Editor’s Note: for more updates check dailycal.org

11:25 a.m.

Most of the classes that evacuated Moffitt Library were cancelled or have been moved off campus.

11:18 a.m.

The fire alarms at several campus buildings-Dwinelle Hall, Barrows Hall, Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, Moffitt Library and Valley Life Sciences-went off within the last hour, causing hundreds of students to evacuate the building.

Staff at Moffitt Library said people cannot reenter the building until the Berkeley Fire Department arrives and assesses the situation.

10:30 a.m.

The fire alarm in Dwinelle Hall went off, forcing hundreds of students, staff and faculty to evacuate the building. Many protesters walked over from the demonstration and attempted to convince evacuating students to join the protest.

10:17 a.m.

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau sent out a campuswide e-mail alerting staff, faculty and students about the occupation of the second floor room of Wheeler Hall and the subsequent closure of the building until further notice.

“The campus police are working to resolve a protest action that is occurring in

Wheeler Hall,” he said in the e-mail. “Employees who can contact their supervisors should talk to them if possible to determine whether telecommuting or relocation to another work area is an option. Those in the building right now are advised to leave until the situation has been resolved.”

9:48 a.m.

At least 8 Berkeley police cruisers are at the scene with officers from the department handling the protest.

9:35 a.m.

Protesters are still holding on to their position in the second story room, with intermittent appearances at the window by a masked man who is shouting anti-police messages to the sit-down picket line below.

Some students are still trying to cross the picket line

“I’m pretty confused,” said Dan Brown, a UC Berkeley freshman. “I understand where the protesters are coming from, but if I don’t have a class, free day off.”

9:25 a.m.

“There about 60 of us grads and undergrads, cops are breaking down doors, locked down since 5am,” said one protestor via text message.

8:59 a.m.

Police are using a crowbar to open the door, according to protesters inside.

8:50 a.m.

Protesters have taken over at least one room on the West side of Wheeler Hall. UCPD officers have surrounded the building, and some are inside.

Protesters were yelling out the window of the building with a banner hanging from it.

At least 30 protesters are sitting behind a banner that says “Solidarity” and “shut down UCPD” blocking the path between Durant Hall and Wheeler Hall. Because of construction, the block is forcing pedestrians to walk around Dwinelle Hall or Wheeler Hall in order to pass across to the north or south sides of campus.

The walkways around Wheeler are almost completely blocked off by UCPD and caution tape.

According to witnesses, at least one person has been arrested in connection with the protest.

“I think it’s great … there’s not a lot of people fighting the power,” said onlooker and Berkeley resident Lou Brown.

– Zach EJ Williams, Stephanie Baer, Cristian Macavei, Chris Carrassi, George Ashworth

Protesers try to enter California Hall. Tim Maloney/Staff

Student actions during the first day of the strike at UC Berkeley to protest proposed fee hikes took a more aggressive tone than the other actions taken since the Sept. 24 walkout.

The day’s events were highlighted by 37 protesters, 18 of which were UC students, temporarily occupying a building on campus. Earlier in the day protesters also formed a human chain around California Hall that came close to turning violent.
Previous actions on campus have remain relatively less confrontational.

After leaving Sproul Plaza and marching to Downtown Berkeley protesters marched to California Hall and linked arms around the building to prevent workers from leaving the administrative buidling, though most in the march did not advocate some of the actions.

As the protesters where locking arms about 10 people left the building, none were willing to comment. At around 3 p.m. as two people stepped out of the building, the protesters had formed a solid band and rushed in towards them, preventing them from leaving as the protesters chanted “You work from us.”

Organizers eventually told the protesters to break the line and let the people go. (Click here to read more…)

Set against the backdrop of a home football game against Washington State this past weekend, Party Safe @ Cal sponsored Sober Weekend, a challenge held out to UC Berkeley students to commit to staying sober for the weekend.

The Tang Center program, which is part of Collegiate Alcohol Awareness week, urged students to pledge that they would not drink during the weekend, regardless of Saturday being a game day.

Karen Hughes, coordinator of the Party Safe @ Cal program said she feels the program is important in deconstructing the belief that alcohol is essential at college football games.

“The alcohol beverage industry has spent millions building an association between the two-largely to target/educate young males,” said Hughes.

Hughes said the program is an opportunity for indivduals to change habits.

“I think of Sober Weekend as a “cousin” to The Great American Smoke-Out and TV Turn-Off Week,” Hughes said. “This is a chance for individuals to mindfully change a behavior/habit for a finite period in order to see if in a new light. This can lead to longer term change.”

(Click here to read more…)

eScholarship launched a redesigned Web site today, with numerous digital publishing services available to the university community and a research platform for scholars across the globe.

The new eScholarship, previously known as UC’s eScholarship Repository, offers a publishing platform that enables departments, research units, publishing programs and individual scholars associated with the university to have direct control over the creation and distribution of their scholarship.

eScholarship, which started in 2002 as a collaborative effort between the Berkeley Electronic Press and the California Digital Library, currently consists of more than 30,000 publications. Its purpose is to offer the university community an alternative to traditional scholarly publishing channels and to support the widespread distribution of UC research.

“Our relaunch of eScholarship reflects the enormous value we see in recasting the institutional repository as an open access publisher,” said Catherine Mitchell, director of the publishing group at the California Digital Library. “There is significant need across the University of California campuses for a sustainable infrastructure to support the publication and dissemination of research.”

Books published in eScholarship are now eligible for a combined digital/print publication service provided by UC Publishing Services, a joint program of UC Press and the California Digital Library.

The site redesign has been focusing heavily on improving the quality of access to eScholarship publications. The new site is optimized for Google searches, PDFs can be viewed in their without downloading and research can be shared easily through social networking sites and RSS feeds.

The families of three UC Berkeley alums being held in Iran sent a 2,500-signature petition to that nation’s UN representative on Thursday asking for their immediate release.

Josh Fattal, 27, Shane Bauer, 27 and Sarah Shourd, 31 have been imprisoned for the past 11 weeks for crossing into Iranian territory. The three were vacationing in Iraqi Kurdistan and hiking in the Zagros Mountains at the time, according to the families of the hikers.

The three had been held without contact from any outsiders until Sept. 29a when they were visited by Swiss ambassadors. The ambassadors reported that the three were in good health.
On Sept. 22, Democratic senators introduced a resolution pressing the Iranian government to allow access to the Swiss. The Unites States does not have any direct diplomatic relations with Iran, and has been relying on the Swiss as a go-between.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sept. 18 that the three alumni deserved to be punished. The Iranian government claims they were found in an area known for illegal smuggling, not hiking.

The campus’s Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology kicked off the “99 Bottles of Beer: Global Brewing Traditions 2500 B.C. to the Present” exhibit last weekend, pleasing many food crazed faculty members who have been brainstorming exhibition ideas for more than a year.

“We have a long-standing interest by a number of staff members in the Anthropology of Food (Department) on the subject of food in human culture,” said museum curator Ira Jacknis, in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News.

This weekend’s events will include a Beer Fair and Symposium with speakers such as Fritz Maytag, from San Francisco’s Anchor Brewery, Charles Bamforth, the Anheuser-Busch endowed professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences at UC Davis and beer chef Bruce Paton.

The exhibit showcases some 130 beer-related items, most from the museum’s collections and many on first-time display pieces.

The Free the Hikers campaign, which is led by the families of the three hikers being detained in Iran, is accepting donations to offset its expenses and further work toward bringing the hikers home.

Hikers Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal, graduates of UC Berkeley, have been detained at the Iranian capital, Tehran, since July 31, after accidentally crossing an unmarked border during a hiking trip in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Donations can be made online at the campaign’s website.

Almost a week after the Sept. 24 UC-wide walkout to protest the budget cuts, roughly 200 students, union workers and teachers reassembled Wednesday on Lower Sproul Plaza to discuss the future of the movement.

The three-hour meeting unveiled a plan to hold a conference at UC Berkeley on Oct. 24. Organizers hope the event will assemble supporters from across California’s public education system, including teachers and students in grades K-12, community colleges and the state university system.

(Click here to read more…)

A daily roundup of the biggest headlines in Bay Area and national news.

The UC undergraduate campuses will host a University of California Day on Oct. 1 on CollegeWeekLive.com, and online site which offers a virtual trade show of booths for about 200 colleges, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Since the site’s premiere in 2007, the site has risen in popularity with high school students, who can also use the site to have live Web chats with college counselors and admissions representatives. UC Day will include live chats with representatives from campuses from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Click here to read more…)

The effects, both physical and social, of the H1N1 swine flu are being felt at universities nationwide.

How to prevent its spread
-Wash your hands
-Cover your cough
-If you are sick and not taking fever-reducing medication, stay at home until at least 24 hours after you are free of fever
-Stay at least six feet away from anyone who is sick

Symptoms
-Fever
-Cough
-Fatigue
-Less frequently: runny nose, sore throat, nausea or vomiting
or diarrhea

Other resources:
CDC
University Health Services
UHS Advice Nurse: (510) 643-7197, Monday-Friday, 8 am-4:30 p.m.

Source: UHS