Applause rang out in the City Council Chambers Tuesday as dozens of people, many sporting blue “Save Berkeley Iceland” shirts, cheered the 5-4 council vote to uphold a city commission’s decision to landmark the 67-year-old structure that houses the ice skating rink at Derby and Milvia streets. -more-

After repeated public hearings before the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB), the 1885 University Ave. project—which promises to bring Trader Joe’s to Berkeley—won a 5-3 victory at Council Monday night. -more-

The battle over the future of downtown Berkeley’s skyline took a new twist Wednesday when a group of Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) members offered their own proposal, sparking heated outbursts and a counterproposal. -more-

The last full City Council meeting before a long summer break ended with an angry exchange between Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Dona Spring over what Spring says is the mayor’s habit of cutting her and others off when they speak. -more-

Despite pleas from Berkeley city officials, the UC Regents Thursday voted unanimously to approve Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) 2025. -more-

“The world, Mma Ramotswe believed, was composed of big things and small things. The big things were written large, and one could not but be aware of them—wars, oppression, the familiar theft by the rich and the strong of the those simple things that the poor needed, those scraps which would make their life more bearable; this happened, and could make even the reading of the newspaper an exercise in sorrow. There were all those unkindnesses, palpable, daily, so easily avoidable; but one could not just think of those, thought Mma Ramotswe, or one would spend one’s time in tears—and the unkindnesses would continue. So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of making one’s own life better: acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter. Clever people might laugh at such simplicity, but, she asked herself, what was their own solution?” -more-