Hungry for revenue, Berkeley is seeking to charge the University of California for millions in unpaid city services as it also plans to challenge the university’s Long Range Development Plan for being too massive and too vague. -more-

With a Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) “work to rule” labor action scheduled to officially begin this week, meaning teachers refusing to work off the clock, the first effect Berkeley Unified School District parents and students are likely to see is a drop in homework. -more-

With a Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) “work to rule” labor action scheduled to officially begin this week, meaning teachers refusing to work off the clock, the first effect Berkeley Unified School District parents and students are likely to see is a drop in homework. -more-

Berkeley’s insatiable appetite for new buildings is about to claim one of its most charming victims, a Gilman Street garden of earthly delights. -more-

Oakland Councilmember Jane Brunner has called for a city manager’s report to study transferring control of the much criticized Oakland Animal Shelter from police to civilian hands. -more-

Michael Cohen, 9, runs along the Berkeley pier on Monday afternoon. Cohen had come to play in the rain with his dad, brother and friends.. -more-

Another major player will drop a piece on the Laney land development chessboard this week when representatives of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District make a presentation to the Peralta Community College Trustees on plans to develop BART’s Lake Merritt Station. -more-

Two months after BUSD Board Director Joaquin Rivera said “it’s been a long time since we’ve heard anything positive” about the district’s budget, district board members have learned that they are going to wait a little bit longer—the district has revised the “positive” certification of last year’s budget back down to “qualified.” -more-

Glen Yasuda is asking city planning commissioners to put his plans for a new Berkeley Bowl on hold for a month while he prepares a new application. -more-

There’s a 350,000-pound spaceship headed straight for Berkeley, and the only questions left are where and when the big blue ball is going to land. -more-

City officials have called a Thursday night session to address what could become a major problem in Berkeley—“soft story” apartment buildings. -more-

TEACHER PAY -more-

Click here to view the latest work by Justin DeFreitas -more-

I’m not an expert on movies that feature quadriplegics as protagonists, but recently there seems to be a glut on the market. I’m referring specifically to Million Dollar Baby and The Sea Inside, one a Hollywood blockbuster nominated for seven Academy Awards and the other a lesser known foreign film from the Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar. -more-

On Jan. 28, HBO aired a somber BBC film, “Dirty War,” about a hypothetical terrorist attack on central London. Using a small amount of Cesium wrapped in a few pounds of TNT, a group similar to Al Qaeda manages to render several miles of Central London uninhabitable, killing hundreds immediately and subjecting thousands more to the cancerous effects of a radiation dispersal device. -more-

PRO-ACTIVE, PRO-CHOICE -more-

During the November, 2004 election, both Gayle McLaughlin and Lynda Deschambault provided a crucial political breakthrough of sorts for the Green Party of California: Both women surprised local observers by becoming the first Green Party candidates ever to win municipal offices in Contra Costa County. -more-

Out of the darkness, Capt. Rachel Radcliff (Jan Zvaifler) steps, in fatigues with a Big Red One patch on her shoulder, briefcase in tow, wearily reeling off the dizzy details, in operations jargon and military time, of a journey to yet another Middle Eas tern backwater under fire. -more-

Nicole Galland is living the life of most writers’ dreams. Her first novel, The Fool’s Tale, was published last month and she has since signed a deal with her publisher for two more. -more-

We’ve all had the experience of rereading a book after many years and discovering a different book from the one we remember. The knock-out stunner has become a simplistic dud, or the ho-hum classic has been transformed into a profound statement touching our deepest hopes or fears. What’s actually changed, of course, are the times, and the reader’s experience. -more-

TUESDAY, FEB. 22 -more-

Like many things called “California,” California pepper trees aren’t. Schinus molle comes from the inter-Andean valleys of Peru. The tree, a broadleafed evergreen, is distributed all over the world now, used as a landscape and street tree in arid and semiarid areas. Those broad leaves aren’t so broad in appearance; they just aren’t quite conifer needles, but finely divided compound leaves like soft miniature palm fronds. The “peppers” are clusters of pink to red berries that persist long enough to be a decorative asset, and are small enough not to be too much of a mess when they do fall. -more-

TUESDAY, FEB. 22 -more-