Sunday Streets will be held on a nearly two-mile stretch of Shattuck, spanning from Haste Street to Rose Street. A number of organizations are hosting activities, which range from chess games to yoga sessions, and several bands and dance groups are scheduled to perform in the area.

The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Because the street will be closed off, a number of bus lines have scheduled detours and added temporary stops.

The event will be the second Sunday Streets to be held in Berkeley and aims to draw residents from their homes to connect with the community. Originally inspired by Sunday Streets San Francisco, the event was initiated by an organization called Livable Berkeley.

Livable Berkeley worked in conjunction with other organizations to schedule companion events for the day. The North Shattuck Association is hosting a Vine Street Block Party in the Gourmet Ghetto, and the Downtown Berkeley Association will be hosting an event on Center Street called Downtown Eats, Beats and Brews.

According to Livable Berkeley chair Eric Panzer, last year’s Sunday Streets drew a crowd of about 42,000. This year, he hopes to exceed that.

“We encourage anyone and everyone who wants to be involved to get in contact with us, and hopefully we can find a place for them in our event,” he said.

Contact Tahmina Achekzai at tachekzai@dailycal.org.

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Eric Craypo/Courtesy

A cardio and weights facility located in Memorial Stadium, initially scheduled to open early October, is expected to open to Cal Recreational Sports members Oct. 28.

The Rec Sports Fitness Center, which will provide an alternative workout facility for members on the east side of campus, is scheduled to be under construction until Oct. 24. After the construction is completed, Rec Sports will need several days to finalize preparations before opening.

“We also know it’s hard to pick a firm date (because) there are so many moving parts on a big project like this,” says Eric Craypo, communications director at the Recreational Sports Facility, in an email. “Now that were are getting closer, we’re able to say October 28th.”

At 5,070 square feet, the fitness center will feature brand-new equipment, much of which will be accessible for people with disabilities. The gym will also provide gender-neutral changing rooms and showers.

According to Devin Wicks, the director of fitness at the RSF, the center will operate from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. from Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The facility will be closed on days before home football games and gamedays themselves.

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Stephen Jaffe/International Monetary Fund/Courtesy

President Barack Obama will nominate UC Berkeley professor emeritus Janet Yellen to be chair of the Federal Reserve Wednesday.

Obama is expected to announce the nomination at an event at the White House at 3 p.m., according to Business Insider.

Obama had been considering Yellen and former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers to replace Ben Bernanke as chair of the Fed, but Yellen became the front-runner for the position when Summers withdrew his name from consideration in a Sept. 15 letter to the president.

If she is confirmed by the Senate, Yellen would be both the first female and the first UC Berkeley professor to serve in the position.

From 2004 to 2010, Yellen served as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She is currently vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Yellen served as a macroeconomics professor at the Haas School of Business beginning in 1980. In 1985 and 1988, she received the school’s Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Daphne Chen is a news editor. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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Nationally, the default rate is 14.7 percent for students who began repaying their loans three years ago, in fiscal year 2010. For students who have been repaying their loans for two years, since fiscal year 2011, 10 percent have defaulted. Fiscal years begin Oct. 1 of the previous calendar year and end Sept. 30.

The three-year default rate, a short-term metric used to highlight the most recent trends and compare institutions, shows that loan defaults are increasingly common among former UC Berkeley students as well. Default rates have jumped from 2.6 percent for students who paid back loans from 2009-12 to 3.8 percent for students who repaid loans from 2010-13.

Bernard Gifford, a professor at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education, says the heightened numbers are due in part to the 2008 economic recession. Unemployment rates for people aged 20 to 24 have fluctuated between 12.4 percent and 14.2 percent in the last two years — percent higher than for the economy as a whole, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“You’re getting more students dropping out — they’re making far less money than ever before,” Gifford said. “When you’re offering (loan) advice to students, you have to be mindful of what the world looks like and what the employment rates are.”

Higher college costs also lead to increased default rates, according to Gifford. The UC tuition rate increased by 75.6 percent in the last five years.

“The rate of increase of fees is unprecedented,” Gifford said. “Every year, on average, they’re going up at double-digit rates. The costs that students are being asked to shoulder is higher than it’s ever been.”

This means students have to make up the extra costs — sometimes with loans.

Of all college and university students, students at for-profit institutions have the highest default rates. Of the for-profit students who began repaying their loans in 2010, 21.8 percent have defaulted.

“Higher education institutions in the for-profit sector essentially take all students, and many of them encourage their students to take out loans,” Gifford said. “Frankly, I hope a number of those institutions are put out of business, because a number of them are immoral.”

During the Obama administration, interest rates on government student loans have fallen significantly, according to Gifford. Still, default rates have climbed.

“The growing number of students who have defaulted on their federal student loans is troubling,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a press release. “The Department will continue to work with institutions and borrowers to ensure that student debt is affordable.”

Contact Daniel Tutt at dtutt@dailycal.org.

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The bill, AB 10, will raise the state’s minimum wage from the current level of $8 an hour to $9 an hour by July 1, 2014. The next increase will be implemented Jan. 1, 2016, bumping up the minimum wage to $10.

Brown signed the bill at a ceremony in Los Angeles, where he was accompanied by members of the California State Assembly and dozens of workers.

“It’s my goal and it’s my moral responsibility to do what I can to make our society more harmonious, to make our social fabric tighter and closer and to work toward a solidarity that every day appears to become more distant,” Brown said in a press release.

The Public Policy Institute of California reports that more than 6 million California residents were living under the federal poverty line in 2011. At the same time, the cost of living in many cities in California is well above the national average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Because of the state’s high cost of living, Berkeley City Councilmember Jesse Arreguin strongly supported the bill.

“This bill provides a long overdue increase to help working families and working people in the state,” he said. “I think it’s a huge step forward.”

The city of Berkeley does not have a minimum wage. Since May, however, Berkeley City Council has been considering a proposal to implement a citywide minimum wage of $10.55 an hour.

After the state bill’s approval, Arreguin met with a representative of Berkeley’s Commission on Labor to discuss the relationship between AB 10 and the city proposal.

A 2013 report by the city’s economic development manager, Michael Caplan, suggests that many people may not be able to afford living in Berkeley. According to the study, only 17.1 percent of those who work in Berkeley are city residents.

“Whatever minimum wage we adopt should exceed the state minimum wage,” he said. “It is much more expensive to live in Berkeley than in other areas of the state.”

Contact Tahmina Achekzai at tachekzai@dailycal.org.

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Senate Bill 135 enables the development of a system to notify residents at least one minute prior to an earthquake. Methods of notification are still unclear, but State Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, the main sponsor of the bill, has proposed using Amber Alerts and smartphone apps as well as halting transportation as means of ensuring public safety.

The estimated initial cost to build the system is $80 million for the first five years.

During an earthquake, energy radiates from faults in two phases. The first phase, called P-waves, is low-amplitude and causes no damage. The second phase, S-waves, causes damage through shaking. While the system does not predict earthquakes, it detects P-waves and estimates the magnitude before it strikes, warning residents in the area.

For the past two years, UC Berkeley has been running a successful demonstration system, said Richard Allen, director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. Researchers at the lab contributed extensively to the project.

“This is a big deal for UC Berkeley,” Allen said. “This is a great example of how fundamental research at a university can produce a real public good.”

Berkeley is located near the San Andreas Fault, a prominent earthquake-prone zone. Another one, the Hayward Fault, runs behind Clark Kerr Campus and underneath Memorial Stadium.

The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services now has until January 1, 2016, to find sufficient funds for the system, according to California Newswire.

Allen said Padilla has suggested a variety of sources, including federal grants and bond measures.

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Katherine Velaski/File

Several areas of Tilden Regional Park will be closed to the public between October 2013 and February 2014 due to maintenance work to improve the safety and efficiency of the Tilden Nature Area, according to an East Bay Regional Park District press release.

Areas that will be closed for the duration of the project include Tilden Little Farm, Indian Camp and Big Leaf picnic area. The Environmental Education Center will remain open, but its hours will be restricted to 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. from Tuesday through Sunday.

Some trails may have detour signs or be closed altogether to visitors, the press release states.

The development plan is a part of a fund approved by 72 percent of voters in Alameda and Contra Costa counties in 2008 under the Measure WW bond. Some of the $500 million provided by the bond extension will go toward modernizing the sewage system of the park, including removing abandoned tanks and installing a pump control panel.

The measure, named the “Regional Open Space, Wildlife, Shoreline, and Parks Bond Extension,” aims to preserve and extend the East Bay’s natural parks and wildlife areas.

According to the press release, the nearly $1 million project will enhance the security of the sanitation services for visitors. The nature area, popular among UC Berkeley students, is a 2,079-acre regional park in the Berkeley Hills.

Contact Giacomo Toginini at gtognini@dailycal.org.

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Proponents of the change sought to honor Willie Brown for his civic contributions in areas such as transportation, affordable housing and higher education during his four decades of involvement in California politics.

The Assembly’s move was not a traditional one, however. According to the Sacramento Bee, opponents of the renaming said it violated legislative rules stating that a person being honored by a renaming must be deceased.

Brown grounded his opposition to the renaming of the western span in tradition. As reported by the Bee, Brown said through a spokesman that “the iconic Bay Bridge should keep the name it has had for nearly 77 years, a name that lives in the hearts and minds of all Californians.”

Jeremy Gordon is a news editor. Contact him at jgordon@dailycal.org.

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Read this week’s agenda below:

Sara Grossman is the executive news editor. Contact her at sgrossman@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @saragrossman.

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The lawsuit was filed by the family of the inmate, Baljit Singh, and alleged that psychiatrists at UC Davis Medical Center were indifferent to Singh’s needs and provided substandard care that led to his death, according to The Sacramento Bee.

The settlement follows developments in court that could have ended in a much larger payout by the university if the plaintiffs had prevailed at trial. Shortly before providing a deposition, a defendant in the case threw out his notes on Singh, and Singh’s psychiatric records — some of the most important evidence in the case — contained significant omissions of information.

According to The Sacramento Bee, the settlement amount includes $25,000 for each of Singh’s four children as well for as their mother. $250,000 will go to the family’s lawyers.

Jeremy Gordon is a news editor. Contact him at jgordon@dailycal.org.

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