The Daily Californian

BERKELEY ELECTIONS 2026 | Igor Tregub poised to retain Downtown Berkeley’s District 4 City Council seat. As the clock strikes midnight on election night in Berkeley, incumbent Igor Tregub holds a more than 20-point lead over challenger Majdi Gaith in Berkeley’s District 4 City Council race. Tregub stands at 1,392 votes to Gaith’s 908 as of press time. “I feel good about tonight. The election results are very favorable, but I will let democracy run its course,” Tregub said in a text around 11 p.m. “There will be a time when all votes are counted as cast, when I can make claims about the outcome, but for now I look forward to returning to work on behalf of my constituents and all Berkeleyans.” Neither Tregub nor his challenger Gaith have called the election as of press time. Read our coverage at the link below: dailycal.org/news/city/igor-…

BREAKING | Woman crossing street pronounced dead in Berkeley hit-and-run on Ashby Avenue. A 64-year-old woman has died after being struck by an SUV in a hit-and-run on Ashby Avenue and Regent Street on Tuesday around 6:30 p.m., according to Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Byron White. The report said a Silver Kia Soul traveling westbound struck the woman. The driver fled the scene but was spotted by a witness, who police said helped identify the vehicle involved. Radio dispatch reports the woman was found in the middle of the street as she was crossing the road when the vehicle hit her. Ashby Avenue between Hillegass and Telegraph avenues was previously closed to all traffic but is now all clear, according to an email from BPD. Read our coverage below: dailycal.org/news/city/crime…

2026 BERKELEY ELECTIONS | Syrak Micael declares early victory in D7 Berkeley City Council race. Syrak Micael, the East Bay Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed candidate and recent UC Berkeley graduate, has claimed victory in Berkeley’s District 7 City Council race with an early lead of 36.5% over his opponent. Votes are still rolling in and as of press time only 391 total votes are registered in the district. District 7, however, historically has the lowest voter turnout of any district in the city of Berkeley. Incumbent Cecilia Lunaparra was elected with 291 votes out of 488 total votes in 2024’s special election. Micael has currently captured 267 votes. Read our coverage below: dailycal.org/news/city/elect…

BREAKING | UC Berkeley students wait to vote for more than an hour as Democrats seize Congress. Hundreds of voters lined up out the doors of UC Berkeley’s Eshleman Hall and around Lower Sproul Plaza to reach the ballot box on election night. Nationally, almost all major publications have called both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate for Democrats. Thus far, the party has flipped the historically red Texas, Kansas and South Carolina Senate seats to blue in a rebuke of President Donald Trump. Read our coverage below: dailycal.org/news/campus/mas…

Election night in Berkeley teapaw.org/i/broadcasts/2BlMlWQOq…

BREAKING: A UC Berkeley student is being held by ICE after being detained at San Francisco International Airport. The student’s attorney, Niko De Bremaeker of Centro Legal de la Raza, confirmed that UC Berkeley student Paula Valentina Albornoz Hernandez, a 23-year-old who came to the U.S. from Colombia to study business administration, was detained by immigration agents at SFO and is currently being held in a detention facility. De Bremaeker said Albornoz Hernandez was detained for an overstayed visa and was applying for asylum due to “gender-based violence” she experienced in Colombia. He stated that Albornoz Hernandez has a work permit. Read our coverage at the link below: dailycal.org/news/campus/uc-…

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: dailycal.org/news/city/berke…

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: dailycal.org/news/city/local…

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: dailycal.org/news/campus/aca…

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: drive.google.com/file/d/1swK… Read our coverage at the link below: dailycal.org/sports/msports/…

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: dailycal.org/news/campus/aca…

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: dailycal.org/news/city/trans…

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: dailycal.org/news/campus/res…

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: data.dailycal.org/2026-10-13…

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: dailycal.org/news/campus/gra…

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: dailycal.org/news/campus/doe…

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: dailycal.org/news/campus/stu…

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: stacksmagazine.org/articles/…

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: dailycal.org/news/campus/adm…