The Berkeley Daily Planet

A male writer wants his girlfriend’s opinion of a story he’s written. The writer is in the States; the woman in question is living in Cairo. The text could be obliquely about their relationship, or at least his attitude about relationships, with Arab women in particular. What are her thoughts? Full Story »

Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Andrew Frankel said a Hispanic man shot a white man in the arm in the parking lot of the downtown Berkeley Walgreens at 2801 Adeline St. at 11:09 p.m. Dec. 6. Frankel said the man's injuries were not life-threatening. Full Story »

The Planet needs your help. Give to the Fund for Local Reporting! Having barricaded themselves in Wheeler Hall on Nov. 20, on the last day of a three-day strike, UC Berkeley students who oppose cuts to public education in California returned to Wheeler Monday night, Dec. 7. Full Story »

The Planet needs your help. Give to the Fund for Local Reporting! The Alameda County district attorney’s office Monday dropped charges against anti-war activist Stephanie Tang pertaining to her involvement in demonstrations two years ago outside downtown Berkeley's Marine Recruitment Center. Full Story »

A meeting and lunch were held Saturday at Berkeley City College as a follow-up to an early November meeting at which several hundred representatives of California schools gathered to organize against cutbacks to public education. Full Story »

On Wednesday, Dec. 2, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith ruled that 1610 Oregon St., a house belonging to Lenora Moore, must be secured and must remain closed for one year, beginning 30 days from the date the notice of closure is posted on the property. Full Story »

The Planet needs your help. Give to the Fund for Local Reporting! Stephanie Tang, an activist with the anti-war group World Can’t Wait, is scheduled to appear in court Monday for a hearing in a criminal case involving demonstrations outside the Marine Recruitment Center in downtown Berkeley. Full Story »

The Planet needs your help. Give to the Fund for Local Reporting! AC Transit’s Board of Directors may vote on whether to reduce bus service by 8.4 percent at its Dec. 16 meeting in the light of a severe budget deficit expected to reach $57 million by June. Full Story »

According to Berkeley Police Department Lieutenant Andrew Greenwood, an unidentified suspect attempted to rob a 62-year-old male pedestrian in the 2700 block of Russell Street at 6:19 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 29. Full Story »

The Planet needs your help. Give to the Fund for Local Reporting! California’s Secretary of State Debra Bowen approved the use of IRV equipment in Alameda County Friday, clearing the way for using instant runoff voting in Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro for the 2010 elections. Full Story »

The Planet needs your help. Give to the Fund for Local Reporting! BART Director Carol Ward Allen says the transit agency will hold a public hearing Dec. 17 to get input from the public on the criteria they think should be used in hiring a new police chief. Full Story »

ReOrient, Golden Thread’s annual festival of one-acts about Middle Eastern identity, is celebrating its 10th anniversary, Thursday through Saturday nights and Sunday late afternoons through Dec. 13 at the Thick House on San Francisco’s Potrero Hill. Full Story »

Click here to read the printed paper. As low as $24 for 15 words. Join the Planet Sales Team! Full Story »

The Planet needs your help. Give to the Fund for Local Reporting! Full Story »

It’s been a long time coming, but there was one identifiable point in my life when I realized I was no longer a Serious Birder. That was two years ago, when Gulls of the Americas, a Peterson Reference Guide, was published, and I didn’t buy it. I still haven’t bought it. Full Story »

The Planet needs your help. Give to the Fund for Local Reporting! It’s 3:30 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon at the North Branch of the Berkeley Public Library. Full Story »

Oakland PEN will present the 19th Annual Josephine Miles Literary Awards for 2009 from 3–6 p.m. Sunday at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way to Doren Robbins, Charles L. Robinson and Al Young, Herbert Gold, Janice Blue, E. Paolo Caruso, and Richard Bruce Nugent—as well as Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Awards to A. D. Winans, Harriet Rohmer and Kristen Lattiny, and the Censorship ... Full Story »

”The Nutcracker” Children’s dance program at 6:30 p.m. at Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave. For ages 3 and up. 524-3043. Full Story »

Spain and the New World: A Holiday Concert” will be performed by Sacred and Profane, the Berkeley- and Oakland-based chamber chorus, now in its 32nd season, that specializes in a cappela music of different periods and places, at 8 p.m. Friday night at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Bancroft Way. Full Story »

Otto Preminger: Anatomy of a Movie,” a 14-film retrospective of the famed Hollywood director’s work, opened last weekend at Pacific Film Archive. Full Story »

Come join us in the dark and we will shine new light on the world.” Full Story »

Joana Carneiro will conduct the Berkeley Symphony in Steven Stucky’s Radical Light and Elegy from August 4, 1964, Jean Sibelius’ Seventh Symphony, and Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite (1919 version), tonight (Thursday) at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Auditorium. Full Story »

Subterranean Shakespeare, working their way through the Shakespearean canon in Monday night staged readings (they’re at number 25 now), will finish out the year with something different: playwright John O’Keefe’s The Bronte Cycle, performed on two Monday evenings, Dec. 7 and 14, at the Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship on Cedar Street. Full Story »

Oakland’s flawed zoning update process lurches ahead, but it’s now clear the Planning Commission and City Council will have the final say. Citizen participation has been misused or unwelcome. Full Story »

The University of California Berkeley Law School is poised to become the most expensive publicly owned law school in the world. Over the next two years, fees will increase by 32 percent. Full Story »