Berkeley police said they have increased patrols and investigations this week near Sacramento and Ashby streets in response to a number of recent shootings in the area.

One took place at about 5:40 p.m. Wednesday, injuring a 16-year-old boy who lives outside the city.

A man who was shot and killed Thursday evening in Berkeley has been identified by police as 19-year-old Berkeley resident Ignacio Francis Jr. Other shootings have injured other people, according to police.

The shootings appear to involve two groups shooting at each other. Police did not name the groups. -more-

A Berkeley resident, Tony Cyprien, has scored a spot on public radio’s popular story-telling show “The Moth Radio Hour”.

Tony joined his wife in Berkeley about 5 years ago, finally paroled after spending the years between ages 17 and 43 in prison for a gang-related conviction which carried a sentence of 26 years to life.

His personal story of his incarceration and salvation, as he recounts it, will be included in the latest Moth episode, "GrandSLAMS Coast to Coast," which is going out to public radio stations across the United States and will air according to local schedules through next Monday. It will be on KQED-FM on Saturday night at 10, and on KALW-FM on Sunday at 6pm.

The full episode which contains his story, which starts about 30 minutes from the beginning, can be heard online here.

Since Tony came home, he’s been earning a living with the welding trade he learned while he was incarcerated, fabricating and assembling custom metal products. But he’s discovered that his real love, and eventual career goal, is performing. -more-

In Berkeley nine candidates are running for mayor to replace Tom Bates, who is retiring. The two top contenders, who are on the Berkeley City Council, are politically worlds apart. Laurie Capitelli tilts in a conservative direction, and Jesse Arreguin is among the most progressive council members. Because Capitelli is an ardent supporter of development projects, he receives substantial contributions from real estate interests. In fact, his habit of favoring developers and landlords as well explains why he raises more money than any other member of the Council. Also, despite Capitelli's recent support for a minimum wage law,-- elections are around the corner -- he has for a long while obstructed efforts to increase the minimum wage.

Although Jesse Arreguin is not opposed to development, he is infinitely more sensitive to the impact of development on small business and residents. Particularly important, Arreguin strongly supports labor legislation that benefits working people. Unlike Capitelli, he has never wavered on minimum wage and any other labor issues. It is no surprise, then, that among his significant endorsers are Bernie Sanders and the Alameda Labor Council, AFL-CIO.

Very surprising to progressive activists, however, is that among Capitelli's endorsers is Robert Reich. Reich is among the nation's most progressive intellectuals. He has no problem criticizing big business, and exposing how they have stacked the deck. Clearly, Reich is many light years away from the politics of Capitelli and also from his close ally, Tom Bates, who Reich had said is "the best mayor in the country".

Just as startling is Reich's comment about Capitelli: "Laurie is a serious progressive, one that doesn't just talk about progressive values but who demonstrates them." The Progressive Student Association, which is based on the UC Berkeley campus, disagrees with Reich's endorsement, because Capitelli has "repeatedly voted to reduce funding for affordable housing and has opposed campaign finance reform". -more-

Israel has made a dramatic shift to the right after the recent elections. -more-

Responding to intense high pressure tactics to meet unreasonable targets, bank officials illegally transferred funds from existing customers’ accounts to open new fraudulent accounts. When the seedy activities were finally exposed, Wells Fargo agreed to pay restitution to customers who were charged for these sham accounts. -more-

Who hasn’t seen hand-painted signs haphazardly attached to trees in various neighborhoods warning unsuspecting drivers to be careful: today is street sweeping day. Everyone seems to accept that this is a proper and neighborly use of residents’ time. But it’s only because of poor design that this is necessary. Whether it’s intentional – to drive up city revenues through issuing as many tickets as possible, or to cut costs by not installing enough, or big enough, signs – or just negligence through incompetent design, citizens should not have to take over a job that the city is charged with doing. -more-

Next chief of police must hear community concerns : Resignation of chief Michael Meehan means that the Berkeley Police Department can finally be run by somebody committed to transparency. -more-

After the Democratic convention, many Democrats breathed a sigh of relief because it appeared that Hillary Clinton had an "insurmountable" 8-point lead over Donald Trump. Two months later, that lead is almost gone and Dems are worried. What happened?

The latest Huffington Post Poll of Polls shows Clinton with a 4.0 percentage point lead over Trump. The latest Five Thirty Eight summary shows Clinton with a projected 60.5 percent chance of winning, a 2.3 percentage point victory, and 288 electoral votes. Over time, Trump's ceiling has stayed about the same, 42 percent of the likely vote; however, Hilary's numbers have gone up and down -- sometimes getting as high as 49 percent and as low as 42 percent. -more-

If you are mentally ill and seeing a psychiatrist for medication, the psychiatrist should be evaluating the medication he or she is prescribing. A psychiatrist will try to find out if the dosage(s) are appropriate, will check to make sure that you aren't having an adverse reaction to the meds, and that you are "responding" well to the medication(s). -more-

Everyone now knows that San Francisco 49ers quarterback took a knee instead of standing during the national anthem before a game was played as a protest against racism in America and the police killings of blacks. -more-

Alameda’s Island City Opera combined forces with Opera Academy of California to produce a single performance on Sunday September 25 at Alameda’s Elks Lodge of Francis Poulenc’s short operatic monologue La Dame de Monte Carlo and Maurice Ravel’s one-act opera L’Heure Espagnole. This was a felicitous pairing; and although both works were performed with only a piano as accompaniment for the singers, nonetheless, the excellence of the singers brought out all the nuances of these compositions sung in French. Opera Academy of California’s Artistic Director Yefim Maizel was responsible for the staging of both works on this program. -more-

Among former General Director David Gockley’s many accomplishments, he will probably be best remembered, not without reason, for the many new operas he commissioned. Though their quality varied, as one might expect, Gockley’s commissions exemplified his bold commitment to opera as a living, vibrant art form that had an important place in our contemporary musical world. Dream of the Red Chamber, by Chinese-American composer Bright Sheng, which just received its world premiere at SF Opera, was only the last of Gockley’s commissions as SF Opera’s General Director. But it no doubt will gain a place in the 21^st century operatic world. -more-

Not every film makes it to the Big Screen. Not every film makes it into a local movie house. It takes a lot of promotional money to secure a spot on a commercial screen. Exhibitors must pay to promote the films with print ads. Without the promise of this publicity, theatre owners will not commit to showing a film. That is why, with hundreds of commercial screens in the Bay Area, the weekly viewing menu is dominated by fewer than 12 Big Studio films. -more-

I just saw Oliver Stone's Snowden, a film that Los Angeles Times movie critic Kenneth Turan characterized as an "unashamed mythologizing of Edward Snowden." NPR's David Edelstein, seeming to begrudge director Stone's history as a "gonzo conspiracy theorist," offered diminished praise, calling the film a "textbook political conversion narrative." Time magazine dismissed Snowden as "lifeless," which, I assume, refers to the fact that the film contains no car chases, fistfights, or bloody shootouts.

No body count? How ho-hum. -more-