UC Berkeley police are in the news again, for searching a journalist’s camera after a December 11 protest on the college campus at Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s home. The issue at hand was weather or not the search of the journalist David Morse’s camera was done properly in accordance with the law. Last week Alameda County Superior Judge Yolanda Northridge ruled that the search by UC Berkeley police was illegal, and ordered the California university to return all copies of the photographs to Morse. This ruling was well received by many journalist’s, as the judge upheld the state law which restricts the police from searching journalists’ unpublished work.

UC Berkeley has been home to various protests since the 1960’s, as college students and residents have stood up for issues which they feel passionate about. This demonstration at Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s campus residence was focused on the cuts in funding for education which have forced fee increases, reduction in classes, and faculty furloughs. These issues have created situations where students are having to pay more, but be offered less options and fewer choices for classes. It is likely that there will be more protests around the state, as the California State University trustees voted last week to raise fees for students by 5 percent. This move was in response to state funding cuts and students are definitely upset, as the rough economic conditions in California have made it tough for them to pay their increasing expensive school bills.

Journalists and photographers for the press need to cover these events, and this ruling by Judge Northridge will keep them in the trenches reporting around California.

Most California college students had no idea that Lil Romeo, the son of famous rap mogul Master P, had been on the University of Southern California basketball team for his freshman and sophomore years of college. Lil Romeo became well known at age 12 when his father Master P signed him to his record company, No Limits Records. Lil Romeo, aka Percy Miller, later went on to play guard for the basketball team at Beverly Hills High School. While on the USC basketball team for two seasons, Miller only played in a total of nine games in two seasons, for a total of 19 minutes. During his 19 minute college basketball career he only scored five points, while also racking up three rebounds and an assist. Now Miller’s basketball career at USC is over as he got dropped off the team due to infractions from the prior year.

Not only is Miller leaving the USC basketball team, he is also leaving college all together to go back on tour this summer and promote his new album. He also said that he got a new acting opportunity for a big block buster movie. So Miller will be back in the spotlight as Lil Romeo, and it is unclear if he will ever return to the California college basketball scene. USC should be just fine without Miller on the team, as his impact was insignificant over his two years. So get ready to see more of Lil Romeo back in the music scene, and cheer on the USC basketball team for the next season.

Nancy Salas was a former student of University of California, Los Angeles, but her family did not know she had dropped out of college in September 2008. Salas’s trouble began when she ran out of scholarship money and did not have good enough grades to obtain additional funds. Her plan was to return to UCLA the next semester, but she never got back in school and took up a job as a babysitter near campus and hung out in the area. Almost everyone she knew thought she was still attending UCLA, but when her graduation approached Salas panicked as her parents planned to throw a big celebration party in her honor. Instead of coming clean to her family about dropping out of UCLA, Salas faked her own kidnapping to avoid telling her family that she had not been attending UCLA for almost 2 years.

Salas turned up in Merced, California, last Thursday claiming to have been kidnapped by someone with a knife, which caused a frantic search in the area. Expenses from the incident were over $10,000 for the city of Merced, all because Salas hid this secret from her family. The very unfortunate part is that no criminal charges will be made by the Glendale police department near UCLA, so the taxpayers are the ones that now have to pay this bill, in a time when California is already in debt. There is still a possibility that Salas could face charges in Merced for filing a false police report, and Glendale is looking at other ways to recoup the money lost from this incident.

The University of California at Berkeley has been known for protesting and standing up for what they believe in since the 1960’s, and this trend continues as a 10-day hunger strike on the campus just ended recently. Most of the people in the hunger strike were UC Berkeley students, and they have been camping outside the administration building on campus since May 3. This particular protest at UC Berkeley was in response to the new immigration law in Arizona, which gives police the right to question people which they believe are in the country illegally. These protesters have a number of demands, one of which was UC Berkeley publicly denounce the law. This happened last Friday, and may have been the tipping point leading to protesters stopping their protest.

UC Berkeley protesters’ other demands were not met right away, but a meeting was agreed upon with Chancellor Robert Birgenau. Other demands on the list were declaring the UC Berkeley campus a sanctuary for undocumented people, having administrators drop charges against students who were disciplined in campus wide demonstrations last fall, and suspending the student code of conduct and committing to nonviolence during student protests. As it stands now, protesters will have to work out things with Birgenau when they meet with him to discuss the issues which they were protesting. Protesters still feel like it was a win, as they drew a lot of attention to Arizona’s passage of SB 1070 and HB 2281 as an unjust law.

Sustainable development is becoming increasingly popular, as people and businesses look to decrease their environmental impact to help improve conditions around the world. In order to help this movement, the MacArthur Foundation is donating a total of $5.6 million to 10 universities to establish master’s degree programs in sustainable development. Among those universities selected are California colleges UC Berkeley and UC Davis who will both receive a portion of the $5.6 million grant. UC Davis is only receiving $200,000 so they can start to offer a sustainable development program within their College of Agriculture and Environmental Science. Luckily UC Davis is very close to the central valley of California which is a major contributor of agricultural products worldwide. UC Berkeley is getting a bit more money at $800,000, to support their master’s degree program which will start in 2011 with 25 students. The UC Berkeley master’s program is set to be in the College of Natural Resources, which will allow students and faculty in a wide variety of fields to contribute.

More focus on sustainable development in California is a great thing for the state, as it will help create more local businesses in the industry and help to improve living conditions for future generations. California has millions of acres of land that needs to be treated properly, so that things in the state can be sustained for generations to come. Staying at the forefront of sustainable development is a smart move to position California for future economic growth, as we advance the science and technology behind the movement.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, completed a study that involved a compound that is closely related to capsaicin, which is what contributes to a pepper’s heat. In this research from UCLA they used dihydrocapsiate or DCT, which they chose to determine if this compound could aid people in their quest to lose weight. The theory is that ingesting this compound would cause the body to heat up, which could then help burn fat and calories more easily. Luckily participants in the study did not have to love spicy food, as the DCT compound doesn’t have the heat that a Jalapeno has due to capsaicin. Despite the lack of heat, it still has the same effect on people when ingested, which is why UCLA used it for this particular study.

The UCLA research study started out with a group of 51 men and women, but ended up with only 33 due to dropouts which made it a small sample size. Everyone in the study was in the obese category, and given a liquid meal replacement diet which gave them about 800 calories each day. One group was given a placebo and the other was given a DCT dose of 3 or 9 milligrams, and no group knew which dose they were taking. The result from the UCLA study showed that it helped burn about 100 – 200 calories depending on the gender and weight of the person. Since you cannot get DCT, the best way to see if this works is adding a little bit of spicy food to your diet to help burn those extra calories.

California colleges have been popping up in the press quite often this year, as they work to become greener campuses by implementing solar technologies and other environmentally friendly practices. The Princeton Review recently released their Guide to 286 Green Colleges, in which California took 26 of the top spots on the list. However New York beat out every state on The Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges with 37 schools making the list this year. In order to compile this list of green colleges in the U.S., The Princeton Review teams up with Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council. Also known as the  USGBC, their mission is to help the U.S. become more sustainable via cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings. Having 26 California colleges on the list is a great accomplishment, but with the amount of colleges and universities in the state, this number could be much higher.

It is great that someone is taking the time to compile all of the environmentally-responsible campuses in the U.S., as it should inspire other colleges in California to step up their game when it comes to being green. The study looked at many factors which a number of California colleges can improve, such as solar technology utilization and increasing the percentage of budget spent on local/organic food. Having local and organic food should be a definite for all of the colleges in California, as the state produces such a large percentage of U.S. food. Now that this list is published, California colleges can use it as a guide for what they can do to become greener, so that we increase the number of colleges on the The Princeton Review’s Guide to Green Colleges next year.

Complete List of California Colleges on The Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges

California State University, Chico
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
California State University, Stanislaus
Claremont McKenna College
Harvey Mudd College
Humboldt State University
Mills College
Saint Mary’s College (CA)
San Francisco State University
Santa Clara University
Sonoma State University
Stanford University
University of California—Berkeley
University of California, Davis
University of California—Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California—Riverside
University of California—San Diego
University of California—Santa Barbara
University of California—Santa Cruz
University of La Verne
University of Redlands
University of San Diego
University of Southern California
University of the Pacific
Whittier College

California State University and University of California systems have been struggling the last couple years to offer enough classes to all of the students who want to enroll. The current budget crisis in California, and lack of concentrated efforts on funding the California’s public university systems for the past couple decades, have hindered the universities’ ability to accept as many students as they would like. However the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California released a report which recommended the state make changes to the current admission guidelines for the California State University and University of California systems. As of now the master plan for the UC system requires that they choose their students from the top 12.5% of high school graduates and the Cal State system chooses from the top 33.3% of students. These percentages are based upon test scores, high school grades, and other factors which contribute to admission into one of the California universities. Moving forward, the Institute recommends that these percentages are increased to the top 15% for the UC system and the top 40% for the the Cal State system.

The Public Policy Institute of California is not recommending that these changes go live right away, but with a target date of 2025. California has serious budget issues which it needs to overcome so that they can have the money to properly fund the public California universities. Therefore the government needs to make major changes in order to increase revenues in the state, so that they can meet the future demand of California high school students who want to earn their degree.  Change needs to happen soon, as the more California college graduates the state produces, the more likely they are to reduce the budget issues, and more qualified workers will be able to contribute to the local economy.

UC Davis is not traditionally known for being a big party school, and is rarely in the news for things getting out of control with California college students in and around campus. However over the past few years their annual university open house called Picnic Day got a bit chaotic. Picnic Day has been going on at UC Davis for 96 years, but after major increases in violence and arrests this year, it may be the end of the event. This year had 33 arrests, which was over double what was seen in the past couple years, and the event required a lot more police to handle the crowds. When looking deeper into what is causing the UC Davis Picnic Day chaos, you find that it is occurring with California college students in downtown. The Davis Police Department sees this day as having two separate events, in that there are on-campus activities where fun and peaceful events occur, and there is the partying at bars downtown and other house parties.

Many students start drinking very early for the UC Davis Picnic day, starting as early as 5am or in some cases staying up all night until the bars open the next day. Saturday morning many bars in downtown UC Davis open early at 6am, with students lining up before the doors even open. There is also a reason why many line up at bars like the Davis Graduate, because the bar sold a portion of beers for only $1. In fact they sold the first thousand beers for $1 in roughly 30 minutes after opening at 6am that Saturday morning. There were fights, incidents of groped women, an injured police officer, and even reports of thrown furniture. UC Davis has urged downtown bars to not give these crazy discounts to students on this day as it helps lead to more chaos. Officials at UC Davis plan to meet with bar owners downtown to see if they can improve conditions so the event can continue to take place. However this will not stop UC Davis students from partying at their house, or walking around with hard alcohol in their Camelbaks drinking it as they walk around town.

The University of California, Santa Barbara was in the news recently as the county officials put a stop to a massive party dubbed Floatopia. Once canceled the students of UCSB took to the streets of nearby town Isla Vista, which is almost 100% students, in a new party dubbed Del-topia. This party attitude might be one of the reasons why Playboy picked USCB as the number 8 party school, on the Top 10 Schools, 2010 Playboy Party schools. UCSB was the only California college or university on this list, but the Playboy top 10 did also mention Chico saying that “Chico State may get a touch higher, but UCSB grads go on to do great things after their six years in college.” Most do not know that UCSB has 5 Nobel Prize winners on the faculty, which might be why Playboy called the college the “Harvard of Santa Barbara.”

UCSB and the town of Isla Vista is also well known for their massive Halloween party every year that fills up the entire town. It is no wonder that so many people apply each year for UCSB, and other California colleges in the region near the beach. There are not many schools like UCSB in California which have such strong academics, and a great atmosphere for partying. In addition to the Top 10 Schools, 2010 Playboy Party schools, there were also many honorable mentions for colleges around the US. Below are three of the funnier ones that stood out among the honorable mention list.

Best Fish-In-A-Barrel College: Sarah Lawrence, where 73 percent of the student body is female

Best College Drinking Innovation: The Flabongo, a beer bong made out of a lawn flamingo

Best College Sandwich: Fat Philly from the Rutgers grease trucks: two chicken fingers, cheesesteak, gyro meat, two mozzarella sticks, white and red sauces, lettuce and tomato