Six months after a hacker broke into a UC Berkeley research computer containing the names and Social Security numbers of more than 600,000 health care workers and patients, the university has suffered another embarrassing security breach: the theft of a laptop containing personal information on nearly 100,000 graduate students. -more-

The West Berkeley warehouse, declared a fire hazard by city officials, could have a potential buyer who wants to preserve the building as a live-work space for artists. -more-

Forget the gaping, empty stare and the gross green garb. New owner John Gordon said that when he is finished, the bedraggled old Victorian on College and Ashby avenues is going to make a dramatic comeback. -more-

A key state official with a vital say over the funding of the planned Ed Roberts Center says he can’t make his decision and placed the blame this month on city officials. -more-

Many Berkeley residents looking for a cheap and easy way to dispose of computer monitors, televisions, herbicides or other toxic substances lying around their house can now have the items picked up at their doorstep. -more-

The assistant Alameda County district attorney in charge of juvenile prosecutions says that he has not yet seen a report on a female student accused of bringing a gun on to the Berkeley High campus one month after Berkeley police officials say they sent it to the district attorney’s office. -more-

The 16-year-old girl who authorities say slashed the throat of a Berkeley woman near the Rose Garden was with a county worker, assigned to juvenile hall, at the time of the attack, said County Supervisor Keith Carson. -more-

The Berkeley Federation of Teachers has publicly rejected the Berkeley Unified School District’s offer of a 1.2 percent teacher pay raise, saying that the contract offer would actually amount to a $2,000-a-year net loss to teachers when coupled with the district’s medical benefits proposals. -more-

A Berkeley developer’s plans for a $700 million luxury casino resort at the foot of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge will move another step closer to realization Thursday night. -more-

CORRECTION -more-

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

Dateline New York, Spring Break, 2005: Now that I’m a coed, after a 31 year hiatus, I get to celebrate spring break with my fellow party-going students. I don’t remember spring break being a big deal when I was an undergraduate, or if we even had spring break, but then I don’t recall much about 1970 through ‘74. -more-

Knife Robbery -more-

There is a dire need for more foster parents, as well as for “fost-adopt”” parents (adults who are approved to pursue the adoption of foster children), throughout the county and state, and in many other parts of the country. -more-

Have you smelled it? For more than three decades, Berkeley residents have told stories about encountering the mysterious, Oceanview burnt pot handle smell. These citizen accounts often describe this nauseous odor as “burning rubber” and “toxic.” In fact, this northwest Berkeley phenomenon of the burnt pot handle smell has generated more nuisance phone calls to city officials and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) than any other environmental concern in Berkeley. -more-

Sometimes news consumers should take a breather, stand back, and try to make sense out of what we are hearing. By juxtaposition maybe we can learn more than facts. I would like to consider three stories side by side: the 59th Street/ Shattuck Avenue neighborhood activist, Patrick McCullough, who shot and wounded a young neighbor who was allegedly part of a North Oakland drug gang; the young Ashley Smith who “disarmed” the Atlanta gunman with religion and pancakes, and my own story. -more-

In 1965, the late Hunter Thompson got his first break as a journalist when he was asked to write an article for the venerable Left journal The Nation, about Berkeley after the Free Speech Movement. -more-

At the height of the “Berkeley insurrection” press reports were loaded with mentions of outsiders, nonstudents and professional troublemakers. Terms like “Cal’s shadow college” and “Berkeley’s hidden community” became part of the journalistic lexicon. These people, it was said, were whipping the campus into a frenzy, goading the students to revolt, harassing the administration, and all the while working for their own fiendish ends. You could almost see them loping along the midnight streets with bags of seditious leaflets, strike orders, red banners of protest and cablegrams from Moscow, Peking or Havana. As in Mississippi and South Vietnam, outside agitators were said to be stirring up the locals, who wanted only to be left alone. -more-

Edward Rowland Sill was once as well known as Mark Twain or Bret Harte. He was certainly important here in Berkeley—the first star to appear in the galaxy of poets we’ve come to associate with our city. -more-

This jewel box of a bookstore/newsstand sits a half-block north of the UC Berkeley campus, where it serves a select clientele. The person browsing beside you might be a nationally renowned author who teaches at the nearby UC journalism school, or a Los Angeles Times or San Francisco Chronicle columnist who lives nearby. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 29 -more-

There are only a few fernleaf Catalina ironwood trees in public places in Berkeley. These include a couple on the west end of Ohlone Park; in Strawberry Creek Park, where the creek was daylighted, near Bonar; and a row of them against a wall on the Camellia Street side of REI’s San Pablo Avenue store. Once you’ve seen this distinctive small tree, you’ll likely start noticing more. -more-

TUESDAY, MARCH 29 -more-