Kelly Fang/Senior Staff

An electrical wire theft, which UC Berkeley officials believe may be linked to the on-campus explosion, is part of a larger trend of copper thefts on campus and in the city.

Although UCPD is conducting an ongoing investigation of Monday’s theft of high-voltage copper wiring from a campus electrical facility, multiple instances of copper theft — from construction materials, decorative plaques and even toilet flushers — have occurred on campus.

The copper wiring was taken from a facility near the Big C trail, according to a UCPD Daily Activity Bulletin. The incident, however, highlights a prevalence of copper theft at UC Berkeley that, while sporadic, is costly to the campus.

Police are actively investigating the theft but do not have any suspects at this time, UCPD spokesperson Lt. Eric Tejada said.

“We have some leads in the case — there was evidence left behind,” Tejada said. “We are hoping to get some fingerprint or DNA evidence off of it.”

Tejada said that copper theft is something UCPD deals with on a regular basis on campus and that thieves commonly cash in the metal at recycling centers.

On Jan. 20, 2011, a grand theft of 500 pounds of copper wiring from Memorial Stadium while it was still under construction cost the campus $2,000, according to UCPD crime logs.

These thefts are not always crimes of opportunity but are often highly planned, Berkeley Police Department records show.

On Aug. 22, a theft of 30 feet of copper coaxial communication cable from a utility pole in northwest Berkeley interrupted telephone and cable television service to numerous homes in the surrounding area, according to a police alert on the city of Berkeley’s website.

Similar incidents occurred in a nearby city, where witnesses reported seeing a boom-equipped utility truck and workers who were wearing hard hats and orange safety vests and appeared to be doing “legitimate work,” according to the alert.

Thefts of copper increase as the price per pound increases, so because the current price of copper is on the rise, the city and its citizens must be even more vigilant, said BPD spokesperson Officer Jennifer Coats in an email.

As of Thursday evening, the price of high-grade copper is $3.26 per pound, according to NASDAQ’s website. Local metal recycling companies said they typically buy used copper at a price between $1.50 to $3.00 per pound, depending on quality.

Rafael Pinedo of Lakeside Non-ferrous Metals, a metal recycler in Oakland, said nonferrous metals are typically sold to the company at the 100-pound minimum after a screening process and 72-hour wait period.

Local police monitor the sale and purchase of scrap metal in the Bay Area and have a system in place to notify recyclers about stolen metal. Paul Forkash, the founder of Aaron Metals in Oakland, believes that middlemen are available to take the metal to be sold in different regions.

“There are some people who are not permitted, have no business license, that will buy metal off the street and will load up a truck to take it to Southern California or Nevada,” Forkash said. “The material could be very identifiable, but yet it is being transported so far out of the area that (police) would have no way of tracking it.”

Chase Schweitzer covers crime. Contact him at cschweitzer@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz.

The post Recent copper thefts part of larger campus and city trend appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Former UC Berkeley coach Jolana Fowler recalls walking down College Avenue toward Rockridge BART to catch a train to San Francisco on Jan. 16 about 11 a.m.

She had her ear buds in and was listening to music when she was approached by a younger woman who asked for directions in front of the 7-Eleven in Elmwood.

At the same time, a car pulled up behind the woman, Fowler said. With her iPhone in hand, she pointed down the street, directing the woman where to go.

“Next thing I know, she punched me,” Fowler said. “Her punch wasn’t that hard. I didn’t fall on the ground; I was just caught off guard … She pushed me to the ground, and I fell back, and my phone fell on the ground.”

The woman picked up the phone and jumped into the car, and Fowler, who previously coached the girls’ club volleyball team, chased after it until the woman hit her hands away from the window, Fowler said.

“Looking back, it was the stupidest thing I could have done,” she said. “What if they had a gun or something?”

As shocking as the encounter was for then-25-year-old Fowler, instances such as this one are far from uncommon in Berkeley. Fowler is only one of 221 victims of robberies that occurred within the city from January to June 2013, according to a recent police report.

At a special meeting Tuesday evening, BPD Chief Michael Meehan and other officers presented the 2013 Mid-Year Crime Report to Berkeley City Council.

Of the trends presented at the meeting, one of the most conspicuous was a 67 percent increase in robberies targeting people with iPhones, smartphones and other small electronic devices in the first six months of 2013 compared to the same months in 2012. The numbers of all other kinds of robbery held constant.

The growing number of smartphone-related robberies within the city is consistent with a growing regional trend, said Capt. Erik Upson of the operations division of the police department.

Of the robberies that occurred in the first half of this year, Upson said, many of them took place in the late evening and early morning, in particular Friday nights and Saturday mornings, although they also occurred in the afternoon.

The presentation also cited the greatest number of incidents of pedestrian robbery as occurring in Downtown, South Berkeley and Southside.

Meehan told council members that BPD has been proactive in recognizing and dealing with the rise in pedestrian robbery, comparing the 24 percent increase in robberies with the 49 percent increase in arrests per robbery in the first six months of 2012.

In response to the uptick in robberies, BPD has partnered with agencies such as BART and UCPD to leverage resources. This includes creating a robbery suppression unit that pairs a UCPD officer with a BPD officer to patrol the area south of campus during times when robberies are most likely to occur.

“The consistent thing is, put your cellphone away, and be aware of your surroundings,” said Capt. Andrew Greenwood of the investigations division.

The report showed that numbers of homicides, rapes and aggravated assaults remained consistent between the first halves of 2012 and 2013. Burglaries, however, are up 10 percent for this year so far.

Although she does not question her safety when she is out, Fowler said, after the incident in January, she makes an effort to be more street-smart by no longer walking around with her headphones in or her phone out.

“Here, living in Berkeley, people just assume it’s a bunch of hippies and vegans and students and everything’s all green and safe,” Fowler said. “Then, all of the sudden, you are getting mugged out of nowhere.”

Contact Chase Schweitzer at cschweitzer@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz.

The post Berkeley robberies up in first 6 months of 2013 appeared first on The Daily Californian.

ThinkFun games/Courtesy

A UC Berkeley psychology professor kicked off a challenge Tuesday to develop game-based learning programs that will enhance logic skills through a new crowd funding platform called BigLeap.

Silvia Bunge, a campus associate professor of psychology, partnered with Bill Ritchie, a leader in the puzzle, logic and game industry, looking to lessen educational inequality across the United States and, eventually, throughout the world. They are currently raising prize money to host an open competition aimed at developing these learning programs.

The teams have been challenged to create programs with instructions that can be easily disseminated and that only utilize materials found for free, such as household items, art materials or even objects found in nature.

“You could always sit a child down and try to teach them the principles of deductive logic and all that, but the thing is that the brain is wired up to learn when it is motivated,” Bunge said. “When you are interested, when you are having fun, that is when you learn the most.”

After years of research into the relationship between the use of games and cognitive development, Bunge found that children who played reasoning and logic games in a social setting for two to three hours a week were able to boost their IQ scores by 10 or more points. Bunge believes much of this has to do with the amount of engagement children are able to invest in games.

After developing the BigLeap crowd funding platform, co-founder Victor Cho began to search for the first “champion” — a person who poses a problem through the platform to a larger community. When his wife read a book that highlighted Bunge’s research about the impact of games on kids, Cho contacted the professor to see if she would be the first champion.

“(My wife) said there could be a really cool challenge around the games given how broad of an impact they could have, and I thought it was brilliant,” Cho said.

The mission of BigLeap, Cho says, is to solve important social problems by posing them to a broader community.

“One of the visions of the platform is to turn people into social champions, who otherwise may not have been thinking about a certain problem or cause to participate in,” Cho said. “These are busy people deep in their careers or research, or starting businesses, but they have a passion around some area, and our platform fills a void by providing a place to connect people.”

Deborah Stipek, a professor of education at Stanford University, says there is a lot of potential in the use of games as a way of educating children, but much more needs to be understood about them.

“I think we’re in a kind of infancy in learning about the quality of games that produce good outcomes,” Stipek said. “The people who are actually studying what effects they have are playing catch up and also trying to identify what are the qualities of games that seem to be effective for kids.”

As of Sunday, the challenge had raised $1,815 of the $25,000 needed by Oct. 20 to host the competition, according to the BigLeap website. If successful, the best game-based learning program developer will take home $15,000. Second place and runners-up will share another $8,000.

Contact Chase Schweitzer at cschweitzer@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz.

The post UC Berkeley professor crowd-funds to develop learning programs appeared first on The Daily Californian.

J. Hannah Lee/Staff

For more photos of Blake House, click here to see the gallery.

North of the Berkeley Hills, nestled in the quiet community of Kensington, lies an abandoned mansion called the Blake House. At the end of a short gravel path, the home historically reserved for the UC president lies behind two wrought iron gates.

But the 13,200-square-foot Mediterranean-style mansion — with an elevator, two kitchens, a massive library and panoramic views — has been empty for more than five years.

Time, neglect and the shifting Hayward fault line have cracked the stucco molding on the facade and interior walls and made concrete walkways uneven and jagged, and a leaky roof has caused enough water damage that all the furniture needed to be placed in storage.

The 90-year-old house and its 10.5-acre estate were endowed to the university in 1957 by Anson and Anita Blake, wealthy quarry owners and long-term benefactors of the university. It was first deemed the presidential residence in 1967, when the position was created, and has since been home to five of seven UC presidents.

Following the resignation in 2008 of then-UC president Robert Dynes, who said the house was “unlivable,” the house’s grand rooms have been mostly unused.

But now, with the July appointment of Janet Napolitano as the next UC president, the Blake House may soon be reconsidered as the president’s home.

In earlier days, the first-floor rooms of the Blake House were used for UC fundraising events and gatherings. Photo by J. Hannah Lee/Staff.

Years of neglect

Walking through the inside of the house, years of disuse and deferred maintenance are readily apparent. Wooden ceilings and plaster walls are cracked — one room had to be covered by a false ceiling to prevent pieces from falling — and ivy creeps under a door to the front patio. Perhaps the most noticeable damage comes from water leaks caused by an ill-designed roof and a balcony that is warped and slanted, decaying under its own weight.

The house was reviewed in 2008 — when Dynes’ successor, Mark Yudof, arrived — with initial assessments for modernization and repairs at about $8 million or $9 million. A 2010 assessment raised that figure to $10 million, with a minimum of $2.2 million to $2.4 million just to bring the house up to code.

Costs included reinforcements for the foundation and structure, modernization of the ’70s-era kitchens and fixtures, roof repairs, updates to the plumbing and electrical systems and a fence around the house for security. Years of deferred maintenance — because repairs were impractical while the house was in regular use — also contributed to the high cost.

“We haven’t done anything for years and years and years,” said Steven Murray, director of the UC Office of the President’s Building and Administrative Service Center. “The minimum would be livable. It would have fresh, good paint — that kind of stuff.”

Yudof considered the $10 million cost inappropriate in light of the budgetary woes gripping the university when he first came into office, opting for leased housing instead.

But his residential accommodations have still been seen by some as controversial. Despite being covered by a private endowment, the $13,375 monthly cost of his first residence was considered lavish at a time of state budget cuts to the UC system.

Five years later, the house remains the same, but an improving economy and an increase in state funding have made fixing the Blake House a more attractive proposition for the university. An assessment conducted this year has also dramatically lowered the expected cost of repairs to be between $3.5 million and $6 million.

And with a transition in the UC presidency imminent, all options are on the table.

Repairs to the house would include an update of its outdated kitchen and fixtures, which would add to the estimated minimum $2.2 million repair cost. Photo by J. Hannah Lee/Staff.

Looking forward

According to UC spokesperson Steve Montiel, the Office of the President is currently weighing all options for the property, but ultimately, the decision of how to use the Blake House comes down to the president and the UC Board of Regents.

The university is currently looking for a leased residence for Napolitano in the East Bay, but where she lives could change with time.

“(Blake House) would have to be in the longer run,” Montiel said.

But the costs of keeping the house as it is are relatively small. Yearly operating costs, covering utilities and the bare essential repairs have averaged about $20,000 since it became vacant. And because the house is owned by the university, a public entity, the house is free from most government oversight and taxes.

Even with repairs, Blake House is not the most desirable place for a UC president to live. Former UC president Charles Hitch called the building the “biggest three-bedroom house in the world,” because despite its ample square footage, only the second story is designed as living space.

Plans to sell the house are also unfeasible. The only condition the Blake family gave when it donated the estate was that the surrounding garden be used by UC Berkeley’s department of landscape architecture, a precursor to the College of Environmental Design. This splits control over the estate between the Office of the President and the College of Environmental Design.

Another plan for the Blake House requires repairs to only the first floor so that the university can once again host fundraising events there. According to Murray, costs of that repair would be offset by saving money otherwise spent on renting off-site locations. These minimal repairs would make the first floor seismically sound and ADA accessible and would cost an estimated $30,000.

“We are right now in the process of getting some plans to repair the minor structural damage,” Murray said. “It turns out the structural work is fairly small. That will bring the structure from what is considered a poor standard to a good standard.”

If a full multimillion-dollar renovation does happen, Murray estimates it would take a year or two to completely renovate the house after the president and regents approve any work.

That cost, along with any major repairs the president and the regents may decide on, would be paid through the Edward F. Searles Fund, a nearly century-old endowment given to the UC Regents and used mostly for costs associated with chancellors’ and the UC president’s housing.

The fund also covers the costs of development or fundraising events held by chancellors and UC presidents and some expenses incurred by administrators.

As of July 2013, the value of the fund stands at $188 million, and annual earnings are estimated at $6.5 million per year. The regents typically use the interest earned on the fund, and what is left over is reinvested.

Much of the woodwork in the Blake House has water damage and would need to be replaced during repairs. Photo by J. Hannah Lee/Staff.

Blake Garden

There is one part of the Blake House, however, that is still in use and thriving: its garden.

When she owned the house, Anita Blake was an avid collector of rare plants and flowers from around the world, and the garden served as her personal collection.

The College of Environmental Design now uses the Blake Garden for teaching and research, and it is responsible for the garden’s upkeep. With more than 1,200 different plant species, the garden is a valuable resource for students as an outdoor laboratory for plant identification, and graduations from the college are sometimes held there.

“It’s not just about the campus,” said Linda Jewell, a professor of landscape architecture and urban design at the college. “It’s as much for the community as it is for the campus. Our department uses it because it’s valuable.”

In the past, environmental design students have worked on semester-long assignments to design and build installations, many of which can still be seen across the estate. Projects include all of the benches, a handmade bamboo aqueduct that carries natural spring water and a tunnel made of intersecting pieces of flexible wood that children often play in.

The groups that visit the garden are not limited to students from UC Berkeley. The estate is a popular spot for visiting scholars, elementary school children and Kensington community members.

The final decisions surrounding the house’s fate may fall to the UC Office of the President, but it is difficult to come to a decision that appeases all stakeholders in the estate. The College of Environmental Design has control of the grounds, the Office of the President operates the house and the surrounding community that frequents the park would oppose large construction on the house and closing of the garden.

“There have always been talks about what to do with the house, but nothing fits perfectly,” said Lauri Twitchell, manager of the Blake Garden. “There are just so many involved with the house.”

Photo by Joe Wright/Staff.

Contact Chase Schweitzer and Jose Hernandez at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

The post Abandoned UC presidential mansion may be renovated after years of neglect appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Brian Ly/Staff

Dojo Dog, one of the three food trucks forced to vacate their operations at the intersection of Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue last December because of construction on campus, opened at a new location at Bancroft Way and College Avenue Thursday.

Dojo Dog owners Michael Koh, a UC Berkeley alumnus,  and Jason Chou said they felt comfortable opening at the new location following a July 24 report by the Berkeley city manager stating that all three vendors may reapply for permits for their original locations once construction concludes.

“Just having that chance, instead of being shut out completely, we felt like we got what we wanted, so we just thought we would open up,” Chou said.

Although the report says that all three vendors can reapply for their old locations, it states that reconstruction of the MLK Jr. Student Union and the AC Transit stop at the intersection will cause major changes to pedestrian traffic, requiring city staff members to re-evaluate the area before they make any final food truck decisions.

Dojo Dog has also lowered its prices since moving, but Chou said that was something they were planning on doing prior to being shut down.

“Definitely, being shut down impacted us negatively, with eight months of having to still pay a bulk of our costs just to stay legal,” Chou said. “We still had to pay a commissary fee, we still had to pay insurance, we had to throw out all our inventory.”

Chou said that while the new location does not seem to have as much foot traffic as the old location, he is excited for the school year to begin and more people to be on campus so they can enjoy delicious food at a fair price.

“We got into this business because we love this community, and a lot of our staff are part of this school community in particular,” Chou said. “We wanted to start this kind of a food truck because we thought it was something that would bring a lot of joy to people.”

Contact Chase Schweitzer at cschweitzer@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz.

The post Dojo Dog reopens at Bancroft Way and College Avenue appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Matt Lee/Staff

Berkeley City Council is looking to crack down on the development of “mini-dorms” — privately owned houses that are converted into dorm-style housing for students — by enacting a new ordinance that would limit their development.

At its meeting on July 16, the City Council voted in favor of a zoning amendment that limits bedroom additions in Berkeley homes, limiting conversions to mini-dorms.

Mini-dorms often aim to maximize bedroom space in private homes by converting shared living areas like living rooms, attics, basements and backyards into bedrooms. These bedrooms are rented out to individuals, reducing the cost of what would otherwise be a group lease.

But often, these additions don’t include new bathrooms, kitchens and plumbing — amenities needed to provide adequate living standards for an increase in residents. Nearby residents allege that neighborhoods also have difficulties, as mini-dorm residents produce excessive waste and noise and take up limited street parking.

“(They’re) a major problem for people who want to see the quality of life improve not only for themselves but for students,” said Jean Mudge, a Berkeley resident who spoke during the public comment period of the council meeting. “(My neighborhood) has become a small slum.”

If the amendment is adopted in September, Berkeley homes with four bedrooms will need an administrative use permit before building a fifth bedroom, and homes with five bedrooms will require a use permit public hearing — which takes five to six months and is estimated to cost around $5,000 — to build a sixth bedroom.

The council also requested that the city draft a more comprehensive ordinance specifically regulating mini-dorms. It would warn neighbors before developers added rooms to a home and would increase city oversight so that mini-dorms comply with city codes. The ordinance would only affect neighborhoods around Southside.

Suleyman Erdem, manager of 2521 College Ave., dubbed “Bear House” by its residents for the wooden bear statue in front, said that the property fits the new mini-dorm designation. He also supports the regulation of mini-dorms as they become more prevalent in the area.

“You have slum landlords out here who care only about the money,” Erdem said. “Some of the places I’ve seen are terrible. People’s Park is cleaner than some of these places.”

With Bear House at 13 bedrooms, many of them shared, Erdem said no additions have been made to the building since he took over management 20 years ago, and prior to housing students, the building was an assisted-living facility for the elderly.

Because of this, Erdem said the proper amenities and services can be offered, but that is not the case for many other properties he knows about in the area. Erdem said the city health department should already be more involved in checking up on properties.

“At the end of the day, the most important thing is the safety measures that are in place,” Erdem said. “That, and hygiene is a big thing too.”

Clothilde Labrousse, a UC Berkeley student, currently lives in a mini-dorm and knows the problems that come from a lack of regulation. Before she moved in, her landlord converted the attic of her building into a three-bedroom unit, and multiple units were added in the backyard.

“We don’t feel safe, because we are in an attic that has no fire escape,” she said. “We are a lot of people living on top of each other with no fire escape or anything — with no smoke detectors either — so in that sense, we feel really unsafe.”

She said the inexpensive rent and the flexibility of her lease allow her to overlook safety and hygiene issues.

Sid Lakireddy, president of Berkeley Property Owners, said the rules should be more relaxed in areas near the UC Berkeley campus, where students traditionally live. He said more regulation would drive up rent for students, exacerbating an already expensive rental market.

“Yes, I think Berkeley needs to preserve its neighborhoods,” Lakireddy said. “Yes, Berkeley has to respect its long-term residents and nontransient residents. On the other hand … students do need a cheaper alternative. Otherwise, they are going to leave Berkeley and move farther afoot and further away.”

Contact Chase Schweitzer and Simon Greenhill at newsdesk@dailycal.org and follow them on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz and @simondgreenhill.

The post City ordinance aims to limit development of private dorm-style housing appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Below is a sample of some of the items that will be discussed at the meeting:

Tuesday: Capital Projects

The Committee on Grounds and Buildings will review a plan to repair defects on 17 residential buildings at UC Santa Cruz.

Wednesday: Student regent and finance

The regents’ Special Committee on Selection of a Student Regent will recommend for approval UC Berkeley undergraduate and ASUC Senator Sadia Saifuddin as student regent.

If approved, Saifuddin will serve as regent-designate before becoming student regent from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015.

Also, the Committee on Finance will discuss updates on the university’s 2013-14 budget. This coming year, the state portion of the budget will increase from roughly $2.4 billion in 2012-13 to $2.8 billion. $125 million will come from a tuition buyout promised by the state in the 2012-13 fiscal year.

The budget also includes $10 million in funds previously allocated by Gov. Jerry Brown for online education in an earlier budget proposal. Brown later vetoed provisions in the budget that would have mandated the University of California spend the funds on online course development.

The university will still use the funds to offer about 150 online courses over the next three years, facilitating cross-campus coordination of academic programs and frameworks for evaluation and accountability within the programs, according to the regents’ agenda item.

The regents will also preliminarily discuss the 2014-15 budget. The UC Office of the President raised concerns over Brown’s call for a continued general tuition freeze without any promise to buy out an increase in tuition, according to the agenda item.

Issues concerning the 2014-15 budget will also be discussed in the regents’ September meeting prior to their  final adoption of the budget at their November meeting.

Thursday: Long-range planning

The Committee on Long Range Planning will review the annual University of California Accountability Report.

The report found that since 1990-91, average inflation-adjusted expenditures for educating UC students have declined 25 percent. However, the share of expenditures borne by students in the form of fees has more than tripled from 13 percent to 49 percent.

Contact Chase Schweitzer at cschweitzer@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz.

The post UC Regents to consider new student regent, budget next week appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The Department of Energy, which financially supports Berkeley lab, was unable to allocate money for new building projects because of the sequester. Both UC Berkeley and Berkeley lab will continue to draft the Long Range Development Plan and procure the proper entitlements necessary to start construction at Richmond Field Station.

Bill Lindsay, Richmond city manager, said he feels confident that the project is going forward and will be beneficial for the city of Richmond.

“We would be disappointed for it to be delayed, but we are keeping in mind that we are in it for the long haul as a 40-year project,” Lindsay said. “Not all 5.2 million square feet is going to get built in year one, and it’s going to take some time. And over that 40-year period, things are going to ebb and flow a little bit.”

Despite the hindrance in funding construction of the first building, Lindsay notes that UC Berkeley and Berkeley lab are continuing the process to obtain the proper entitlements to further the project, such as drafting and submitting an environmental impact report.

“They want to make sure that it is teed up, so when funding does come through, it is ready to go,” Lindsay said.

Presenting the preliminary Long Range Development Plan at a June 20 Richmond community meeting, Berkeley lab Chief Operating Officer Glenn Kubiak said that both Berkeley lab and UC Berkeley are currently constrained for space when considering their mission to further bio-science and green energy.

“Twenty-five percent of the Berkeley lab staff are currently in leases sprinkled throughout the East Bay, all the way as far away as Walnut Creek and away from our main site,” Kubiak said. “The way I like to think about this is by bringing our bio-sciences together creates sort of a melting-pot biological discovery.”

Julie Sinai, director of local government and community relations at UC Berkeley, said that development of the satellite campus will allow UC Berkeley to develop more consequential programs that have a larger effect than just on academics.

“We do kind of basic science here on the campus,” Sinai said. “To be able to have larger lab space to do applied work and to then bridge potentially some workforce development partnerships with the community colleges — those things are just hard to do here because we’re pretty packed.”

Sinai said she believes the potential scientific gains that will be made at the new campus will draw funding for construction.

“We build buildings when we need to, so there are various financing strategies that you can use, and that is just what we’ll have to explore,” Sinai said. “Whether or not we’re breaking ground in 2014 right now is really based on what financing we are able to put together, so chances are groundbreaking will be more likely in 2015.”

Contact Chase Schweitzer at cschweitzer@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz.

The post Berkeley Lab Richmond campus faces setback due to sequester appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The suspect, John Anthony Martin, is alleged to have entered the complex on the 2400 block of Piedmont Avenue between Channing Way and Haste Street on June 23 at approximately 9:30 a.m.

According to a BPD crime alert released Thursday, Martin came across the sleeping victim in her bed after prowling through several rooms. Only after the victim began to yell did Martin flee the building.

According to the crime alert, Martin is 33 years old and is described as being 6 feet 6 inches tall, weighing 280 pounds with brown hair and hazel eyes.

BPD urges anyone who sees Martin to immediately call 911. Anyone with information related to the investigation or who knows of Martin’s whereabouts is directed to contact the BPD Sex Crimes Detail at (510) 981-5735 or the non-emergency line at (510) 981-5900. If you wish to remain anonymous, call Bay Area Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477.

Contact Chase Schweitzer at cschweitzer@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz.

The post BPD searching for man accused of sexual battery in Piedmont Avenue building appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The increase in interest rates from 3.4 to 6.8 percent will affect about 40 percent of UC Berkeley students who take out loans each year. In recent weeks, Democrats and Republicans in both houses of Congress have tried to pass proposals that would extend the subsidies or reform the federal student loans system, but disagreements over the government deficit and proposed reforms prevented a deal.

A proposal by Sen. Elizabeth Warren would fix the rate of subsidized loans to the rate given to major banks by the Federal Reserve at 0.75 percent. Another plan by House Republicans would tie student loan rates to the 10-year U.S. Treasury note, subject to market fluctuations but capped at 8.5 percent.

Rep. John Garamendi, D-Fairfield, a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce is outraged by the failure of Congress to pass effective legislation and attributes much of the inaction to the broader fight in the capitol over the deficit.

“You’ve got a large amount of money, a large number of loans to subsidize the interest rate and a great deal of conflict whether it ought to be done at all,” Garamendi said. “The question arises as to where the money should come from, so you’ve got the deficit issue.”

Rachelle Feldman, director of the UC Berkeley Financial Aid and Scholarship Office, said that some of the proposals put forth may have been more detrimental to students in the long run than the current expiration of the subsidy.

“We want student interest rates low in any permanent solution to the current problem,” Feldman said. “What we don’t want to see is for them to keep the interest rate on subsidized loans low at the expense of any other student-aid program.”

Currently, students who take out loans at UC Berkeley have an average of about $17,000 in debt upon graduation, compared to about $28,000 nationally. Because the subsidized loans have now doubled, Feldman estimates that the average borrower at UC Berkeley would see a difference in his or her monthly payment of about $15 a month over a 10-year repayment period, which amounts to about an extra $1,800 over 10 years.

The expiration of the Stafford subsidized loans will not affect the Stafford unsubsidized loans or the Stafford PLUS loans that graduate students and the families of students can take out that are offered by the financial aid department.

Brian McFadden, a junior at UC Berkeley, plans on taking out all Stafford loans offered to him for the coming year and until he graduates despite the rate increase. When asked about the increase in the interest rate, McFadden was quick to admit the difficulty of grasping the long-term consequences of the interest rate raise.

“People like me can’t think about it, since we have no experience of what it’s like after college being hit with all these debts,” McFadden said. “It’s just a number, an abstraction.”

But McFadden said he is cynical about the politics that surround the increase.

“The sad thing is that I am not surprised — this is business as usual for the country.”

Contact Chase Schweitzer at cschweitzer@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz.

The post Federal student loan rates double as deficit fight continues appeared first on The Daily Californian.