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SAN FRANCISCO — Pac Bell Park was pumped. -more-

Good news for tenants. There will be no rent hikes next year. -more-

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MARTINEZ — An autopsy has not been able to determine what caused a 19-year-old Diablo Valley College football player to collapse and die during practice in August. -more-

The chief pollster for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon said the campaign should focus more on Simon’s agenda and less on attacking Gov. Gray Davis, during an appearance at UC Berkeley Tuesday. -more-

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SAN JOSE — Goalie Evgeni Nabokov agreed to a two-year, $7.15 million contract with the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday, ending his holdout after five games. -more-

ROCKVILLE, Md. — A bus driver was shot to death Tuesday as he was about to set out on his morning route in what authorities fear was the 13th attack by the Washington-area sniper. Police also revealed a chilling warning found at a weekend shooting scene: “Your children are not safe anywhere at any time.” -more-

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An award-winning mentoring service at Emerson Elementary School faces an uncertain future after the state cut funding for the program in September. -more-

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SACRAMENTO — Leonard Gianessi, who has been barnstorming across the country promoting the benefits of genetically modified crops, was met Tuesday by protesters who complained the technology is not completely understood and, at a minimum, will ruin organic farmers. -more-

NEWARK — Newark police said today they are looking for a fourth person in connection with the slaying of a 17-year-old boy who sometimes passed as a girl. -more-

OAKLAND — A Hayward chemical supply company and seven individuals have pleaded innocent in federal court in Oakland to charges of conspiring to sell $11 million worth of freon to make methamphetamine. -more-

Wrong ballots sent to voters -more-

FRESNO — Environmentalists sued the federal government Tuesday to force it to clean up air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley after a decade of neglect. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO — Sen. Joe Lieberman called again Tuesday for the federal government to adopt an economic stimulus package, while he criticized President Bush’s handling of the economy. -more-

SAN DIEGO — A Navy sailor says he feels lucky to have survived an aircraft carrier accident that left him floating in the frigid Pacific Ocean for more than seven hours. -more-

SACRAMENTO — They met in beauty salons and suburban homes with the guests — all invitation only — coming for the promise of helping their community while making a huge profit for themselves. -more-

NEW YORK — Still skeptical about the stock market’s long-term potential, investors cashed in some gains from two weeks of rallies Tuesday, sending prices lower. Disappointing earnings from Kimberly-Clark, Wyeth and Texas Instruments also prompted some selling. -more-

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LOS ANGELES — Southern California got mixed grades in a new study on protecting the environment, ranking high in recycling but nearly failing in use of treated wastewater. -more-

SANTA ANA — A Superior Court judge gave a Yorba Linda family until Nov. 5 to get their $650,000 home out of foreclosure, a house they nearly lost when they came up $51.56 short on a monthly mortgage payment. -more-

SACRAMENTO — Armed with an opinion from the Legislature’s attorney, Senate leader John Burton said Tuesday that Proposition 51 is unconstitutional and that lawmakers will ask a court to overturn it if it’s approved by voters. -more-

LOS ANGELES — Former baseball star Steve Garvey did not know that he was making false claims when he said people could use a weight-loss product and eat “forbidden foods” such as buttered biscuits and ribs, his lawyer said Tuesday. -more-

Struggling readers appear to be making significant progress under a four year-old “early literacy” program in the Berkeley’s elementary schools, according to a report released last week. -more-

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Tuesday, Oct. 22 -more-

For most of his young life, Sean Young didn’t want to go to Cal. Enter new Golden Bears coach Jeff Tedford – now it looks like Berkeley fans will be able to see Young at Memorial Stadium on a regular basis. -more-

A north Berkeley housing complex planned for where an old gas station once stood at 1797 Shattuck Ave. could pose health risks to neighbors, according to nearby residents. -more-

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SAN FRANCISCO — Just mention Pacific Bell Park and what’s the first image that comes to mind? Barry Bonds plopping balls into the water, of course. -more-

Democracy, public safety and about $47 million in taxpayer dollars will be at stake Nov. 5 when Berkeley voters cast ballots on Measure J. -more-

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Berkeley police arrested 12 men for soliciting prostitutes along San Pablo and Heinz avenues during a four-hour sting Friday evening, police said. -more-

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ROCKVILLE — In a tantalizing turn in the hunt for the Washington-area sniper, investigators said Monday the killer apparently tried to contact them in a phone call that was too “unclear” to be understood. They pleaded with the person to call back. -more-

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OAKLAND — The Oakland Police Department reports that investigators are looking into the city's 90th killing as of Monday. -more-

A lot of attention has been given to green building lately. With that attention has come some confusion about what precisely green building is. Other terms, like “healthy” building, “natural” building, and “sustainable” building, or development, also add to the confusion. This is a complex topic that we will try to clarify in today’s “Power Play” and in the Nov. 11 “Power Play.” -more-

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SACRAMENTO — California’s teen birth rate has dipped below the national average for the first time since 1980, the state Department of Health Services reported Monday. -more-

NEW YORK — Investors rewarded Wall Street for an upbeat earnings season again Monday, pushing stocks sharply higher and extending two weeks of stunning gains. The market overcame an earlier round of profit taking and saw the Dow Jones industrials shoot up more than 200 points. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO — Pacific Gas and Electric Corp. continued negotiating with lenders Monday, hoping to extend the deadline on a $431 million loan to its unregulated energy trading arm that it says it can’t afford to pay. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO — United Airlines announced Monday the closure of a reservation center, leaving more than 500 employees on furlough, according to a United Airlines spokesman. -more-

CHICO — Gov. Gray Davis rallied rural residents and workers while Republican challenger Bill Simon courted farmers Monday as each scrambled to secure support from crucial blocs of voters with 15 days until Election Day. -more-

SACRAMENTO — California’s job and population growth continues to outpace its supply of homes and apartments, steadily worsening one of the nation’s most severe housing shortages, says a new report by a nonprofit group that studies economic and budget trends. -more-

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused Monday to review a challenge of police powers in car searches, the latest post-Sept. 11 example of the justices’ siding with law enforcement in a privacy case. -more-

NEW YORK — Nearly every TV season brings a newly designated “It Girl.” -more-

A pediatrician by trade, Dr. Helen Caldicott’s call to save the children is a fight against militarism. -more-

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onday, Oct. 21 -more-

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The St. Mary’s High football team kicked off their Bay Shore Athletic League season with a 37-14 stomping of Kennedy (Richmond) High on Saturday, getting three rushing touchdowns from Fred Hives in their easiest win of the year. -more-

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In her eight years on the Berkeley City Council, Polly Armstrong has long argued that council’s time and energy was better spent dealing with “police and potholes,” not the international issues raised by colleagues. -more-

Arizona St. 45, No. 7 Oregon 42 -more-

ASHLAND, Va. – A man was shot and wounded in a steakhouse parking lot Saturday night while walking to his car with his wife. Authorities were investigating whether the Washington-area sniper who has killed nine people had struck again, for the first time on a weekend. -more-

Tuesday -more-

Ed Rossbach, a pioneer in the fiber-arts movement, has died at age 88. -more-

A Berkeley police officer shot and killed a pit bull Sunday while responding to a domestic disturbance in northeast Berkeley, authorities said. -more-

A spokesman for Highland Hospital confirms that a man died after being shot in the back in West Oakland around 4:30 a.m. this morning. -more-

n Assault with deadly weapon -more-

SAN FRANCISCO – Eddie “Gwen” Araujo was a good-looking girl – so good, it cost him his life. -more-

Health products company fined in employee deaths -more-

Report: Border security hurting San Diego economy -more-

DENVER – Property-rights groups plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether President Clinton acted illegally when he protected Colorado’s Canyons of the Ancients, California’s groves of giant sequoias and six other federal tracts as national monuments in 2000. -more-

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SAN FRANCISCO – After promising this week to produce proof of a dockworker slowdown at West Coast ports, shipping companies embroiled in a labor dispute with longshoremen on Friday again delayed filing the documents with Department of Justice lawyers. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO – Adobe Systems Inc. today launched its popular Acrobat software in a new direction aimed at increasing the use of the Internet to fill out contracts, tax forms and other key documents. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco city attorney filed a civil lawsuit that claims one of the Bay Area’s largest mechanical contractors faked a partnership with a Filipino firm to defraud the city’s minority contracting program of $8 million. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO – Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco have developed a new mad cow disease detector they claim is faster and more accurate than existing models and could “significantly reduce human exposure” to the fatal brain-destroying malady. -more-

Less than three weeks until the mayoral election, candidate Tom Bates and incumbent Mayor Shirley Dean are defending themselves against charges of campaign finance impropriety. -more-

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Local historical archives are enlivened with thousands of still pictures showing Berkeley's places, people, and events of past decades. But for a more animated glimpse into early local life, nothing beats old home movies, newsreels and other film footage. -more-

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Apparently no one told the Yellowjackets that there are no points for degree of difficulty in football. -more-

Saturday, Oct. 19 -more-

City Council candidate Carlos Estrada doesn’t expect to win. But he does have a larger goal in mind – a new, radical political movement. -more-

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NEW YORK — New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka criticized Israeli and Jewish groups’ involvement in U.S. politics and reiterated that he would not give up his post as official state poet amid accusations of anti-Semitism. -more-

When Cal has the ball -more-

Three months after the retirement of long-standing Police Chief Dash Butler, Berkeley has formally begun its search for a replacement. -more-

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NEW YORK — He hardly mentions his fatal illness, and makes a brief, sarcastic reference to allegations of plagiarism that surfaced in the last year of his life. -more-

The Cal women’s soccer team broke two ugly streaks on Friday during their 2-0 win over Oregon. The Bears scored their first goals of the Pac-10 season, and Laura Schott got her first goal in almost a year. -more-

POINT SUR — Two unarmed Super Hornet fighter jets crashed over the Pacific Ocean about 80 miles southwest of Monterey during routine training Friday morning. The Coast Guard searched for four missing members of the Black Aces squadron from Lemoore Naval Air Station. -more-

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LOS ANGELES — Scientists in California and Virginia will try to decode the genetic makeup of two plant-destroying microbes, including one blamed for killing tens of thousands of oak trees along the West Coast. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO – The attorney for the son of Bay Area food critic and chef Narsai David said Friday that he may stop defending Daniel David, 36, against federal charges of fraud and money laundering because of a potential conflict of interest. -more-

Attack via grapes -more-

Bicyclists cheer commission decision -more-

Students say burgers and doughnuts instead of vegetables -more-

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SAN FRANCISCO — PG&E Corp. suffered another financial blow Friday when Moody’s Investors Service said it was downgrading the credit rating of one of the energy giant’s subsidiaries. -more-

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LOS PADRES NATIONAL FOREST — A second California condor hatched in the wild has been found dead here, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. -more-

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Surfers all have a common bond: the love of waves. But for pro-surfer-turned-musician Jack Johnson and many of the people that have stepped into his life, the bonds go beyond that. -more-

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NEW YORK — If “The West Wing” were the real White House, glum-faced presidential operatives would be obsessing over worrisome poll numbers. -more-

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Friday -more-

Mayor Shirley Dean and challenger Tom Bates traded jabs over Dean’s student appointments to city commissions and Bates’ 1988 role in temporarily blocking construction of UC Berkeley’s Foothill Residence Hall during a sharply-worded campus debate Wednesday night. -more-

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By Judith Scherr -more-

n Carjacked car stopped -more-

SAN FRANCISCO — The feud over Barry Bonds’ historic 73rd home run ball has gone to court, starting a flurry of arguments from both sides about what it means to be a spectator to the great American pastime and whether scuffling over baseballs hit into the stands is just the name of the game. -more-

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Community to receive funds for public transportation study -more-

San Francisco rents -more-

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LOS ANGELES — Forty alleged members of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison-based gang, have been indicted on racketeering charges stemming from a series of violent crimes that included 16 murders and 16 attempted murders, federal officials announced Thursday. -more-

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On Monday, the lights will go on. -more-

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With his eye on the prison system Oakland singer/activist Steve Harris brings his politically-charged music and poetry to Berkeley’s La Pena Cultural Center tonight. -more-

Thursday, Oct. 17 -more-

Someone check the fire extinguishers in the Cal locker room. They could be all used up from cooling off the Bears at halftime. -more-

About 60 pro-Palestinian UC Berkeley students and supporters gathered on the steps of Sproul Hall Wednesday calling on the university to drop conduct charges against 32 student activists who participated in the April 9 occupation of Wheeler Hall. -more-

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The Oakland Ballet’s program 2, featuring two world premieres and two company premieres, made for an entertaining evening of dance last weekend at Oakland's opulent Paramount Theatre. Of the four pieces, the most successful were Agnes de Mille's “Three Virgins and a Devil” and Mexican choreographer Gloria Contreras’ “Opus 45.” -more-

Chris Huffins, former NCAA decathlon champion at Cal and current assistant track & field coach at Georgia Tech, will return to Berkeley as the school’s new director of track and field and cross country, Cal Athletic Director Steve Gladstone announced Wednesday. -more-

Berkeley police officers and firefighters endorsed Mayor Shirley Dean Wednesday in her bid for re-election. -more-

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SAN RAFAEL — A former Lucasfilm employee faces 13 felony counts of theft for allegedly stealing sound effects recordings, images, video files and the musical score to the movie “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones.” -more-

If all goes well, the 69 residents of UA Homes who were displaced by fire in August will be able to return home next week. -more-

LOS ANGELES — With a deadly sniper terrorizing the suburbs of the nation’s capital, 20th Century Fox has decided to delay the release of a thriller about people being pinned down in a phone booth by a gunman they can’t see. -more-

UNITED NATIONS — The United States came under a barrage of criticism Wednesday as the Security Council held an open debate at the behest of dozens of countries angry with the Bush administration’s threat to attack Iraq. -more-

A 32-year-old East Bay woman was killed in a possible suicide attempt when an Amtrak passenger train struck her Toyota pick-up truck at Camelia Street in Berkeley at 9:45 p.m. Tuesday. -more-

OAKLAND – A 17-year-old boy suspected of shooting an Oakland police officer in the head last month made his first appearance in Alameda County Superior Court Wednesday. -more-

n Carjacking -more-

OAKLAND – BART police say a woman was struck and killed by a train as she walked on the tracks at the West Oakland Station Wednesday afternoon. -more-

ANAHEIM — With civic pride and a lot of publicity about their World Series bet at stake, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown refused to wear mouse ears. -more-

BRISBANE — A woman who had lived with her husband for more than a decade in a 300-year-old oak tree on San Bruno Mountain will move into temporary housing. -more-

Ferry proposal to increase service -more-

SACRAMENTO — A majority of California nursing homes fail to meet federal standards and nearly half have not met minimum nurse-staffing levels set by the state, a review by a health care group found. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO — The West Coast port shutdown was not a calamity for all involved: food banks from San Francisco to New York City are finding pantries fat with tons of perishables that never made it to market. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s a familiar story: generic upstarts shaking a long-established industry left vulnerable by expired patents on blockbuster products. -more-

SACRAMENTO — The California Energy Commission and the California Power Authority have set up a program to distribute $1.25 million in grants for schools to install rooftop solar energy systems, officials said Wednesday. -more-

SACRAMENTO — California is getting a $2.3 million federal grant to expand benefits and continue group crisis counseling for family members and survivors of last year’s terrorist attacks, officials said Wednesday. -more-

LOS ANGELES — An Orange County tourist who narrowly avoided being caught in the deadly Bali nightclub bombing that killed his friend returned to California on Wednesday, breaking into sobs as people told him, “It’s good to have you back.” -more-

OAKLAND — Critics of a ballot initiative authorizing 100 new police officers to fight Oakland’s rising murder rate are slamming the plan as a misguided and costly approach. -more-

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Six men were indicted Monday on charges of supporting terrorism by training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden declared that there “is going to be a fight against Americans,” authorities said. -more-

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This holiday season, nearly a thousand of Berkeley’s neediest families will find a check in the mail. -more-

By John J. Lumpkin -more-

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — U.S. troops are giving confiscated weapons and ammunition to warlords in Afghanistan, a practice that critics say strengthens private militias and undermines attempts to establish a national army. -more-