The debate over the effectiveness and morality of capital punishment in California has been revisited in recent weeks. The media attention given to the December execution of Stanley “Tookie” Williams and Tuesday’s execution of Clarence Ray Allen, the 12th and 13th people to be executed by the state since it reinstated the death penalty in 1977, has brought this debate back to the forefront of the public’s mind. Read more...

Residents are reacting in a wide range of ways a week after the seventh sexual battery in a month was reported in Westwood. Many say recent crimes ““ including a string of 14 robberies in the Westwood area between May and October ““ have not affected their day-to-day activity or their perception that the neighborhood is safe. Read more...

Understanding the Pythagorean theorem and knowing the difference between their, they’re and there could now be essential to obtaining a high school diploma, as such concepts will be found on the California High School Exit Exam (CASHEE). Read more...

The UC Sudan Divestment Taskforce prepared for Thursday’s UC Board of Regents meeting with a memorial for genocide victims at Meyerhoff Park on Tuesday. Tombstones with the number of dead from the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan surrounded students, who held up pictures of the regents and recited what they hope to hear the actual regents say on Thursday. Read more...

When Andrew Bokarius began working at a neuroscience laboratory this summer, the thought of retirement was distant. Bokarius took the job to get research experience and explore what it would be like to work in a research lab. Read more...

In a bipartisan and unanimous decision, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted Tuesday to conduct a “comprehensive review” of the University of California’s compensation practices. In a review that will likely be completed within a couple of months, the Audit Committee will look at salary schedules for UC employees, the way certain pay raises are decided upon and how different compensation packages are put together, said Richard Stapler, spokesman for Assembly Speaker and Ex-Oficio Regent Fabian Núñez who requested the audit. Read more...