A deal that Mayor Tom Bates and UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau heralded Wednesday as ushering in a new era of town-gown tranquility continues to stir controversy in Berkeley where several councilmembers and neighborhood leaders insist the city got a bum deal. -more-

Before Berkeley and UC signed a deal making settlement negotiations secret, Mayor Tom Bates sought a confidentiality agreement with the UC Berkeley Chancellor. -more-

The Berkeley Unified School District took an enormous bite out of its union problems last Tuesday, reaching tentative agreements with its teachers, bus drivers, custodians, instructional assistants and office workers. -more-

After almost four years of trying to negotiate a new union contract, workers at the Claremont Resort and Spa voted Wednesday to go on strike if an agreement is not reached by June 1. According to the union, 94 percent of the workers voted in favor of walking out. -more-

Overriding the pleas of preservationists, Berkeley Planning Commissioners passed changes to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO) Wednesday night. -more-

Promising to attract some of the best scientific minds in the country, the UC Board of Regents voted Thursday to compete for the management of the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons research and development laboratories in Los Alamos, New Mexico in partnership with Bechtel National, Inc. -more-

When Robi Damelin’s 28-year-old son was killed while serving as an Israeli soldier in the Occupied Territories of Palestine, she didn’t know what to do. She was overcome with a mixture of anger, sadness and confusion. Her son was a peace activist and nev er wanted to serve. She couldn’t figure out who or what to blame. -more-

With the blessing of city officials, the owner of an illegal West Berkeley live/work warehouse where 15 tenants refuse to leave has formulated a plan to speed up evictions and safeguard the value of the property. -more-

In an effort to decrease the number of vacant storefronts around town, the Berkeley City Council Tuesday eased parking requirements for new businesses that open on commercial streets. -more-

Berkeley gardener and traffic circle advocate Karl Reeh is learning the hard way: Never negotiate with terrorists. -more-

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

Parking will no longer be free for local BART riders beginning in January. -more-

Oakland developer Alan Dones told Peralta Community College trustees Tuesday night that he “came to be a partner, not an adversary,” and was withdrawing his controversial proposal for an agreement to develop Peralta-Laney College lands. -more-

Panoramic Hill will become Berkeley’s newest national landmark, a federal official said Thursday. -more-

CITY SERVICES TO UC -more-

If you’ve been traveling south on Interstate 880 from downtown Oakland recently—on your way to the A’s game, for example, or maybe to cruise International Boulevard after you’ve perused the offerings in redbook (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll explain some other time)—then you’ve probably noticed the new Bud Lite billboard next to the overpass just before the High Street exit. It shows two teenage-looking female models—one Latina, one African-American—dressed invitingly, staring out indifferently at the passing cars. I think their look is supposed to represent some sort of challenge—try us out if you’re up to it, man, but you’ve got to bring your A game. Anyway, far up on the right-hand corner of the billboard, away from the two young women and the oversized Bud Lite logo, is the message: “Serve Chilled.” Serve chilled? Is that supposed to mean that the best way to break down these young women’s icy looks is to get them beer-drunk? Or does the message mean that it is the women themselves who are supposed to be served—properly cooled-out, of course—to the would-be male consumers driving by in their cars? I think one of our clever friends at the ad agency made this deliberately ambiguous. -more-

Rape Suspect -more-

The Berkeley City Council, strong-armed by Mayor Bates and the city attorney, has held a series of secret meetings and secret votes about a secret document, culminating on May 24 when the council secretly met and finally voted on a secret final document. Unbelievable! -more-

I am the chief of the cardiology division of Kaiser Richmond where I have worked for 24 years, and I am a resident of Richmond. I rollerblade on the Bay Trail between the Richmond Marina and Point Isabel. I tell my patients to exercise there as well. I rollerblade past the Campus Bay property, a beautiful marshland, sadly contaminated by toxic chemicals. I have been a part of the community movement to demand a safe cleanup of this site. -more-

Aidan Delgado, an Army reservist who witnessed multiple war crimes at Abu Ghraib, returns to the Bay Area May 29, 6 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. Joined by other nationally known war resisters—Camilo Mejia, Tim Goodrich, Jeff Paterson, Stephen Funk, along with family members of servicemen killed in Iraq—Delgado will present a slide show of atrocities he himself observed in Iraq. Delgado spent six months helping to run the now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. -more-

Damp weather and wind flay away at the paint and tin of an old Quonset hut in San Francisco’s Presidio. And, near the foot of its door, there’s a stone with a message carved onto it. The stone commemorates the work of 60 students and teachers, mostly Americans of Japanese descent, who trained and taught here as linguists and translators during the outbreak of World War II. -more-

FRIDAY, MAY 27 -more-

New mid-intersection traffic circles have been sprouting up in central Berkeley like mushrooms after a rain. -more-

FRIDAY, MAY 27 -more-