On June 2, Alameda County votes for district attorney. Will voters stick with the incumbent, reverse the recall they embraced a little over a year ago, or go in a new direction?
Head to the link in bio for more election coverage.
Reported and hosted by Alex N. Gecan
In 2002, Central Works established residency at the Julia Morgan-designed Berkeley City Club. The club’s small theater — a mere 50 seats — makes for intimate and exciting theater, but also “really hinders your earning potential,” said Graves.
About a third of Central Works’ income came from ticket sales, a third from grants, and another third from individual donations.
The closure of the company marks the loss of yet another treasured theater in Berkeley in recent years, including Aurora Theater in 2025, and Bay Area Children’s Theatre and TheatreFirst in 2023.
Read more at the link in bio.
Reported by Nathan Dalton
Photo: Gary Graves
Some supporters of the Multicultural Community Center say its ability to carry out its mission is under attack. In February, UC Berkeley administrators stripped all the political artwork from the center’s walls. The student interns who help run the center also say they have been told they cannot allow community or student organizations to schedule events at the center — a longtime part of its programming.
Head to the link in bio for more.
Reported and produced by Felicia Mello
Video produced by @myroncari
#berkeley #ucberkeley #cal #bayarea
Ninety years does not seem like enough time to contain the life of Wavy Gravy. The hippie icon is probably best known as the emcee of Woodstock, but his impact on American culture goes far beyond those three days of peace and music.
He was Albert Einstein’s neighbor, Bob Dylan’s roommate, and the official clown of the Grateful Dead. His friends are a who’s who of 1960s counterculture: Lenny Bruce, Ram Dass, Ken Kesey. He’s been a beatnik poet, a hog farmer and a jester. An actor, an activist, an artist. A Merry Prankster, a Yippie and an ice cream flavor. He introduced granola to the hippies at Woodstock and ran a pig for president against Richard Nixon.
He once ran for Berkeley City Council, promising “a rubber chicken in every pothole.” He’s been called a “living Buddha” (by the daughter of Jerry Garcia) and declared by a police officer to be “too weird to arrest.” He’s also the co-founder of a commune, a summer camp, and an organization that has provided sight-saving surgeries and other eye care to 75 million people worldwide.
Head to the link in bio for more.
Reported by Nathan Dalton
Photos by @jayblakesberg
A family has filed a lawsuit accusing a school resource officer employed by the Berkeley Police Department of assaulting a student last year after a required therapy session the 17-year-old attended on the Berkeley High campus.
Head to the link in bio for the full report.
Reported and hosted by @penelopefpurchase
Video produced by @myroncari
Gyo Fujikawa's landmark book “Babies,” which broke barriers in 1963, and its companion book “Baby Animals” became classics. They made it on the 2001 list of Publishers Weekly’s top children’s books of all time and sold upward of 2 million copies. The Japanese American author’s books have been reprinted, sold and circulated in 22 countries and 17 languages.
And yet for many years, “Babies” has been missing from the shelves of the Berkeley Public Library. Librarian Bae Smith said this is now changing, and as of this week, copies of the board book are available for checkout. They join the library’s Fujikawa collection, which includes a copy of “Mother Goose” and a Spanish translation of “Oh, What a Busy Day!”
Head to the link in bio for more.
Reported by Sara Hayden
Photos courtesy of Bonita Weavingearth and Denson Fujikawa
@berkeleypubliclibrary
The grants include at least one that the National Science Foundation had previously canceled and was compelled by a federal court order to restore, for a series of mixed-reality exhibits at the Lawrence Hall of Science showcasing Indigenous Ohlone knowledge about the natural world, said one of the project’s leaders, Jedda Foreman.
Foreman, an associate director at the Lawrence Hall of Science, said another researcher on her team received an email April 17 from UC Berkeley’s vice chancellor of research, Katherine Yelick, notifying them that the NSF had suspended the $1.4 million grant. Foreman said she viewed the email, which said the university had received a letter from the NSF raising concerns about “foreign funding.” The email did not provide a copy of the letter or explain further, she said.
The NSF declined to comment on the suspensions. Read the full article, reported by Felicia Mello, at the link in our bio.
Before class and before dawn, the Army ROTC cadets of the Golden Bears Battalion begin a grueling routine — running, weightlifting and crawling through the campus’ eucalyptus groves carrying fake guns.
The contrast between the university’s legacy and a military training program initially drew Sophia Bella Cutino in, but her focus quickly shifted to the humanity beneath the uniform, the in-between moments unseen by the rest of campus.
This story was produced for a documentary photography course at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Head to the link in bio to see the entire photo essay.
Reported and photographed Sophia Bella Cutino
👀 Sneak peek! Sightglass Coffee (@sightglass ) is ready to debut its first cafe in the East Bay, and with a spot directly across from UC Berkeley campus in a student housing tower, this one will be different from all the others.
The bright, modern 1700-square-foot cafe will open on the corner of University and Oxford on May 7, and Nosh got an exclusive first look at the space.
☕ Full story at the @eastbaynosh bio
Reporting by Madeline Taub
Photos by Kelly Sullivan (@kelly0graphy ) for East Bay Nosh
Semi-retired pediatrician Mike Linn has spent years helping bands find places to play just for the fun of it. The Berkeley resident answers emails, builds lineups, connects touring acts with local bands and shows up to make sure the night runs smoothly.
Linn’s taste runs wide, shaped more by curiosity than genre. At Spats, he books a mix of local and touring acts, from punk and garage to country and experimental, often giving space to bands before they’ve built much of a following.
Read the full story, reported by Michael James Tapscott, at the link in our bio.
Photos: Eva Edgren
Games of Berkeley has been welcoming people of all persuasions through its doors since 1980 — The store changed hands multiple times until 2013 when current owner Erik Bigglestone bought the business, later bringing on managers Gwendolyn Reza and Sean Gore as co-owners.
Housed in the former Tower Records storefront, it’s an open, almost cavernous space, a welcome departure from the dusty overstuffed hidey hole traditionally associated with game shops. The shelves are a colorful pastiche of board games, plush monster and blind box toys, gaming manuals, miniatures, a dizzying selection of dice, trading cards, you name it. A potential new obsession to match every customer’s taste.
Head to the link in bio for more.
Reported and photographed by Janelle Hessig for Berkeleyside
#dungeonsanddragons #dnd #berkeley #cal #ucberkeley
