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By Tyler Sipe  – 
East Bay area job centers have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people utilizing their services in the past few months.
Tina Dodson, the director of Tri-Cities One-Stop Career Center in Newark, said foot traffic to the location has doubled in the past month, partly reflecting California’s dramatic half a percent increase in unemployment for October. 
The October state unemployment rate was at a 14-year high of 8.2 percent.  In Alameda County, it stood at 7.1 percent.
Dodson said the last big surge of interest in …

By Amanda Dyer  –
Despite students’ notoriously slim budgets, many UC Berkeley students say they continue to shop at high-end grocery stores near their homes rather than travel farther away for good deals.
Blake Warner, 25, and Caitlin Thompson, 22, left Andronico’s grocery store at Telegraph Avenue and Derby Street one recent fall evening with juice, milk, a package of meat and a few other items.
The couple, both UC Berkeley seniors, live close to the market, and it’s proximity makes it an easy stop to pick up a few things.
Both Warner and …