Editor’s Note: The full articles alluded to in this report may be accessed via the U-T website.
Matt Lauer, who considers himself “half-Jewish” because of his father, has signed a multiple year contract extension as host of NBC’s Today show, the U-T reports in its “People” section.
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Three Jewish teenage Yeshiva students , kidnapped by terrorists near Hebron, include an American citizen, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro has been notified. Ian Deitch of the AP quoted Gen. Motti Almoz in a story carried by the U-T, as saying his troops’ “main mission is to ensure their return.”
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Eric Cantor, who lost his primary and then announced his resignation as House Majority Leader, can attribute his loss to being too favorable to immigration reform. Or at least that’s the opinion of guest cartoonist Scott Stantis of the Chicago Tribune, who appeared in Saturday’s U-T. The cartoon had Mexicans crossing a river into the United States in one direction, and Cantor wading across the same river, in the opposite direction. The caption: “Senor Cantor?”
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Rana Sampson, the Jewish wife of former Mayor Jerry Sanders, has been named as a vice president and promotions manager for the Union Bank, according to columnist Diane Bell in the U-T.
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State Senator Marty Block is quoted in a U-T story on the state budget by Michael Gardner. He was among those legislators successfully opposing Gov. Brown’s plan to cut approximately $9 million from a program to give $1,000 a year grants to students enrolling in private colleges. Block argued that without such grants, low income students would be required to attend state colleges and universities, which already are overcrowded. That might lead to them not being able to go to college at all, he said.
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Linda Zweig, who serves as spokesperson for the San Diego County Fair at Del Mar, told the U-T’s Cliff Ireland that the idea to have visitors to the fair audition for the television show American Idol resulted from a last minute call from the show’s producers. They asked could they audition people, and the fair responded why not? Contestants who survived the preliminary Del Mar Fair round were to be invited to San Francisco for more auditioning.
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District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis declines to release to the media a copy of a letter she wrote to the University of San Diego recommending the son of Jose Susumo Azano Matsura of Mexico, who is the subject of a federal probe into why he as a foreign national contributed money to political campaigns, including Dumanis’s unsuccessful run in 2012 for mayor. The U-T’s Greg Moran reported that Deputy D.A. Brooke Tafreshi gave several reasons for declining the U-T’s request, among them that the young man’s educational records under state law are private and that a federal judge has issued an order that documents relating to the case should be kept secret.
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Alex Mashinsky has taken over as interim CEO after Peter Leparulo, under shareholder pressure, stepped down as chief executive of Novatel Wireless, according to a U-T story by Mike Freeman.
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San Diego Jewish World staff report