Metropolitan Theaters will not renew its lease for Solano Avenue's Oaks Theater. -more-

“Four-day work weeks,” “special no-parking-fee days,” “bi-weekly refuse pick-ups.” -more-

Correction: The City Council voted unanimously to approve the pools ballot measure. The Feb. 11 story incorrectly reported the 5-4 straw vote as the final vote. -more-

What happens when you transport street food from the crowded, dusty streets of India to a sleek, no-fuss, 25,000-square-foot warehouse in West Berkeley? -more-

Children’s Hospital Oakland, while providing good jobs and good care to many children and their families over the years, has also been a mixed blessing for its neighbors. Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley and nearby residents have hammered out a modus vivendi for relatively peaceful coexistence, but CHO has morphed over the years, expanding outward from their 52nd Street campus by acquiring neighboring businesses and homes. Most recently, the hospital intended to build a 180-foot tower north of the campus, clearing an area occupied by single-family homes, but that effort was doomed by the failure of bond measures on the ballot in February 2008. The distinctive “Original Baby Hospital” is nearly swallowed up by later construction, and likely to be toast under plans for CHO’s fallback expansion plans.  -more-

Although the Berkeley Board of Education was scheduled to vote on Berkeley’s first public charter school proposal Wednesday, Feb. 3, the petition was withdrawn at the last minute. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education asked for more information from Berkeley High School Wednesday before weighing in on whether it should re-direct parcel tax funds from science labs toward equity grants. -more-

A Berkeley High School student has been suspended for handing out marijuana-laced cookies to his friends. -more-

UC Berkeley police are asking people to be on the lookout for “Potty Pirates”—thieves who are removing brass flushing hardware from toilets and urinals on the UC Berkeley campus. -more-

Berkeley Unified School District has a brand new, state-of-the-art transportation facility that will save $450,000 annually. -more-

The Berkeley City Council did not take any action in a closed-session discussion Monday regarding a cannabis clinic’s proposal to move into the former Scharffen Berger chocolate factory. -more-

A friend recently announced that our Berkeley winters are becoming warmer. Always inclined to scoff at categorical and unfounded opinions, I decided to see if evidence showed this to be true. -more-

When you first walk into the Central Library, the Information Desk is directly in front of you. Unless you know where you’re going, it’s a helpful and welcoming place to visit. -more-

By now, the drumbeat is impossible to ignore: jobs, jobs, jobs. With one in 10 adults unemployed, President Obama had little choice but to highlight jobs during his Jan. 27 State of the Union address. He mentioned the term nearly 30 times during the hour-long speech. -more-

ABAG -more-

Once upon a time, back in the days when people were clamoring for justice and participation, some courageous souls formed an organization in the Bay Area consisting of delegates from the cities and counties of the region, for the purposes of curbing regional pollution and environmental despoliation, preserving urban open space, and guarding the traditional character of different neighborhoods. Thus was born the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). It sought to coordinate common interests across city lines, and be the expression of local policy against the designs of centralized planning commissions, the top-down development of transportation and industry, and the urban sprawl that transportation technology incurred. It began as a way in which local constituencies could act politically up against the state. That was then; this is now. -more-

The Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Paul Alivisatos, wrote a letter to you on January 28, regarding the change in bus service, which contained a number of errors.  Here are the facts: -more-

In 2003, with the help of a million-dollar grant from the Gates Foundation, Berkeley High School, which serves a diverse student body of about 3,400 students, was divided into six “small learning communities,” or “small schools” as they're sometimes called. The aim was to personalize education and reduce the achievement gap between higher- and lower-performing students. Many in the latter category are students of color, and so the reform, which was supported as well by the US Department of Education, “anticipated project outcomes [that] include improved standardized test scores and college preparedness for African American and Latino students.” -more-

Arnold Swartzenegger, and his longtime hero Clint Eastwood, are finally getting their fondest wish, which is to rid the state of what they believe to be a mere nuisance: The coexistence of disabled people in the community. If at all possible, these two anti-disability activists would have anyone with a significant disability be forced to live in state institutions, and out of their sight. -more-

The recent flap over the “elimination of science labs” for students at Berkeley High is now upon us with another silly series of breathless media accounts and an unsatisfying non-conclusion – the facts fade away, leaving a universal fog of untruths.  For this one, let’s get the core lie out of the way.  The proposal of Principal Jim Slemp and the Shared Governance Committee was to incorporate science labs into the normal 5 period day – the way it is done at almost all California high schools – instead of the extra classes that had been created and paid for by parcel tax money that Berkeley taxes itself.  The proposal was to redirect some of this money towards projects designed to narrow the achievement gap.  It would also help to more equitably distribute the parcel tax money – since the extra labs were consuming a huge portion of the funds for a sector of the student population that already has great advantages.  -more-

I was one of the participants at the Berkeley City Council meeting on Dec. 15, 2009 at which Dr. Rash B. Ghosh’s McGee and Dwight Way property lien was discussed.  -more-

A week after Democrats suffered a stunning defeat, Barack Obama bounced back with a memorable State of the Union address. After a year in office, Obama has to learn 10 lessons. -more-

One of the challenges in evaluating the administration of an Oakland mayor in these days and times is that 12 years after the passage of Measure X, residents and local media outlets (new and old) still are not certain exactly what a “strong mayor” is supposed to do and be responsible for. -more-

There are times when an economic model in the evaluation of a house is particularly vital. In fact, in times like these, the avoidance of this model could result in financial trauma. Most houses I see don’t seem to demand this metric, but some (and they’re not always obvious) absolutely do. -more-

Standing a couple of yards from a singing male western meadowlark a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by several things. First, the sheer virtuosity of the song: this bird is consistently ranked among the best North American singers, and I couldn’t argue with that. Second, the volume: western meadowlarks are loud. Their vocal performance is “often the only song that can be heard from a car driving at highway speed with the windows open,” writes Alvaro Jaramillo in New World Blackbirds: The Icterids. Couldn’t argue with that either. -more-