the City Council and the city’s various departments are constantly trying to make fit. -more-

While most of the city’s budget questions are being referred to the months-long budget process that will end in June or July, the City Council will vote tonight (Tuesday) on disbursing a $3.3 million windfall. -more-

It happened that last weekend we had two excursions which took us out of the Berkeley Bubble and into the genuine suburbs, in fact into the old established bridge-and-tunnel suburbs, over a bridge to the Peninsula and through the tunnel to Lamorinda. On Saturday night in Palo Alto we were lucky enough to see two fine singers with local connections, Berkeley-born Alaine Rodin and current resident Kathleen Moss, in the West Bay Opera’s stunning production of Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades, which demonstrated conclusively that culture is alive and well outside the urban bay area. The Lafayette trip on Sunday was for a sadder purpose, a memorial for a friend who had died suddenly. -more-