By Angela Kilduff
At the Big Game on Saturday, hundreds of people watched from Tightwad Hill. Listen to their perspectives and learn about this history and future of Tightwad Hill.
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Many thanks to everyone interviewed. Fans included (in order) are Ted Cotsen, Donald Oliver, Jennifer Gage, Harrison Chastang, Tim Wood, Kelly Peterson, Zach Lawryk and Paul White.

By Casey Miner –
Students lined up to enter a carnival on Lower Sproul Thursday afternoon, milling around, socializing, and investigating the inflatable tents and games arrayed around the plaza. To an unschooled passerby, the scene might look totally normal. To Nadesan Permaul, it’s all too rare.

By Will Jason  –
What is the cost of leaving a computer on overnight? Two graduate students hope questions like that will help translate energy use into terms that everyone at University of California, Berkeley can understand.
Sam Borgeson and Omar Khan — students in building science and computer science, respectively — want to make campus energy use more transparent. They are gathering data on the energy used every day at dozens of campus buildings. Then they plan to display the results at a kiosk in the Free Speech Movement Cafe, in …

By Will Jason  – 
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With California facing a record budget crisis, state universities are looking for money wherever they can find it. It appears that U.C. Berkeley is increasingly tapping one reliable source of dollars: foreign students.
According to final enrollment data released November 13, U.C. Berkeley has more than tripled the number of international students in its freshman class. This fall it enrolled 360 foreign students, about eight percent of the freshman class. That’s up from less than 3 percent …

By Will Jason
On any given weekday, if there is a public lecture or seminar at the University of California, Berkeley, there is a good chance it is listed on Lowell Moorcroft’s online calendar.
For more than four years, Moorcroft, 62, has used university computers to publish “Lowell’s Listings — Intellectual Events Around U.C. Berkeley.” The site has developed a following among local retirees and others who come to the campus to learn about everything from the siege of Sarajevo to the capture and storage of greenhouse gases.

By Will Jason
New estimates released Nov 7 show the Presidential election may have set a 36-year record for the rate of youth voter turnout. And the University of California, Berkeley appears to be one of the top contributors to that record among the nation’s college campuses, according to registration statistics and interviews.
Up to 53 percent of eligible young voters—ages 18 to 29—took part in the Nov 4 election, according to estimates from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). They favored the winner, Barack Obama, …

By Casey Miner  At a chain clothing store on Telegraph Avenue, catching shoplifters isn’t just about ethics — it’s about making money.
On a recent weekday afternoon, one employee, who said he has worked at the store for about a year and a half, proudly displayed a row of stickers affixed to the back of his nametag – one for every thief caught. Once he catches ten, he said, the store gives him a $50 gift card.
“It’s annoying,” he said of the shoplifters. “But kids will be kids.”
Employees at …

Video by Angela Kilduff and Casey Miner
See what’s on people’s minds in Berkeley with four days left until the election.

By Angela Kilduff
BERKELEY — It was standing room only at last week’s mayoral debate, and the audience heard from twice as many candidates’ perspectives than the event billed. Two write-in candidates, Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi and Zachary RunningWolf, joined Mayor Tom Bates and Shirley Dean on stage to discuss their positions on Berkeley issues. Over 100 people attended the debate, sponsored by The Berkeley Daily Planet and held at the West Berkeley Senior Center.

By Will Jason
By the time “Yellowjackets” closed Oct. 19 at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, the play helped raised more than $6,000 for the cash-strapped high school newspaper, the Berkeley High Jacket. But while the play—which follows a racial controversy involving the Jacket 14 years ago—helped to solve the newspaper’s financial crisis, it also brought to light a more persistent challenge that continues to face the paper today.
Set at Berkeley High School in 1994, the play follows the boycott of the Jacket by a group of minority students and teachers after …