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Mask Up, Berkeley StudentsI was trying to avoid writing more stuff on masks, but this is unbelievable. UC Berkeley, that bastion of California higher education, is now requiring masks -both indoors and outdoors, if one is not vaccinated against… influenza! And, as a virologist and vaccinologist, the use of the slang “flu” makes me cringe. There are no “flu” vaccines. There are a variety of vaccines for reducing Influenza A and Influenza B virus infection and disease. None of them work particularly well. And just as with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the vast majority of deaths from Influenza A and B...

A handful of colleges around the country are clinging to COVID-19-related protocols, including mask mandates for indoor areas and vaccine mandates for students and staff. Pandemic-related restrictions on some college campuses persist as most public health guidelines have relaxed and mask and vaccine mandates have receded from most areas of daily life. But in some cases, the mandates are going beyond COVID-19. At the University of California, Berkeley, students are mandated to get vaccinated against coronavirus, as well as the flu. The university's guidance says students who are not vaccinated against the flu will be required to wear a mask...

Pro-mask zealots have caused incalculable damage to society over the past two and a half years. It spans from their denial of evidence that masking does not work to forcing toddlers to mask in many parts of the country. But many have assumed that masking would be a temporary intervention, endlessly asking the inevitable question, “Why is it so hard to wear a mask?” Recent news out of UC Berkeley shows exactly why so many people have pointed out how ineffective universal masking has been. Because “experts” have lied to the public about the effectiveness of masks for so long,...

A female molecular geneticist participating in a UC Berkeley debate argued that trans women are not women and should not be legally treated as such, citing examples of women's safety fears of trans women in changing rooms and prisons. The geneticist argued that legally treating trans women as women, and allowing them into changing rooms and prisons, means women have put a man's comfort ahead of their own safety - claiming that the behavior of men is inherently different than that of women. 'Women have internalized misogyny to the point where the man's comfort takes precedence over the woman's safety,'...

The accommodation houses University of California, Berkeley students and has rules that specifically ban 'white people' from common spaces in the house The Person of Color Theme House says many of it's members moved to the house to avoid 'white violence' It also calls for members to avoid bringing 'parents/family members that express bigotry' Several people, including POC, have complained of a ferocious culture in the house that seeks to exclude and belittle The accommodation, which is located close to Berkeley's campus, is a five-story, 30-room home that can house up to 56 students

An off-campus co-op for students at the University of California, Berkeley named the 'Person of Color Theme House' has banned white guests from entering common areas of the house. A list of house rules revealed that occupants were told 'many POC moved here to be able to avoid white violence and presence, so respect their decision of avoidance if you bring white guests.' While the student house aims to have an 'inclusive' environment, the rules specifically state 'white guests are not allowed in common spaces,' according to the list, which was posted on Reddit. The accommodation, which is located close...

A Swiss human experimenter, a Hungarian Nazi collaborator, and an Iranian tech tycoon walk into Washington D.C. What do you call them? The absentee owners of the Democrat Party. It’s not a joke. Unfortunately it’s grimly serious. Politico recently reported that the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the leading dark money machine of the Left, had pumped $410 million into Dem 2020 efforts to defeat Trump and Republicans. The Sixteen Thirty Fund had raised a record $390 million that year and half the money came from just 4 donors. While the names of the donors are secret, the article did note the...

Yesterday was an educational day. Josh Hawley took on a looney from Berkeley- but aren't they all? I've seen lots of claims of how Khiara Bridges "pwned" Hawley but saner and more mature minds saw it differently. During a hearing on the impact of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe Hawley and Bridges, a law professor from Berkeley, got into an animated discussion which made clear how far from reality the left has gotten. Hawley asked some simple questions of a highly insecure person and was insulted repeatedly. 'You've used a phrase I want to make sure I understand...

Senator Josh Hawley is “transphobic” and made gender dysphoric individuals vulnerable to abuse because he asked if men could get pregnant, according to one professor. Professor Khiara Bridges, who teaches law at the University of California Berkeley, made the accusation on Tuesday during a Senate hearing about abortion. “You’ve referred to ‘people with a capacity for pregnancy,’ would that be women?” the Missouri Republican asked. “Many women, cis women, have the capacity for pregnancy, many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy,” Professor Bridges said on Tuesday. “Cis” refers to “cisgender,” which means people “whose gender identity corresponds...

Sen. Josh Hawley and a law professor from Berkeley engaged in a heated back-and-forth about who can get pregnant at a Senate hearing on abortion Tuesday, with the teacher accusing the Republican of pursuing a “transphobic” line of questioning. The Missouri Republican was questioning Khiara Bridges at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about the abortion restriction case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that led the Supreme Court to strike down Roe v. Wade last month. ​ The testy exchange began when Hawley said he wanted to “clear one thing up” and ​asked Bridges ​if she meant women when she...

When Texas intervened to protect vulnerable children against transgender child mutilation, Google was one of the companies to sign a letter warning that preventing child abuse was "against the values of our companies." A recent lawsuit provides a small insight into just what the Big Tech giant’s “values” might be. Recently a former Google employer filed a lawsuit accusing the company of discrimination. “I was fired from my team there in February of 2021 because I raised alarm about a cult within Google, a group called the Fellowship of Friends. The group is well-documented: There are allegations of child abuse,...

California electricity bills are among the highest in the nation and are set to continue skyrocketing, putting state and national green ambitions in the spotlight. The surging prices could act as an impediment for the electric vehicle industry in the state. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in 2021 banning new traditional gas vehicles by 2035 while President Joe Biden outlined a nationwide goal of having electric vehicles account for half of total car sales by 2030. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has repeatedly said Americans should buy electric vehicles to avoid the fluctuating costs of gasoline. “It’s a...

UC Berkeley scholar’s old lecture resurfaces and prompts criticism, debate “That’s why I am coming up with this recent understanding that to abolish whiteness is to abolish white people. That’s very uncomfortable perhaps, but it asks about our definitions of what race is and what racial justice might mean.”

Yelp dropped a list Tuesday ranking the best pizza in America — while simultaneously celebrating the made-up holiday National Pizza Day and trying to hire its inaugural “Chief Pizza Officer.” All that hullabaloo is to say: Yelp decreed that the top-ranked pizza spot in the U.S. is Cheese Board Pizza in North Berkeley, beating out New York City’s uber-popular (and troubled) Prince Street Pizza. The charms of the restaurant co-op are apparent for anyone who’s stepped into the perpetually long line: Crisp pizza dough topped with a rotating list of fresh, always vegetarian toppings, with the free green sauce, makes...

OK, we learned something new today. We’ve written a lot about DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) but we’d never heard of DEIBJ, which stands for “diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice” (how soon until we see DEIBJ+). The Skimm interviewed UC Berkeley’s new Vice Chancellor of Equity and Inclusion, Dania Matos, who describes the emotional toll of her $325,000 a year gig. At the time of her interview, she’d only been at UC Berkeley for about a month, so her typical day consisted of “holding informal and formal listening sessions focused on truth-telling, trust, and transformation.” The Skimm asked her...

Nearly half of Bay Area employers expect employees to work in person on three days a week post-pandemic, a market shift that could result in roughly 1.1 million fewer commute trips per day... The survey, conducted monthly since April, found that an average of 40.75% of Bay Area employers surveyed expect their workers to return to the office three days a week once the pandemic subsides. Around 15% to 20% of employers said they expect their workers to return to in-person work five or more days per week while less than 5% of employers said they thought their employees would...

The University of California has slammed the door shut on using any standardized test for admissions decisions, announcing Thursday that faculty could find no alternative exam that would avoid the biased results that led leaders to scrap the SAT last year. UC Provost Michael Brown declared the end of testing for admissions decisions at a Board of Regents meeting, putting a conclusive end to more than three years of research and debate in the nation’s premier public university system on whether standardized testing does more harm than good when assessing applicants for admission. “UC will continue to practice test-free admissions...

Batiste wrote that her and Harris's mothers were some of the 'early activists' who shaped Berkeley, California's ultra-liberal, artistic reputation into what it is today. 'We were a happy, loud, and vibrant crew, led by mothers who were both petite, but who loomed large,' she wrote of her earliest memories meeting Harris and her sister. DailyMail.com obtained an exclusive excerpt from the upcoming book, published November 16 by 12 Books. She said their mothers enrolled them in Berkwood Hedge School, a private school that Batiste described as 'very progressive, even for that time and place' and encouraged 'freedom of expression.'...

David Romps, director of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center, publicly resigned Monday over his concern that the school excludes scientists based on their political beliefs. “Excluding people because of their political and social views diminishes the pool of scientists with which members of BASC can interact and reduces the opportunities for learning and collaboration,” Romps stated on Twitter. “Such exclusion signals that some opinions—even well-intentioned ones—are forbidden, thereby increasing self-censorship, degrading public discourse, and contributing to our nation’s political balkanization.” Romps reportedly asked the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center to invite Dorian Abbot, who was disinvited from a lecture at the...

The University of California will not take SAT and ACT scores into account in admissions or scholarship decisions for its system of 10 schools, which include some of the nation’s most sought-after campuses, in accordance with a settlement in a lawsuit brought by students. The settlement announced on Friday signals the end of a lengthy legal debate over whether the University of California system should use the standardized tests, which students of color and those with disabilities have said put them at a disadvantage. Opponents of the tests called the settlement “historic,” and said that it would broaden access to...