Robbery — Prince and King streets

On Sunday, April 14, at approximately 4:30 a.m., a robbery occurred in the area of Prince and King streets. The male victim was walking in the area. The suspect ran up to the victim and punched him. The suspect continued to batter the victim, demanding his cellphone. Fearing for his safety, the victim gave the suspect his phone. The suspect fled the area.

The suspect is described as:

“Asian or Samoan Male, 17-18 years old, 5’8”, thin build wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and dark black pants.”

Vandalism — 2500 block of Hillegass Avenue

On Monday, April 15, at approximately 9:57 p.m., an act of vandalism occurred in the 2500 block of Hillegass Avenue. An unknown suspect threw a bottle through the front window of an apartment, damaging the window.

Loud reports — Sacramento and Oregon streets

On Tuesday, April 16, at approximately 12:30 a.m., a caller reported hearing possibly 30 loud reports in the area of Oregon and Sacramento streets. Officers checked the area and were unable to locate any victims or damaged property.

Auto burglary — 400 block of Gilman Street

On Wednesday, April 17, between 9:30 and 11:00 p.m., an auto burglary occurred in the 400 block of Gilman Street. The victim parked his vehicle in the parking lot next to the sports facility. When he returned, he discovered that an unknown suspect had broken one of the car windows. The suspect stole a backpack with the victim’s wallet, iPad and other items.

Robbery — 2100 block of McKinley Street

On Thursday, April 18, at approximately 2:35 p.m., a strong-arm robbery occurred on the 2100 block of McKinley Street. The female victim was walking in the area and had her cellphone in her hand. The suspect approached the victim from behind and attempted to grab the phone from her hand. The victim and the suspect began to struggle. The suspect then pushed the victim down, ripping the phone from her hand. The suspect fled the area. BPD officers were called to the area to try to locate the suspect. While in the area, the possible suspect was seen in the area of Channing and Martin Luther King Jr. ways. BPD officers attempted to stop the suspect, but he fled on foot. Officers pursued the suspect on foot and later detained him on Milvia Street, north of Channing Way. Through their subsequent investigation, the suspect was arrested for robbery. The victim’s property was recovered.

Residential burglary — 1500 block of Rose Street

On Friday, April 19, between 8:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., a residential burglary occurred on the 1500 block of Rose Street. The resident returned home and discovered his house had been burglarized. The suspect possibly entered through an unlocked window. The suspect stole a game console and other items.

Stolen vehicle — 1800 block of Eastshore Highway

On Saturday, April 20, between 6:30 and 9:00 p.m., an auto theft occurred on the 1800 block of Eastshore Highway. The victim parked his vehicle on Eastshore in front of his business. When he returned, he discovered the vehicle was missing. Taken was a white, 2000 Ford Econoline van.

Please note that these are Calls For Police Services only and are subject to review and reclassification. These CFS numbers only reflect part one crimes reported to BPD. The numbers reflected in the report are only a snapshot of what occurs in the city of Berkeley. The numbers are considered for informational purposes only and should not be used for data analysis or comparison to other agencies. Cases may be reclassified after further review of the incident by supervisors, investigating detectives or the district attorney as appropriate. 

Jaehak Yu is a news editor. Contact him at jyu@dailycal.org.

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Cal Day, for prospective students and parents, will be held this Saturday, April 20, a day also known in marijuana culture as 4/20. Some members of the UC Berkeley community are concerned that the cultural connotations of 4/20, often associated with smoking marijuana, might negatively affect the impression of the UC Berkeley community as a whole to prospective families and reiterate the negative stereotypes associated with Berkeley and drug culture.

According to The Huffington Post, the term “4/20” was allegedly first used by a group of teenagers in the 1970s who would regularly meet after school at 4:20 p.m. to smoke weed.

Today, 4/20 can refer to both the date of April 20 and the time of day and has evolved into an unofficial holiday in which smokers may gather and consume marijuana in a celebratory fashion.

ASUC Senator Mihir Deo expressed concern that the university did not have enough foresight about the cultural connotations of holding Cal Day on 4/20.

“When prospective parents come here, they’ll see this part of Berkeley that doesn’t necessarily define what Berkeley is about,” Deo said. “I think you’ll see some parents who initially wanted their children to go to Berkeley might change their minds.”

According to UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof, this is not the first time Cal Day has been held on 4/20. The last time Cal Day was held on 4/20 was 2002.

In general, Cal Day is strategically held on either the second or third Saturday of April, between Easter and the end of the month, when SIR agreements are due for incoming freshmen.

Despite the 4/20 hype among students, Mogulof trusts that the students of UC Berkeley will make responsible decisions on Saturday. According to both campus administrators and UCPD, there are currently no plans or special procedures in place to monitor marijuana consumption on campus on 4/20, nor have there ever been.

“We will address any marijuana-related activity as appropriate,” said Lt. Eric Tejada.

UCPD Officer Marco Ruiz reiterated Tejada’s point that UCPD does not usually take any extra precautionary measures to monitor students on campus on 4/20. In fact, according to Ruiz, UCPD often sends additional forces to UC Santa Cruz on 4/20 to monitor the annual “Smoke Out.”

Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org

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The man was being treated by firefighters for a medical condition in his home on the 1200 block of Dwight Way at around 1:45 a.m. Monday. It was then when he began allegedly firing a handgun, grazing a firefighter with a bullet, the Chronicle states.

The man was then taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. The injured firefighter was treated at the scene and hospitalization was not required.

Jaehak Yu is a news editor. Contact him at jyu@dailycal.org.

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Once the ASUC election polls close tonight at 11:59 p.m., the votes will be tallied by a Java system called ASUC Tabulator at the tabulations ceremony at 6:30 p.m. on April 18 in 155 Dwinelle Hall.

The process of vote tabulation begins tomorrow as the campus Information Services and Technology division will convert the raw data generated by online and paper ballots into a more organized and usable format.

“Then at the tabulation ceremony, we’ll go through each office, starting probably with the executives, and use the ASUC tabulator to count each vote individually,” said sophomore Alton Zheng, one of the technical coordinators for the ASUC election.

Like in previous years, this year the ASUC Elections Council will be using the preferential proportional representation system, in which students can vote for multiple candidates, ranking chosen candidates in order of preference.

According to the voter’s guide for the 2013 ASUC election, the election tabulator will tally the votes in “rounds.” The first preferences of all voters are tallied first. If no candidate achieves a majority of the votes in this round, each candidate with the lowest vote total is eliminated, and each student’s vote will be transferred to the voter’s next preference.

According to the ASUC bylaws, no election official or candidate will be allowed to see the results before they are unveiled at the ceremony.

“Even I won’t know the results until everyone else finds out at the ceremony,” said Jina Yoo, chair of the ASUC Elections Council.

As with any election technology, there is a possibility that errors will arise during the tabulations ceremony. But the technical coordinators say they are confident that the vote tabulator will generate accurate results.

“It’s actually pretty accurate — nothing with the system went wrong last year,” Zheng said.

The results will be continuously updating throughout the tabulations ceremony and on the ASUC election’s website next Thursday.

Contact Jason Liu at jliu@dailycal.org.

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UC Berkeley beat out Harvard in the final round of the tournament by one-hundredth of a point to be identified as the university with the best research performance of all American institutions competing in the NCAA basketball tournament.

“Our goal was to use proprietary scientific data and analytics from Thomson Reuters to have the schools compete on a different plain that would show a unique perspective into how those institutions compare in terms of their intellectual prowess,” said Gordon Macomber, managing director of Thomson Reuters Scientific & Scholarly Research, in a press release. 

The winners of each round were determined weekly from March 19 to April 8 using Thomson Reuters’ InCities program, a web-based evaluation tool that analyzes a university’s research productivity and performance based on citation data against peers, according to a press release.

In addition to inching out a lead over Harvard for the final battle, UC Berkeley beat out Duke and UCLA in the final four.

Mitchell Handler covers academics and administration. Contact him at mhandler@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @mitchellhandler.

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Blank was known for his films on American food and music and produced 42 films in his career of nearly 50 years, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“I just drift to what I find interesting,” Blank told the International Documentary Association in 2012, the Times reports. “I try to find a fresh way of looking at the world around me and making some sense of it … something lasting that the world would want to see 100 years from now.”

He is survived by ex-wife Chris Simon, his sons Harrod and Beau Blank, daughter Ferris Robinson and three grandchildren.

Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org.

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The ASUC Advocacy Agenda aims to reflect the concerns and needs of the student body and is determined by the ASUC Senate at the start of its new term each year. In the past, the senate has also been responsible for implementing the agenda. However, the senate has determined that the ASUC Advocacy Agenda has not been effectively executed in past years and that the ASUC Office of the President has the capability to implement the agenda itself. This amendment asks voters if they support delegating ASUC Advocacy Agenda implementation duties from ASUC Senate to the ASUC Office of the President.

Wellness and Recreation Referendum

This referendum proposes a mandatory undergraduate and graduate fee of $40 to begin at the start of the 2013-14 academic year that would fund construction of a new campus wellness center. The center would include climbing walls, teaching kitchens, counseling services, group activity classes, and cardio and weight machines. The fee would also help finance a new Memorial Stadium Fitness Center and eliminate the $10 optional fee for membership to RecSports. Additionally, the fee would contribute to funding expenses now supported by the mandatory Recreational Sports Facility Fee and the Intramural Sports Facility Fee, which will expire in 2016 and 2017, respectively. The $40 per-semester fee implemented by the Wellness and Recreation Referendum will begin to increase during fall of 2016. This referendum asks voters if they approve of this fee.

Class Pass Referendum

The Class Pass referendum would renew the current ASUC contract with AC Transit, which allows for unlimited student access on AC Transit and the campus shuttles, including the Night Safety Shuttle. According to the renegotiated contract, students will pay $74 a semester ($4.50 less than the 2012 fee’s level in 2012). This fee would go into effect in fall of 2013 and would remain at the same level for the next three years. This fee would increase by $2 during the fourth and fifth years until it reaches $80 during the sixth and seventh years. If this referendum is not approved, students will lose unlimited access to AC Transit buses. The Class Pass referendum asks voters if they approve of this fee.

‘People’s Rights Amendment’ Referendum

This referendum is in response to the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision that stated that the government cannot restrict independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. This referendum calls on halting the “corrupting effects of undue influence of money in politics by amending the United States Constitution to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case.”

It asks the UC Berkeley student body to agree with three main points:

“1. Only human beings, not corporations, are entitled to constitutional free speech rights.
2. Money is not speech, and therefore regulating political contributions and spending is not equivalent to limiting political speech.
3. There should be a level playing field in campaign spending that allows all individuals, regardless of wealth, to express their views to one another and their government.”

If this referendum is passed, then the ASUC president and Graduate Assembly president will send a letter to the president of the United States and California’s congressional delegation each year until Congress has passed an amendment as provided for in Article V of the United States Constitution to address these issues.

Fossil Fuel Referendum

This referendum asks the student body if it supports the campuswide and systemwide divestment of UC funds from the fossil fuel industry. If this referendum is passed, the ASUC president and Graduate Assembly president will give written notice of this request to the UC president and the UC Berkeley chancellor and chancellor-designate.

Sara Grossman is a news editor. Contact her at sgrossman@dailycal.org.

Clarification(s):
A previous version of this article omitted the Fossil Fuel Referendum because it had not been included in the Voters’ Guide on the ASUC website.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Citizen’s United referendum asks that students agree with the statement that, “Only human beings, not corporations, are entitled to constitutional rights.” In fact, it is “constitutional free speech rights.” Additionally, a previous version of this article stated that the Wellness and Recreation Referendum has a $40 annual fee. In fact, it begins as a $40 per semester fee.

The post Full list of ASUC 2013 election ballot referendums appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Action on the plan, a list of short-term improvements for Telegraph Avenue proposed by Councilmember Kriss Worthington, has been held over for the city council’s meeting on April 30th for further discussion.

The plan incorporates suggestions from groups like the Telegraph Livability Coalition. Improvements in the plan include outdoor merchandise tables for retail stores, increasing the visibility of parking and a monthly music festival. Worthington’s proposal estimates investment costs of about $50,500.

Gautham Thomas covers city government. Contact him at gthomas@dailycal.org.

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Ten of the 65 new buses are now in service, and by midsummer the rest will be cycled in to replace older buses that are now at the end of their service time, according to AC Transit Manager of Media Affairs Clarence Johnson.

According to an AC Transit press release, features of the new buses include universal front-facing passenger seating, accommodations for strollers, an increased number of security cameras and low and slip-resistant flooring. The bus is also environmentally friendly, reducing exhaust emissions by 90 percent.

After looking for a local bus manufacturer, AC Transit obtained the buses through a $33 million contract with Gillig Corporation in Hayward, Calif. The contract is part of a plan to introduce 300 new American-made buses over the next two years, though not all of them will come from Gillig, Johnson said.

Contracting with a local manufacturer is favorable “because it stimulates the local economy, and it helps to bring jobs and keep revenue in our community where we operate,” Johnson said.

Since 2003, AC Transit had run Belgian-designed buses called Van Hools that produced many complaints and criticisms from passengers about the smoothness of the ride, the location of call buttons and the safety of boarding.

“There was some dissatisfaction with the bus,” Johnson said. “So this is an attempt by the agency to give our riders a better bus, one that our riders are happy with.”

Contact Yvonne Ng at yng@dailycal.org.

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A girl shot with an arrow last Tuesday morning near the UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science will receive a care package from country-pop superstar Taylor Swift.

After being struck on her left thigh by a crossbow arrow while climbing on a play structure, 8-year-old Nadine Hairston kept calm by singing Taylor Swift songs with her teacher from minutes after she was shot until she arrived at the hospital.

Support in the Bay Area for Nadine has been massive. Cards, flowers, toys, food, clothing and a stuffed bunny have been delivered to her school in Marinwood, where she is enrolled as a third-grader.

Nadine’s story mobilized a huge response from fans and local media, who urged Swift to reach out to the child. Twitter users joined the campaign for #bravenadine.

In a statement to Mercury News, Alicia Hairston, the girl’s mother, said a representative for Swift called the hospital while she was there with her daughter earlier this week.

“It’s gonna be a package, that’s all I know,” said Hairston, who has “absolutely no idea” what type of gift is coming to her daughter from the pop musician.

According to her mother, Nadine is feeling “amazing” and is already back to her regular life.

“Don’t take it out of context, but if it’s going to happen, it happened to the right child,” Hairston said of the incident in a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle. “She’s just an amazing child. She’s always been remarkably resilient and courageous and brave.”

Police still do not know who fired the arrow or why it was fired, and investigation is still under way. Nadine’s family is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the assailant. Anyone with information is asked to call UCPD at (510) 642-6760.

Contact Mia Shaw at mshaw@dailycal.org.

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