News

Amir Hassan, a 9-year-old Emerson elementary school student is dead, his mother has been hospitalized, and detectives are focusing their investigations on her, police said. -more-

The hands putting up the brightly colored rainbows, hearts and flowers on the walls of the library at Emerson Elementary School Thursday belonged to teachers, friends and classmates of Amir Hassan, the fourth-grader who was found dead inside his Shattuck Avenue apartment Wednesday morning. -more-

With a smile and a soupçon of praise for the legal talent arrayed before her, Judge Barbara J. Miller retired to her chambers Thursday afternoon to ponder the fate of UC Berkeley’s stadium area development plans. -more-

While the city’s appraiser said the air rights over a rebuilt City Center Garage is worth $850,000, a developer planning a building adjacent to the garage valued the rights the developer would buy at $22,250. -more-

Alta Bates/Summit nurses and their supporters were walking the picket line Thursday in the second day of what the California Nurse’s Association calls “the biggest RN strike this decade.” -more-

A widely publicized recent poll that reportedly showed that Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is losing support among “likely Oakland voters” was not intended as a poll on success or failure of the Dellums administration, was never intended for release to the public, and the organization which commissioned it is now conducting an internal investigation to see how its results got released to political columnists Phil Matier and Andy Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle. -more-

On Monday, Oct. 1, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier & Ross reported selected results of the David Binder poll concerning Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums. -more-

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums meets with North Oakland residents this Saturday, holding a city charter-mandated community town hall meeting from 10 a.m. to noon at the Peralta Elementary School, 460 63rd St. -more-

UC Berkeley plans a major overhaul of landmarked Bowles Hall, and they’re looking for an architect to show how to do it. -more-

Visitors to Berkeley High School will now have to show photo identification to enter the campus. -more-

The Binational Health Week, organized locally by the Berkeley Organizing Congregation for Action (BOCA), starts today (Friday) to promote mental health and physical fitness in the city. -more-

Soon oh very soon, we’re going to change this world. -more-

Some Berkeley school board members expressed concern that Berkeley High School (BHS) did not meet the benchmark for the 2007 Academic Performance Index (API) scores. -more-

A student at Emerson Elementary School in Berkeley is dead, his mother has been hospitalized, and police are questioning her as the suspect in the boy’s death. -more-

Native Americans and their supporters rallied on the UC Berkeley campus Friday, demanding that the university return the remains of Indian ancestors so that they can be buried according to custom. -more-

The question of public comment at council meetings is back before the council today (Tuesday), with Mayor Tom Bates adding greater opportunity for public comment than in earlier iterations of his plan, but not enough to satisfy SuperBOLD (Berkeleyans Organized for Library Defense), the organization that had threatened to sue the city for skirting the state’s open meeting laws with inadequate opportunities for the public to speak at public meetings. -more-

Anti-tobacco advocate Stan Glantz spoke about tobacco money and tainted research at the University of California at last Tuesday’s Talkin’ Tobacco De-Cal class at UC Berkeley. -more-

While the reaction to AC Transit’s ambitious Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal has not stirred up the sort of public controversy in Oakland and San Leandro that it has in Berkeley, interviews with city officials show that the transit district may have a way to go before the development of a BRT plan will win approval in those cities as well. -more-

Unable to defeat Tom Bates in a challenge at the polls last year, Berkeley tree-sitter Zachary Running Wolf launched a second campaign Monday, this one aimed at a recall election to unseat the mayor. -more-

Registered nurses plan to walk off their jobs at two Berkeley hospitals in Berkeley starting at 7 a.m. Wednesday as the start of a two-day job action. -more-

The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) holds its 43rd meeting next week, with the topic a perennial hot button issue: the role of historic buildings in tomorrow’s downtown cityscape. -more-

When Nicole Sawaya steps into place as Pacifica Radio’s executive director—part-time in mid-November and full-time in December—she’ll have a couple of things that former executive director Greg Guma wished he’d had: one is a unanimous board solidly behind him and the second is a multi-year contract. -more-

Berkeley developers Ruegg & Ellsworth will ask the city zoning board for a permit to construct a 34,158-square-foot, five-story building with 44 apartments, 18 parking spaces and retail space at 2526 Durant Ave. after moving the historic Blood House from the site to 2508 Regent St. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education will appoint six students to the city’s youth commission at Wednesday’s school board meeting out of the 13 that have applied to the district. -more-

When Native America Calling—a live, daily call-in radio program based in Albuquerque, N.M.—started more than 12 years ago, they had a hard time gaining people’s trust. -more-

This is one of the most stressful parts of the year for seniors at Berkeley High School. This is the time where first semester grades really count, this is the time where the idea of college hits you. This is the time where everything you do will make a difference for the next four years of your life. -more-