Uc San Diego

Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, a renowned historian of Mexico and Latin America whose books included in-depth studies of the Mexican and Cuban revolutions, has died. He was 88. Ruiz, an emeritus professor of history at UC San Diego, died Tuesday at his home in Rancho Santa Fe of complications from a recent fall and a battle with cancer, said his daughter Olivia Ruiz. Ruiz, who joined the history department at UC San Diego in 1970 and chaired the department in the early '70s, was the author of 15 books, including "Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People," "Cuba: The Making of a Revolution," "The Great Rebellion: Mexico, 1905-1924" and "On the Rim of Mexico: Encounters of the Rich and Poor."

University of California regents Wednesday discussed the possibility of a 6% tuition increase for next fall but pledged that they would lobby hard to avoid such a $732-per-student hike. With such money worries rippling through the 10-campus system, the regents approved the hiring of a new chancellor for UC San Diego at a $411,084 salary, which is 4.8% higher than his predecessor, Marye Anne Fox. In addition, Pradeep Khosla, now the engineering dean at Carnegie Mellon University, will receive a relocation bonus of nearly $24,700 annually for his first four years.

A UC San Diego student admitted Friday to hanging a rope noose from a campus library bookcase in an act that triggered more protests at a school already roiled by other recent racially charged incidents. Angry students responded to the incident by storming and occupying the office of UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Anne Fox. The sit-in continued for about six hours Friday and ended without arrests, and a sympathy protest at UCLA lasted about an hour, officials said. UC San Diego police confirmed that the student contacted them Friday morning and acknowledged responsibility for placing the noose the night before on a lamp fixture atop a seventh-floor bookcase in the campus' main library.

Talk about a bad trip. It started when Daniel Chong, a 23-year-old UC San Diego student, spent a night with friends to mark April 20, which some pot afficionados consider something of a holiday. It ended with an ordeal behind bars. The Drug Enforcement Administration apologized Wednesday to Chong, who was "accidentally" left in a holding cell for five days and reportedly drank his own urine to survive. San Diego attorney Gene Iredale said his client was "still recovering" from the ordeal.

The UC San Diego student reportedly responsible for hanging a noose last week in a campus library issued a public, but anonymous, apology Monday and said she had no racist motivation. The noose's discovery set off protests at a school that is already tense from recent racially charged episodes and triggered condemnations from UC leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In a letter published Monday on the front page of the UC San Diego student newspaper, the Guardian, the student wrote that the incident was "a mindless act and stupid mistake" and was not meant to recall the lynching of blacks.

Clive W.J. Granger, co-winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for economics for his iconoclastic view about how his profession used figures to predict the future, has died. He was 74. Granger, a professor emeritus in the economics department at UC San Diego, died Wednesday at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla after a short illness.

Ellen Revelle, a philanthropist and descendant of the Scripps publishing family who helped her oceanographer husband establish UC San Diego, has died. She was 98. Revelle died Wednesday at UC San Diego's Thornton Hospital in La Jolla after a stroke, the university announced.

University of California regents Wednesday discussed the possibility of a 6% tuition increase for next fall but pledged that they would lobby hard to avoid such a $732-per-student hike. With such money worries rippling through the 10-campus system, the regents approved the hiring of a new chancellor for UC San Diego at a $411,084 salary, which is 4.8% higher than his predecessor, Marye Anne Fox. In addition, Pradeep Khosla, now the engineering dean at Carnegie Mellon University, will receive a relocation bonus of nearly $24,700 annually for his first four years.

Qualcomm Corp. Chairman Irwin Jacobs has pledged $110 million to UC San Diego, the largest single gift in the school's history. The money from Jacobs and his wife is earmarked for the engineering school that bears his name. The gift includes $10 million payable over the next five years and $100 million that will be bequeathed to the school. Jacobs was a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the school from 1966 to 1972. He and his wife also have given $120 million to the San Diego Symphony, most of it in an endowment fund.

The UC San Diego baseball team split a Division 3 doubleheader with LaVerne College on Friday at UCSD. LaVerne won the opener, 6-3, behind the pitching of Chris Williams (2-0) and UCSD won the nightcap, 3-2. The second game was stopped after five innings because of heavy fog. LaVerne's Mark Stutzman had two doubles and three RBIs to lead the offense in the first game. UCSD pitcher David DeCordova (2-1) took the loss. UCSD's David Stanovich went 3 for 3.

Thanks to a "very unusual combination of circumstances" and a quick set of calculations, a UC San Diego scientist successfully fought a $400 traffic ticket with a four-page research paper. Dmitri Krioukov, a senior research scientist at UCSD, successfully appealed his failure-to-stop ticket using a physics and math argument that ultimately swayed a San Diego judge. In the paper, titled "The Proof of Innocence," Krioukov offered a series of equations and graphs to show that it was physically impossible for him to have broken the law, as an officer claimed.

SAN DIEGO —UC San Diego officials have reached an agreement with the federal government to end an investigation into racial tensions on campus that began after white students held an event laced with racial stereotypes during Black History Month. In a settlement announced Friday with the federal departments of Justice and Education, UC San Diego promised to maintain an Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination to receive, investigate and resolve complaints. Among other things, administrators will offer training sessions for staff and students on the university's policy against harassment, and will make more efforts to interest low-income and minority students in attending UC San Diego, where about 2% of the undergraduate student body is African American.

SAN DIEGO - Its official motto is "America's Finest City," but for the last decade this sunny municipality at the bottom of California has earned an unflattering reputation for fiscal foolishness. Those days may well be coming to an end, however. On Wednesday, the city's first "strong" mayor, Jerry Sanders, reported that San Diego was looking at a balanced budget for next year and a $119-million surplus over the next five. "We seem to be miles ahead of other cities," Sanders told reporters at a budget unveiling.

UC San Diego researchers say they have found tantalizing clues to a mystery that has puzzled the art world for five centuries: the fate of a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. Samples taken from a stone wall hidden behind a fresco that adorns the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy, appear to contain a black pigment similar to the one Leonardo used on his masterpiece "Mona Lisa," the researchers announced Monday. Other samples contained a red lacquer-like substance and a beige material apparently applied with brush strokes - both consistent with the presence of a painting.

When President John F. Kennedy announced in 1961 that America was committed to "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the decade, winning the race became the paramount objective of the national space program. But UC San Diego nuclear chemist James R. Arnold played a crucial role in drawing official attention to another goal: preserving and studying the soil and rock samples that Apollo astronauts would bring back with them. Arnold, 88, who died Jan. 6 in La Jolla from complications of Alzheimer's disease, was a member of a group of four scientists — dubbed the Four Horsemen by colleagues — who sounded the alarms that led NASA to establish a program for analyzing what proved to be a treasure trove for lunar research.

The University of California on Wednesday announced a merit increase plan for non-unionized employees that seeks to fend off faculty hiring raids while mollifying critics of high executive salaries during the state's budget crisis. Under the plan, all faculty with good performance reviews will receive 3% raises this year, and nonacademic staff, who have received no increases since 2007, could be in line for larger raises. About 78,000 UC employees will be eligible under the plan, officials said.

UC San Diego scored three runs in the second inning and beat Cal State Stanislaus 3-2 in the second game of a college baseball double-header Saturday afternoon. CSS won the first game 6-3. Mike Corsetti and David Stanovich had run-scoring singles for UCSD. The other run came in on an error. Mark Sloan pitched a complete game for the Tritons and improved his record to 4-3. Tim Corvello (2-4) took the loss.

The UC San Diego men's basketball team never recovered from a devastating start as it lost, 108-95, to Otterbein in a semifinal game of the NCAA Division III Sectional tournament at the Otterbein Rike Center. Otterbein's James Bradley scored 22 of his team's first 23 points--all in the first five minutes--as Otterbein flew to a 16-point lead. By halftime, however, UCSD had cut the deficit to 11, 51-40, despite hitting only nine of 18 free throws.

The University of California's effort to recruit more out-of-state students for the extra tuition they pay is having a strong impact on the incoming freshman class, with nonresidents making up 12.3% of the new class, up from 8% in the school year just ended, according to figures released Thursday. The biggest increases in out-of-state and international students will be concentrated at the three UC campuses that are the most selective, and perhaps most widely known outside California.