Posts Tagged: unusual

USC pays UCSD $50 million to settle recruitment fight

Students outside the library at the University of California, San Diego. (Photo: Stanislavsky, via Shutterstock)

by DAVID JENSEN posted 07.05.2019

The University of Southern California in Los Angeles is coughing up $50 million and publicly apologizing for its tactics in recruiting a star Alzheimer’s researcher from UC San Diego, it was reported Thursday. The Los Angeles Times story about the unprecedented settlement described the case as an “ugly academic war.” It had the potential of bringing $340 million in research grants to USC.  

Deal struck over Coastal Commission vacancy

The coast at La Jolla. Photo: Dancestrokes)

by JOHN HOWARD posted 09.18.2014

Under an unusual agreement reached between Senate leaders and a number of environmental groups just before the end of the legislative session, the period of time to consider the submitted list of candidates has been extended indefinitely. Such an extension is extremely rare, if not unprecedented.

Support for death penalty at 50-year low

Gurney used for lethal injections, San Quentin Prison. (Photo: Department of Corrections)

by MARK DICAMILLO AND MERVIN FIELD posted 09.12.2014

Field Poll: Support for the death penalty as a punishment for serious crimes in California is now at its lowest point in nearly fifty years. The latest Field Poll finds 56% of voters in favor of keeping the death penalty and 34% opposed. The 56% supporting continuation of the state’s capital punishment laws is down from 69% in 2011. Throughout the 1980’s and early 1990’s eight in ten California voters favored keeping the death penalty.

New government accounting rules will more than double the pension debt reported by CalSTRS, boosting an “unfunded liability” that is now about $71 billion to a newly calculated “Net Pension Liability” of $166.9 billion.