Berkeley's News Roundup: Sex Trafficking, Affirmative Action and Medical Marijuana

Well to round up some of the more interesting news in Berkeley today, we start with the salacious: human sex trafficking. SF Public Press reports that Berkeley restaurateur and real estate tycoon Lakireddy Balireddy “shocked the Bay Area” ten years ago when it was discovered he was bringing women and girls from India for sex.

Ten years ago, prosecutors said Balireddy could serve up to 38 years in a plea bargain. Turns out he only served 97 months, or a little more than eight years, and this has led to a "campaign to get tougher anti-trafficking laws on the November ballot" to move forward with what proponents call "legal reform."

And for the controversial, CNN reports that Jerry Brown is in favor of overturning the affirmative action ban making possible for colleges to consider race as a factor  in college admission. African-American and Latino students hope this will better their chance of getting into places like University of California, Berkeley where, in 2010, Asian undergraduates made up 43%.

For a little hopeful news, we turn to the tech world where Market Wire reports that Ekso Bionics “delivers its first exoskeleton” which is a wearable robot that will allow paraplegics to stand and walk.

And for some good news for Berkeley, or at least food for Berkeley’s Center for Investigative Reporting, SF Gate tells us that Berkeley’s Center for Investigative Reporting received “a $1 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation.”

But it’s bad news for Berkeley’s medical marijuana world because The Daily Cal warns that Berkeley's dispensaries and cultivators might be looking at a federal investigation. The Justice Department says that a lot of the pot shops are “violating federal law.”