UC Berkeley police have arrested an employee and an off-campus accomplice for allegedly stealing $250,000 in BART tickets from a university transportation office and reselling them on the street. -more-

To the Editor: -more-

Wednesday, May 29

The Berkeley High baseball team has faced a lot of challenges this season, and so far the Yellowjackets have passed each with flying colors. They beat top-ranked California High and its ace, Adam Brisentine. They dealt Pinole Valley’s Kurt Koehler his first loss in three seasons. They won the ACCAL title and beat Antioch and De La Salle to reach the North Coast Section semifinals. -more-

In a neighborhood battle that pitted the small-town values of south Berkeley against the city’s needs for affordable housing, city leaders carried the housing developers to victory. -more-

To the Editor: -more-

WALNUT CREEK – The Cal baseball team had two players, junior catcher John Baker and sophomore first baseman Conor Jackson, selected to the 2002 All-Pac-10 Baseball Team, Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen announced Tuesday. -more-

Berkeley Police Chief Dash Butler has endured a lot in his 31 years of service to the community— riots, numerous protests, a growing department and community and a prolific citizenry. As of July 13, Butler will retire, and the community must learn to endure without him. -more-

To the Editor: -more-

An early morning hiker in the Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve was shaken Tuesday when he stumbled upon a human body hanging lifeless from the branch of a tree, according to East Bay Regional Park officials. -more-

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Historical Highlight -more-

Amy Chun, who has Down syndrome, often feels isolated at Albany Middle School. -more-

OAKLAND — Jurors may have reached a partial verdict in the federal case against police and FBI agents accused of framing two Earth First! activists. -more-

SANTA BARBARA — The father of a former college student on trial for running down four people with his car testified Tuesday that he couldn’t accept repeated diagnoses that his son was mentally ill. -more-

LOS ANGELES — Employees at the CBS television complex were safely evacuated Tuesday as police negotiated with a gunman threatening suicide. -more-

OAKLAND — Defense attorneys and Alameda County prosecutors today are scheduled to begin their search for a jury that will sit in what is believed to be the largest case of alleged criminal police misconduct in Oakland's history. -more-

xSAN FRANCISCO — City utility officials approved a proposal Tuesday that could put a $3.6 billion bond measure to upgrade the aging Hetch Hetchy water system on the November ballot. -more-

SACRAMENTO — Concerned that students who lug heavy backpacks will develop spinal problems, the state Assembly approved a bill Tuesday that would force school boards to figure out ways to reduce excess backpack weight. -more-

SACRAMENTO — A preliminary budget plan that restores some health care cuts proposed by Gov. Gray Davis but still leaves lawmakers the chore of filling a $1 billion gap stalled at least briefly Tuesday in the Senate. -more-

SACRAMENTO — Despite its claims of full compliance, the governor’s office apparently didn’t completely respond to a request for information from a committee investigating a potentially costly state contract, the panel’s chairman said Tuesday. -more-

LOS ANGELES — Existing single family homes sold at a sizzling pace and at record prices in April, according to the California Association of Realtors. -more-

HOUSTON – After prosecutors spent three weeks quizzing a witness list packed with Arthur Andersen LLP employees as the government tried to prove obstruction of justice against the accounting firm, the defense has fired back with one of its own. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO — Bankrupt Excite@Home will auction off the last pieces of its defunct high-speed Internet access service Wednesday, putting the finishing touches on a fire sale that has extracted about $60 million from a business valued at $28 billion three years ago. -more-

WASHINGTON — Someone killed Chandra Levy, but there’s too little evidence to say how or who might have left her body on a rugged park hillside a year ago, Washington’s medical examiner said Tuesday. -more-

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Napoleon Beazley, whose death sentence for a murder committed at 17 stirred national debate over capital punishment for youths, was executed Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to spare his life. -more-

WEBBERS FALLS, Okla. — Rescuers hoisted two vehicles with four bodies inside from the murky Arkansas River on Tuesday, bringing the death toll from the collapse of an interstate bridge to 13. -more-

NEW DELHI, India — India sharply criticized a speech by Pakistan’s military leader as “disappointing and dangerous” on Tuesday and asserted that al-Qaida terrorists now are in disputed Kashmir. -more-

JERUSALEM — A gunman sneaked onto the grounds of an Orthodox Jewish high school in the West Bank late Tuesday and killed three teen-agers, even as Israeli troops continued their daily raids into Palestinian towns. -more-

ROME — President Bush, in a one-on-one meeting inside the Vatican, told Pope John Paul II he is concerned about the Roman Catholic church’s standing in America where the church has been rocked by sex-abuse scandal. -more-

WASHINGTON — Libya has offered to pay $10 million per family as compensation for the deaths of 270 people in the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing, lawyers representing the family said Tuesday. -more-

ROME — NATO declared Russia a limited partner in the Western alliance Tuesday, embracing its former Cold War enemy as an ally in the battle against modern-day threats like terrorism. -more-

SACRAMENTO — Public schools will be allowed to keep American Indian team names and mascots after the Assembly defeated a bill Tuesday that would have forced schools to give up the names. -more-

SACRAMENTO — A bill that could give state government significant new power over how and where its cities grow has cleared the Senate. -more-

SACRAMENTO — Agreeing that California’s primary election is too early to attract many voters, the Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would move the primary for state and congressional candidates from March to August. -more-

Minority activists of numerous descents took to heart the idiom “strength in numbers” Monday and joined together on the steps of Old City Hall to speak out against the rising incidence of hate crime. -more-

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Historical Highlight -more-

To the Editor: -more-

Wednesday, May 29

Wednesday, May 29

There is no Memorial Day parade through downtown Berkeley, but one local resident made sure people remembered there was a holiday to commemorate. -more-

INDIANAPOLIS — Preening and playing to the cameras, Helio Castroneves enjoyed the spoils of winning the Indy 500. -more-

To the Editor: -more-

Don Nunes didn’t know where he was going to sleep last night. As a truck driver making a stop in the Bay Area, his choices are severely limited. -more-

SACRAMENTO — No matter what the Sacramento Kings believe, Kobe Bryant knows it’s more than luck keeping the Los Angeles Lakers on track for their third straight championship. -more-

To the Editor: -more-

RIVERSIDE — A University of California, Riverside student, who had been detained by Israel after trying to provide humanitarian aid to armed Palestinians during a church siege in Bethlehem, was back in the United States on Monday, his father said. -more-

To the Editor: -more-

BERKELEY — Officials at the University of California at Berkeley say they are -more-

ARCATA — Eric Striedieck’s team was making good time in the race when disaster struck — the 10-foot, human-powered sculpture they were piloting over Humboldt Bay sank, and they were overtaken by a 14-foot iguana. -more-

SACRAMENTO — After vetoing workers’ compensation reforms for three years, Gov. Gray Davis this year declared the legislation long overdue and signed the labor-friendly bill into law. -more-

LOS ANGELES — AIDS Healthcare Foundation, one of the largest providers of specialized care for HIV patients in the United States, said it will bar GlaxoSmithKline from marketing drugs at its outpatient sites to protest the company’s pricing policies. -more-

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WASHINGTON — Broccoli and broccoli sprouts contain a chemical that kills the bacteria responsible for most stomach cancer, say researchers, confirming the dietary advice that moms have been handing out for years. -more-

REDDING — After five hours traveling at night, four paraplegic climbers have gained 1,200 feet on Mount Shasta by using special handcranked machines. -more-

The University of California has offered to curtail mandatory overtime for its nurses and shift from a merit pay system to one based on seniority, marking a major shift in the contract squabble between the two sides. -more-

To the Editor: -more-

xIf you think Elvis Costello, the once kingpin of Punk and New Wave angst, has stifled his sharp tongue and rocking sensibilities in favor of just collaborating with the likes of Burt Bachrach and Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter only, think again. Costello proved beyond a doubt where his musical roots lay at a recent show at the Berkeley Community Theater. He showed the crowd that though his musical styles have expanded beyond the fast-paced, witty lyrics of his early career, his origins of being a great rock 'n' roll songwriter and a captivating performer are still perfectly intact. -more-

Friday, May 2

The Berkeley Unified School District revealed new budget figures and Superintendent Michele Lawrence warned that the district may carry a deficit into next year at the Board of Education meeting Wednesday night. -more-

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Solano Avenue sidewalks will explode with chocolate and colorful chalk artwork for three days during the Memorial Day holiday weekend at the Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival running May 25- 27. -more-

City Council considers new regulations as well -more-

To the Editor: -more-

LOS ANGELES — If you want to be among the first to own “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” you need to get to the store at an appropriate hour: midnight. -more-

All three Bay Area airports are expecting an especially heavy flow of travelers to pass through their terminals this Memorial Day weekend, perhaps the highest numbers since the Sept. 11 attacks traumatized American air travel. -more-

To the Editor: -more-

DETROIT — The Detroit Electronic Music Festival drew more than 1 million people in each of its first two years. -more-

A high pressure system along the mid-Atlantic coast brought sunny skies to much of the East on Thursday afternoon. -more-

To the Editor: -more-

Female genital mutilation is not usually the subject of stand-up comedy. But for African-born Sia Amma, humor has proved powerful and healing. Subjected to a clitorodectomy in her native Liberia when she was just nine years old, Amma has made the problem of female circumcision the central subject of a one-woman show. -more-

FBI agent allegedly switched allegiance to gangsters -more-

xSAN JOSE — Attorneys for former motel handyman Cary Stayner, who has admitted in grotesque detail how he killed three Yosemite National Park tourists in 1999, will try to save his life by arguing to a jury he is mentally ill. -more-

xSAN BERNARDINO — A judge said Thursday that a board that has repeatedly denied Leslie Van Houten parole in two Manson Family murders has failed to give her any guidance on what she could do to make herself suitable for release. -more-

Goat killer sought -more-

LONDON — Some types of rubber bullets used by police to restrain unruly protesters kill and maim too often to be considered a safe method of crowd control, new research concludes. -more-

Online company’s shares skyrocket by almost 12 percent after initial IPO -more-

WASHINGTON – A federal agency set up an “Enron Information Link” for people to report suspicious activities involving Enron or other companies that may have affected West Coast energy prices. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO – Online travel service Orbitz will target footloose gays and lesbians under a marketing partnership announced Wednesday with Web portal Gay.com. -more-

SACRAMENTO – Budget negotiators will consider boosting logging fees to help trim the state’s projected $23.6 billion budget shortfall, lawmakers decided Wednesday evening. -more-

SAN JOSE — Yahoo! Inc. said Thursday it plans to pull most of its online auction initiatives in Europe and instead promote eBay’s market-leading auction site there. -more-

TRUCHAS, N.M. — Hundreds of people left their homes Thursday as a fast-moving 6,000-acre wildfire threatened a small northern New Mexico town. -more-

xLandmark cases brought by individual smokers against the tobacco industry, listing date, location, award, parties and status: -more-

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Two men who forced a bank manager to rob her own bank while they held her family hostage were convicted Thursday of armed bank robbery by extortion. -more-

Hahn, Riordan speak out against plan to separate San Fernando Valley from second-biggest U.S. city -more-

SACRAMENTO – More than a third of California’s single women live in poverty, according to a report released Wednesday by the San Francisco-based Women’s Foundation. -more-

Justice Department considering giving cops power to enforce immigration laws; Florida the first state to agree to idea -more-

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – John Walker Lindh pleaded “please don’t kill me” as U.S. troops took the captured Taliban soldier to a U.S. military camp in Afghanistan, his defense lawyers said Thursday. -more-

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – John Walker Lindh pleaded “please don’t kill me” as U.S. troops took the captured Taliban soldier to a U.S. military camp in Afghanistan, his defense lawyers said Thursday. -more-

SACRAMENTO – Pharmacies could sell hypodermic needles to adults without a doctor’s prescription under a bill approved Thursday by the state Senate. -more-

WASHINGTON – Police and forensic experts worked Thursday to solve the mystery of how Chandra Levy died, with investigators saying most evidence points to murder. -more-

GREAT FALLS, Mont. – Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, the man accused of butchering a 10-year-old boy here and feeding his remains to unsuspecting neighbors, was sentenced Thursday to 130 years in prison without parole for assaults on two other boys. -more-

Provisions to give teachers power over book and curriculum selection dropped -more-

Oceanside Unified School District to pay more than $140,000 -more-