Stipend

Los Angeles is faced with massive educational and health services cutbacks, job layoffs, rampant drug abuse, gang violence, homelessness and the AIDS epidemic, but there is no money to address any of these social issues and provide concrete resolutions. However, there is money for the county supervisors to allot themselves, 33 county department heads and 238 Superior Court judicial officers a monthly professional stipend of $392, non-auditable, to be used as the recipients see fit (Metro, May 29 and June 5)

LAHORE, Pakistan - The seed of jihad was planted in Shahbaz Ahmed in 2001 when fundamentalist mosques in Pakistan welled up with rage against America's post-Sept. 11 invasion of neighboring Afghanistan. Ahmed, 20 at the time, left his family in Lahore to help the Afghan Taliban fight U.S. troops. Captured by American soldiers, Ahmed spent four years in jails in Afghanistan and Pakistan before his release in 2005. Since then, Pakistan has kept a wary eye on the wiry, angular-faced scrap metal dealer and thousands of Afghan-trained fighters like him, who are thought to be ripe for recruitment by Pakistan's dizzying array of militant groups.

The NCAA's plan to give athletes a $2,000 stipend might be in trouble. The legislation, passed in October, now faces an override challenge at the annual NCAA convention in January, a decision that could create an unusual discrepancy between recruits who have signed national letters of intent and those who have not. David Berst , the Division I vice president of governance, acknowledged Wednesday that about 1,000 players signed with schools...

Dozens of city officials throughout California have voted to appoint themselves to local boards that pay stipends of up to $5,000 annually, a practice state watchdogs say violates conflict-of-interest laws. The mayors and council members involved argue that the amounts are so small, and the votes so routine, that they deserve an exemption from those laws. Most of the appointments are made to sanitation, fire and water boards by votes of city councils. Fair Political Practices Commission staff member Gary S. Winuk, chief of enforcement, has concluded that the votes violate state political law. Rather than fine the council members, he issued letters to 40 of them in Orange County, telling them to stop.

I appreciate the article (Jan. 19) regarding the Duarte Unified School District by Kevin Uhrich, but I would like to add some comments that seem to be necessary information for the residents of Duarte whose children are the real sufferers. While salaries have not been cut at this time, there have been other reductions going back several years. Here are some examples. We have lost teacher aides and staff members which are not obvious to the public. When the registrar position was removed from the high school, the work was simply added to the counselors and office clerks with no more time or compensation to do the work.

Re "Angela Davis Again at Center of UC Storm," Feb. 20: So state Sen. Bill Leonard (R-San Bernardino) is worried about Angela Davis' UC stipend upsetting race relations "at a time when we're trying to reconcile racial and gender differences." We? Leonard goes on to tell us that this stipend is "an affront to liberal thought." He's not trying to tell us he's a liberal, is he? That he, a Republican, actually cares about people and is working to reconcile racial and gender differences?

The Pasadena City Council performed what was a truly capricious and landmark action in their vote today to steal $3,000 per month each; $250,000 per year in aggregate, from the taxpayers for their part-time jobs as city council members. This vote is exceptional especially for the rejection of Councilman Thomson's amendment which would have placed the issue before the citizens, citizens who have soundly defeated the idea on many occasions before. Instead the "trickery" of the unemployed Rick Cole was used to sneak the idea past the citizens under the guise of "community development."

Charles Wolf Jr.'s suggestion (Editorial Pages, Feb. 9) for putting autocrats out to pasture by providing incentives similar to those available to the more traditional heads of state compels earnest consideration. Let's dispose of the possibility that the motivation for autocrats to leave their sinecures may be hurried by the benign counsel of the pragmatists within the great powers, such as our CIA or its Soviet equivalent, as typified by recent incidents in Yemen or Haiti. Wolf's recommendation of gentle persuasion could include other incentives in addition to those he suggests.

INSIDE ROOM 309,a third-floor classroom in concrete-and-brick Van Allen Hall on the University of Iowa campus, Ken Nishikawa was standing at an old-fashioned blackboard. He was lecturing to a weekly graduate seminar in plasma physics when Dr. Lu Gang's first shot rang out. * At first, some of the graduate students in the room thought it might be a firecracker. It was Friday afternoon, last Nov. 1, and one of the students later recalled thinking it must be some sort of prank.

Joy and Andrew Giordano thought they could save their Baltimore home from foreclosure without any help. But in the end, they couldn't. To avoid foreclosure, the Giordanos applied twice to their lender for refinancing under the government's Making Home Affordable program. Twice they were turned down. "We were not getting the right information from our bank," said Joy Giordano, who had to close her advertising specialties business because of the economic downturn. "We did everything we were told to do. But each time, we were not approved because of this or not approved because of that.

The NCAA's plan to give athletes a $2,000 stipend might be in trouble. The legislation, passed in October, now faces an override challenge at the annual NCAA convention in January, a decision that could create an unusual discrepancy between recruits who have signed national letters of intent and those who have not. David Berst , the Division I vice president of governance, acknowledged Wednesday that about 1,000 players signed with schools...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed a law that makes it harder for city council members in California to improperly pad their paychecks, a response to the financial scandal that rocked the city of Bell. In recent years, some officials in the working-class Los Angeles suburb earned more than $100,000 annually for part-time jobs by receiving stipends for serving on various boards and commissions that sometimes met for just minutes at a time, often during council meetings. On Monday, Brown signed AB 23, which requires city officials to announce, when holding simultaneous or back-to-back meetings, how much those attending will receive in stipends.

The safety net at LAX became significantly smaller last week when the city of Los Angeles, which operates the airport, ended a $400,000-a-year relationship with the Travelers Aid Society and absorbed the management of the volunteers who run and staff the information booths. The change, which went into effect Friday, does not substantially alter how the information program works: Red-jacketed volunteers will still assist travelers in navigating one of the nation's most daunting airports.

The parents of popular Cal State Fresno Student Body President Pedro Ramirez always talked a lot about el sueño Americano ? the American Dream. He was to study hard, get good grades and claim the prize, but it wasn't until that night in their kitchen when the high school valedictorian was filling out university applications that they told him a missing detail ? he wasn't a United States citizen. He was born in Mexico. He came to this country when he was 3 years old. Now, an anonymous tip to the college newspaper has forced Ramirez to publicly expose his secret and has put this son of a maid and a restaurant worker into the thick of a debate on immigration and education that has reached a boiling point in recent weeks.

Unable to obtain insurance, Maywood announced this week it would lay off nearly all its employees, disband its Police Department and entrust all municipal operations to the neighboring city of Bell. But Bell may have problems of its own. The Los Angeles County district attorney's office said Wednesday it is investigating why council members of the small, working-class city are paid nearly $100,000 a year for a part-time job. In a June 8 letter to Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo, David Demerjian, who heads the district attorney's Public Integrity Division, said a review of city records showed that council members each received $8,083.25 per month.

Ironic and typical that a story about unsung artist Jack Kirby ["A Credit to His Name," Sept. 27] would be accompanied by a photo of Stan Lee, his more-famous co-creator of many of the most recognized Marvel comic book characters that are now worth billions to Disney. While Lee is, in my opinion, the Mastermind of the entire Marvel Universe, Jack Kirby, his most prolific artist, was essential to the success of the company by conceiving and designing characters, devising multi-issue story lines, creating the visual style followed by other staff artists and pushing the creative boundaries of the entire medium.

Lynn is a 57-year-old widow in love. But she fears that getting married soon, as she and her fiance planned, could cost her a fortune--because of the rules that govern Social Security. Government officials acknowledge that she's right. "At least she's smart enough to check it out ahead of time," says Leslie Walker, a spokeswoman with the Social Security Administration in San Francisco.

In response to "No Relief for the Poor: County Rejects Raise; $312 a Month in Aid Called Insufficient," Metro, July, 31: The county states that its $312 workfare stipend that it gives to the homeless is enough for an individual to feed and shelter himself or herself for a month in Los Angeles. However, in June I testified before the County Board of Supervisors concerning a housing survey conducted that month by my office.

Hundreds of angry Holocaust survivors, some wearing yellow Stars of David like those the Nazis forced Jews to wear, marched on a sweltering Sunday afternoon to demand an increase in a supplementary stipend amounting to $20 a month that Israel's government has offered them. The rare public protest was an embarrassment for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who had announced the extra payments last week in response to concerns about poverty among the 240,000 survivors who live in Israel.

When his boss offered him $185 a month or free parking, Tom Fleming didn't hesitate: He bought a $52-a-month bus pass and pocketed the difference. That's exactly what state lawmakers had in mind in 1992 when they enacted a law requiring certain employers to pay a monthly stipend to employees who carpool, ride public transit, walk or bike to work.