The Daily Californian

UC Berkeley’s independent, student-run newspaper. Established in 1871, independent since 1971.

[The Daily Californian @dailycal]

Berkeley’s César E. Chávez Park may soon be called ¡Sí Se Puede! Park as the city weighs joining what has become a national renaming trend.

Other suggestions were Esperanza, Campesino and Burrowing Owl Park.

Read our coverage at the link below:
https://t.co/TtGZMyptt7

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California’s Department of Education ruled that Berkeley High’s yearbook contributed to a discriminatory environment for Jewish and Israeli students.

The yearbook advisers must complete an antisemitism training after the CDE found that a sign featured in an image in the yearbook could be interpreted as justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

The sign read: “OCT. 7 Was A RESPONSE NOT AN ATTACK! DO YOUR F****** HW!”

Read our coverage at the link below:
https://t.co/4h3SfCUjNg

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A UC Berkeley math professor said he sees “no point” in grading his students’ homework anymore, given rampant AI usage.

He said there will soon be “nothing human mathematicians can do that AI can’t do better.”

Read our coverage at the link below:
https://t.co/EqhLbPPJmS

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BREAKING: The Daily Cal has obtained Cal football HC Tosh Lupoi’s contract through a public records request. It was signed Oct. 1.

The deal includes:
- $22.6M guaranteed pay over 5 years
- Cal pays the initiation fee and dues of any country club Lupoi wants to join
- Cal has committed $10M per year to football staff and assistants.

If Cal were to fire Lupoi without cause, the contract has Cal pay 80% of Lupoi’s remaining base salary — less than Wilcox at 100%.

Interestingly, if Lupoi quits, the buyout he would have to pay Cal ($5M this season) would be slashed in half if GM Ron Rivera no longer held his post.

Find the full contract here: https://t.co/beR4vObILZ

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/lM3hC1YUCf

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After OpenAI’s claimed solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, Fields medalist and UC Berkeley professor Richard Borcherds is unfazed, saying that people are upset because “they’re slowly realizing that they are dumb” and blaming it on AI.

However, Robin Huang, who is in the final year of her math Ph.D. at UC Berkeley, is not convinced of AI’s capabilities just yet. Though she has used AI to aid her own research, she has found it “very stupid and very inefficient.”

Huang said AI companies’ pursuit of unsolved math problems is an “extremely cynical undertaking” and said she saw AI having a negative impact on the math community. She accused AI companies of turning mathematicians against each other and creating fear about being “scooped,” where another researcher — or, more recently, an AI model — publishes results before a rival does.

Read our coverage at the link below:
https://t.co/yX9q3XVQjC

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The East Bay public bus service, AC Transit, is facing a projected $200 million budget deficit over the next four years, prompting locals to sound the alarm at a public comment meeting.

The deficit could wipe out 16% of current service and may include laying off as many as 300 employees and removing up to 100 buses from daily operations.

As a response to this deficit, the Regional Transit Measure is on the Nov. 3 ballot. This measure would enact a half-cent sales tax to give AC Transit approximately $52 million per year in revenue.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/kp1VWJNTBi

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A UC Berkeley researcher discovered that just 10 minutes of AI use impairs problem-solving abilities.

The researchers observed human-AI interactions through a series of tasks — including mathematical reasoning and reading comprehension problems from the SAT — given to more than 1,200 participants.

They found that the experimental group that was able to use AI assistance for part of the test was less accurate and less persistent in solving the remaining problems once AI access was taken away than those who did not have access to AI in the first place.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/y31L8we0MO

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The Daily Californian built a tool to find out if you are being screwed on rent by your Berkeley landlord.

Using our “Rent-O-Meter,” you can enter your address and unit number to see how your rent compares to similar units in Berkeley and in your building.

The city of Berkeley’s Rent Registry keeps a list of unit-level rent prices, which we obtained through a public records request.

The registry’s data is self-reported by landlords and isn’t always accurate. For example, some units don’t have the correct number of bedrooms listed.

Check out the tool, built by data and news reporter John Schultz, at the link below: https://t.co/AYx87e4u4p

[The Daily Californian @dailycal]

UC Berkeley has announced a “rebuild” of its Arabic and Hebrew language and literature graduate programs, pausing admissions in the meantime.

Graduate admissions to the Hebrew literature and language program have been paused until the 2027-28 academic year, and officials have not yet announced an application reopening date for the Arabic graduate program.

The decision comes following several faculty retirements and new hires.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/3UPqhC651q

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Four researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have won grants to apply artificial intelligence, which the federal administration has labeled “superintelligence,” to physics, biology and chemistry.

The awardees will each receive $875,000 as part of the Department of Energy Early Career Research Program.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/Q4gs5K4OZO

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UC Berkeley’s Financial Aid and Scholarships Office publicly apologized last week after about 8,000 students had their Middle Class Scholarship awards mistakenly reduced.

Students noticed charges of up to several hundred dollars on their CalCentral billing statements before awards were corrected Oct. 7.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/8VBE6hDsal

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In the small company town of Crockett, CA, Big Sugar has taken the 8-hour workday from factory workers.

“This is fucked up. Fuck C&H. It’s blood sugar,” said local union representative Frank Gaskin.

The union, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 6, wanted to retain its old contract during a multiweek strike at the Crockett C&H Sugar Refinery.

The attempt was futile.

Writing for Stacks, The Daily Californian’s magazine, reporter Jackson Woodward followed the saga — read his coverage at the link below: https://t.co/zoFwo3ZtVa

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UC Berkeley’s international office has announced plans to oppose an ICE proposal that would require colleges and universities to pay a $70,000 fee before recommending a foreign student for Optional Practical Training work authorization.

Berkeley International Office told students in an Oct. 7 email that the proposal has not taken effect and current OPT procedures remain unchanged.

ICE argues that the required fee could combat immigration fraud and protect U.S. jobs by incentivizing universities to scrutinize OPT applications more carefully.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/ZDljNzcGDe

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A peptide injection clinic has opened a brick-and-mortar store in Berkeley.

At Hydration Room, services range from “Hangover IV Therapy” to “Stress Rescue” and testosterone replacement therapy.

The “Skinny Shot Injection” contains B-12, and the clinic also carries peptide injections such as GLP-1 shots. Hydration Room also sells peptides through its online store.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/lTZtsEBdeq

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Months after 700 autonomous OpenAI agents broke containment and attacked Hugging Face, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley dropout has exposed how the swarm communicated on the open web.

First reported by the New York Times, the Sept. 25 report by web-scraping and AI safety start-up Parse details that the agents bypassed their sandboxes by creating URLs that loaded and executed JavaScript code. To circumvent a limit on the number of characters in URLs, the agents chained together different URLs containing fragments of the full programs.

Parse co-founder Alex Forman took a leave of absence from UC Berkeley after his second year to found the startup, alongside Founding Engineer and UC Berkeley graduate Mishka Kharlov.

Read our coverage at the link below:
https://t.co/f4hOM4CIwQ

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Cal Athletics sold merch honoring the late Joe Roth, the legendary quarterback who died in 1977 after a battle with cancer.

Now, his brother is asking Cal to donate the profits to charity.

In a story published by SFGate, Editor in Chief Grant Marek reports that Joe’s brother, Tom Roth, called on Cal Athletics to donate the collection’s proceeds to melanoma research or to the Joe Roth Scholarship Fund.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/BCyazjsi4j

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At a Wednesday grand opening, UC Berkeley debuted a new student recreation facility equipped with an outdoor pool, picnic and fitness areas, a ropes course and an event space.

The Strawberry Canyon Recreation Area, located behind California Memorial Stadium, previously only available to student drop-ins during the summer, has now expanded access into the fall and spring semesters. The recreational area’s pool is limited to summertime use.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/fRDebMq2yc

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The University of California is asking a federal judge to dismiss a Department of Justice lawsuit that accuses UCLA of enabling antisemitism and demands the repayment of more than $2 billion in research grants.

In the Title VI lawsuit, the federal government is requesting repayment of grants made since October 2023, when students began protesting the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

In a court filing submitted Wednesday, the UC system described the DOJ’s case as “political coercion,” claiming the government is “weaponizing” civil rights laws against the university.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/GJzzuU7v8n

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From the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, Gov. Gavin Newsom approved a voter bond initiative for $7.5 billion to fund state science and research.

Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, Senate Bill 895 would support research in medicine, climate and public health. The bill includes a $1 billion specific allocation for University of California and California State University research facilities, while also supporting California research institutes, private companies and private universities.

The bond will be on the ballot for the March 2028 California primary.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/Nt7BKslrzN

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UC Berkeley alumni have built an investment marketplace for trading cards, Tash, which they call the “BlackRock of collectibles.”

Backed by Y Combinator, Tash buys different trading cards and allows users to buy and sell shares of the cards like they would stocks or other securities.

Tash will buy and store the physical cards, then split the baskets into shares. It will sell these shares to buyers and then run a secondary marketplace for investors to trade with one another using marketable items, such as other investment products.

Three of the four founders knew one another from high school, then met co-founder Nicolas Sharma during their freshman year at UC Berkeley.

Read our coverage at the link below: https://t.co/Qf6fdSorYD