A chemical spilled from a backpack at West Berkeley’s REI store Wednesday afternoon forced the evacuation of scores of customers and employees. -more-

In a move that was widely expected, opponents of the city of Berkeley’s Downtown Area Plan have begun a petition drive for a voter referendum on the plan. -more-

Planning commissioners finished the easy part of their West Berkeley zoning changes Wednesday, July 22, but the hardest part will be on their agenda after their August break. -more-

When George Yoshida greets his South Berkeley Senior Center class of “modified” tai chi and leads us into the first stretch, we see a compact, supple, dark-haired man—pushing 70? Wrong. George was born in 1922. The teaching career he began in Berkeley in 1952 continues to this day. Devoted to teaching? Yes, but his great passion is music—swing and jazz. -more-

Berkeley teenagers may finally have a solution to their boredom. -more-

Despite reports from the state Department of Parks and Recreation, Eastshore State Park isn’t about to close, reports Larry Tong, interagency planning manager for the park district. -more-

Russell Grant, the homeless man pictured on the front of the Daily Planet’s July 23 edition, states emphatically that he is not “Holy Man,” as stated in the accompanying caption and story. Other people have called him a holy man, he says, but he would never himself claim to be a holy man. -more-

The massive draft environmental impact report on what could become California’s first Las Vegas-style metropolitan casino reveals sharp divisions among Richmond residents. -more-

Twelve-year-old Tayo Ogunmayin may have been running track for just two years, but she is already gaining national attention. An incoming seventh-grader at Oakland’s Julia Morgan School for Girls, Ogunmayin will be participating in the North American finals of the Track and Field Games this Saturday in Hershey, Pennsylvania. -more-

Energy snack manufacturer Clif Bar recently announced that it would be moving from Berkeley to Emeryville next year. -more-

The Berkeley City Council broke for the summer on Thursday after unanimously approving a $1.4 million loan in Housing Trust Fund money for the 98-unit Ashby Arts Senior Housing project, after City Manager Phil Kamlarz came up with a proposal to replenish the trust fund monies with the sale and loan foreclosure of other properties. -more-

Last Thursday, the Berkeley City Council tabled a measure supporting a bill in the state Legislature that would strip the University of California’s Board of Regents of a certain measure of autonomy. -more-

The latest round of proposed state budget cuts to public education did not come as a surprise to the Berkeley Unified School District. -more-

The fate of Golden Gate Fields, the Bay Area’s last remaining horseracing venue, remains uncertain as parent Magna Entertainment continues to undergo bankruptcy proceedings in the United States and Canada. -more-

In spring and summer 1934 San Francisco experienced one of the most dramatic labor confrontations in 20th century American history. -more-

Sexual battery arrest -more-

Shattuck Avenue fire -more-

Telegraph Avenue legend B.N. Duncan died in June at the age of 65. I first met B.N. Duncan in 1979 at Krishna Copy on the corner of Telegraph and Dwight. He was xeroxing copies of Tele Times, a little homemade magazine he published. And I was xeroxing copies of Ass Backwards Comix #1. So we were on the same page, literally, from the word go. Geez, I must have been 23, so Duncan was 36. He looked like a weird old man with his disheveled hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses and ratty old clothes. He looked like your weird uncle that you kept in the basement out of sight. He was the arachetypal weirdo artist. -more-

B.N. Duncan had been a fixture at the corner of Haste and Telegraph for so long that the word “fixture” seemed to fit him well. He seemed as permanent as the street sign or as we once thought of Cody’s Books. His Telegraph Avenue Street Calendar, produced with longtime friend Ace Backwords, documented a street scene that was rapidly succumbing to the erroneous business and city view that people came to the Avenue to shop, not to experience its colorful denizens. -more-

At eight in the morning on Monday, July 20, 10 Alameda County sheriffs arrived in their patrol cars in front of the tan house on the corner of Tenth and Willow in West Oakland, the oldest African- American neighborhood in the city, and one of the oldest on the West Coast. The renovated home is surrounded by an iron fence, and the sheriffs poured through its open gate and up the stairs. -more-

UC FOOTBALL MONEY -more-

Though it ends our embarrassing episode with IOUs, California’s new budget is a giant leap backward. -more-

I was one of several commentators who penned an opinion piece for the July 9 Berkeley Planet which criticized Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) for their fast-tracked and inadequate review of potential hazards from their proposed BELLA laser-accelerator facility. -more-

As a frequent visitor to the East Bay from San Francisco, I make a point of picking up your publication regularly. In the latest issue, I was amazed at the number of diatribes against Palestinians and “self-hating Jews.” I am perplexed by the negative energy channeled towards your publication just because you have dared to air dissenting (and therefore apparently unpalatable) views. -more-

If you voted for Obama believing he’d be a better president than John McCain, then you have no reason to be disappointed.  -more-

In the past month, two seeming unrelated events have turned Central Asia into a potential flashpoint between an aggressively expanding North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a nascent strategic alliance between Russia and China. At stake is nothing less than who holds the future high ground in the competition for the world’s energy resources. -more-

After six months in office, the Obama administration has arrived at a defining moment: the battle over health care reform. The outcome will shape future White House initiatives, the 2010 mid-term elections, and the future of the Republican Party. -more-

It used to be that a public figure could immediately lose his public standing by openly and avowedly making unmistakable white supremacist-racist remarks in the public domain. -more-

We’re surrounded by non-native plants and animals, most of which would qualify as what biologists and resource managers call invasive exotics. The thistles in your garden, the possum in your garage, the house sparrows nesting under your eaves, the Argentine ants in your kitchen, the blue gum eucalyptus up the hill—all are invasives. San Francisco Bay has been called the world’s most invaded estuary, the adopted home of aquatic creatures native to the East Coast, Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Many have displaced native species that filled a similar ecological niche. -more-

The people of 17th century Devon made and enjoyed a wonderful apple cyder, and being a modern people (aren’t we always modern people?) they used a new-fangled mechanical press to make their cyder. The press was cleaned using lead shot and, when combined with the acid of the apples, left a residue that made more than a few folks sick. The Devon Colic was identified and explained by one Dr. George Baker in the mid-18th century and by the early 19th century, folks finally accepted the science and got the lead out. -more-