News

While Berkeley Police Chief Doug Hambleton called Sgt. Cary Kent’s drug evidence theft “a profound violation of public trust,” in an oral report he gave to the Police Review Commission Wednesday, the chief’s accounting left some commissioners and audience members still searching for answers. -more-

Service workers at Berkeley Honda overwhelmingly ap-proved a contract late Monday, ending a bitter 10-month strike—and the reign of an inflatable rat over Shattuck Avenue. -more-

Ever heard of a little something called “Mulligatawny”? In case you haven’t, it’s a a spicy Anglo Indian soup made with red lentils, vegetables and chicken. Nothing foreign about red lentils, vegetables or chicken, is there? And yet, most of us would think of it as something exotic and even have a hard time relating it with food. -more-

A tree-lined plaza. Grassy area for feasting on a slice of Cheese Board pizza. Small kiosks housing newsstands, cafes and flower shops. -more-

When Patrick Kennedy got permits to develop the Gaia Building on Allston Way, he was allowed to build two stories more than the downtown height limit allowed, in exchange for the promise of using the ground floor and mezzanine for cultural purposes. -more-

As Berkeley curbs get increasingly jammed hood-to-trunk with stationary vehicles, easing rules about parking cars on private property becomes a viable solution, the city’s planning staff says. -more-

Reviews of a tentative contract agreement for Oakland’s teachers are decidedly mixed. -more-

Despite the absence of public speakers in opposition at a hearing held this week in the state Assembly Education Committee, a high school military recruitment notification bill co-sponsored by Bay Area Assemblymembers Loni Hancock and Sally Lieber only won the support of committee Democrats, leaving much work to be done if the bill is to become state law. -more-

David Beauvais loves the First Amendment. -more-

Officials from UC Berkeley’s Office of Emergency Preparedness met with the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission and the public Wednesday to present the emergency aspects of the university’s Memorial Stadium project and take part in a question and answer session related to it. -more-

This May 1 could become the day without immigrants if calls to boycott schools and work by national and local immigrant organizations are heeded all over the United States. -more-

Finalizing a settlement reached after a year of contract negotiations with its 2,000 registered nurses, the Alameda County Medical Center turned this week to shore up its remaining nagging budget problems. -more-

Construction of the new Berkeley City College in downtown Berkeley is 85 percent complete with a tentative opening date scheduled for mid-July, Peralta Community College District trustees learned this week at their regular meeting. -more-

Bloody arrest -more-

A resolution on tonight’s (Tuesday) City Council agenda, calling on the House of Representatives to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney, is not just another feel-good Berkeley measure. -more-

After decades of wrangling, neighbors of Alta Bates Hospital gathered at the Alta Bates auditorium last week to express their outrage at the city’s decision to install a road across the hard-won grassy mall next to the hospital. -more-

A Berkeley assemblymember’s bill scheduled for debate this week in the assembly Education Committee would not end military recruitment on California’s high school campuses, but it would make it easier for parents to exempt their children from the recruitment process. -more-

The chairperson of the UC Board of Regents said this week that there may be disciplinary action taken in the wake of the university’s employee compensation scandal, but what those disciplinary actions might be will not be revealed until the regents’ May meeting. -more-

Small class sizes, school libraries and music and arts education are just a few of the programs the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) will ask local voters to support this November. -more-

The Berkeley City Council will begin its meeting tonight (Tuesday) with a Disaster Training Workshop at 5 p.m. An executive session meeting on the threat of a lawsuit be developer Patrick Kennedy will by held at 6 p.m. The council will begin its regular meeting at 7 p.m. -more-

The Transportation Commission last week weighed in on a traffic report for mixed-use development at University Avenue at Martin Luther King Jr. Way, moved forward with a solution to parking losses on Telegraph Avenue and introduced design options for the downtown Berkeley BART station. -more-

Time is running out for the Planning Commission to officially weigh in on the city’s much-debated Creeks Ordinance, but a viable recommendation is still weeks away. -more-

Although Hispanic media helped to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people in last month’s immigration protests, they are split when it comes to the economic boycott planned for May 1. -more-

The controversial proposal to build a massive five-story high-rise at the corner of University Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way comes before ZAB Thursday. -more-

It’s over. The Italian superior court has declared that Silvio Berlusconi is out and that Romano Prodi has won. But more than voting out Berlusconi’s center-right alliance or approving Prodi’s center-left coalition, Italians have chosen to go back to the splintered governments preceding the early 1990s. -more-

I was in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at my aunt’s 95th birthday party. Her name was Pricilla, but everyone called her Aunt Gussie. She had outlived all of her friends and contemporaries and was the matriarch and Griot (oral historian) of our family. -more-