Editor’s Note: The full articles alluded to in this report may be accessed via the U-T website.
State Capitol correspondent Steven Greenhut noted in a page A-2 story that State Senate President pro tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) had exulted in 2010 following passage of Proposition 25, which reduced from two-thirds to a majority the number of votes needed in the Legislature to pass a budget, that henceforth state budgets should be passed on time. Indeed, this year’s was, but that’s because Democrats, with a large majority, don’t need to compromise with Republicans.
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In its People column on Page A-2, the U-T reported that producer Steven Spielberg has two films on the way. One untitled is a cold war thriller that will star Tom Hanks; the other “The BFG”is based on a1982 children’s book by Roald Dahl.
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The U-T played on page A-8 an Associated Press story on Israel’s crackdown on Hamas in the wake of the kidnapping of three teenagers. Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon was quoted that Hamas was “paying a heavy price both in terms of arrests and assets” for the kidnapping, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was quoted as saying that the “Hamas kidnappers came from territory under Palestinian Authority control and returned to territory under Palestinian Authority control.”
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A story by Gary Robbins and Bradley Fikes on Page B-1 reports the possibility of an acquisition of the Scripps Research Institute by the University of Southern California. It notes that several Nobel Prize winners have been associated with SRI including the late neuroscientist Gerald Edelman.
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Columnist Diane Bell, reporting on Page B-1 that San Diego aerial artist Laura Dasi had performed before America’s Got Talent judges Howie Mandel, Howard Stern, Melanie B, and Heidi Klum, quoted her as describing the process as a “surreal experience.”
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The U-T’s City Hall reporter David Garrick reported on B-1 that City Council President Todd Gloria is decreasing the proposed minimum wage to $11.50 an hour from his initial suggestion of $13.09. One of those who had urged the lower wage, and is now supporting Gloria, is Harry Schwartz, co-owner of the downtown Ace Hardware Store.
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A U-T Watchdog column by Greg Moran on Page B-1 puts pressure on District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis to release a letter of recommendation sent to the University of San Diego in behalf of the son of Mexican billionaire Jose Susomo Azano, who is accused of illegally funneling foreign money into local election campaigns, including the unsuccessful Dumanis campaign in 2012 for mayor. County supervisors Dianne Jacob, Greg Cox, Bill Horn and Dave Roberts promptly turned over letters of recommendation they wrote for other applicants for other positions, all of which were uncontroversial. Dumanis has said she is bound by a court order, as well as considerations of the boy’s privacy, not to release the letter she wrote.
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In Matthew Hall’s column, “The Conversation,” reprinting comments on social media about news events, sportscaster Ted Leitner had this to say about the death of baseball legend Tony Gwynn: “No community should have such pain… Padres fans we have lost Mr. Padre & there are no woreds that can possibly console us. God how I loved him.” … In the Letters to the editor column, page B-5, Si Coleman wrote of Gwynn: “If you were lucky enough to meet him, you would walk away believing he was now one of your best friends…”
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Steven Schindler has been appointed interim executive director of the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, according to a U-T story by Gary Robbins on Page B-2. Schindler previously served as the marketing director at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was credited with improving its financial fortunes. A native San Diegan, Schindler is the son of Holocaust survivors and lecturers Max and Rose Schindler.
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A sponsored joint obituary for Jerome Katzin and Miriam Katzin, who were married 75 years and died within 12 days of each other, she on June 2 and he on June 14, ran on page B-4 of the U-T. It noted that Jerome Katzin, one time managing director of Kuhn Loeb in New York and later Lehman Brothers, was considered an expert in financing public works. In San Diego, he served on numerous boards, including those of Qualcomm and Price Company through the latter’s merger with Cost co. Miriam worked as a remedial reading teacher in New York and in La Jolla. Together they helped establish UCSD’s Judaic Studies program, a cancer center and Katzin Research Laboratories at University Hospital, and funded the Katzin Prize Endowment Fund for graduate students.
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On PageB-5 of the U-T, columnist George Will of the Washington Post invoked the name of Russian revolutionist Leon Trotsky in suggesting the U.S. cannot evade the violence of the Middle East. He wrote: “Trotsky probably did not really say this, but someone should: ‘You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
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A story by Bradley J. Fikes beginning on Page C-1 tells of the controversy over whether regulation is necessary for e-cigarettes, which a UCSD study recently catalogued as coming in 466 brands offering many flavors of vapor. The article paraphrased Dr. Michael Siegel of Boston University as saying that vapor cigarettes are helpful in weaning people off tobacco cigarettes, and adding that if the FDA approval were required for every vapor product on the market, “it’s an absolute nightmare… it would take yuears for the FDA even to read the applications, much less approve them.”
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In the U-T’s sports column, “Off the Wall,” compiled on Page D-2 by Kirk Kenney, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti reportedly used the F-word in congratulating the LA Kings on their Stanley Cup championship: “There are two rules in politics. They say never be pictured with a drink in your hand. And never ever swear. But this is a big f—ing day. Way to go, guys.” Players and fans didn’t mind, they gave him a standing ovation….. In the same column, it was reported that Pete Rose enjoyed a one-day stint as manager of the minor league Bridgeport Bluefish, but that’s not likely to persuade baseball commissioner Bud Selig to lift Rose’s lifetime ban from major league baseball because of gambling offenses.
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Compiled by San Diego Jewish World staff