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Jul 31, 2024 | 
independent.com | Callie Fausey |Keith Hamm |Jack Magargee |Ryan Cruz
The University of California admitted its largest and most diverse class to date, increasing the number of California residents, underrepresented students, and community college transfers into the fall 2024 admissions, according to preliminary data released Wednesday. The admissions come after an application season in which a flaw in a new financial aid form released this year left millions of students across the country scrambling for monetary relief.
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Jul 11, 2024 | 
independent.com | Margaux Lovely |Ángel Albino Corzo |Jack Magargee |Jackson Friedman
The intense, back-and-forth labor negotiations in the Santa Barbara Unified School District that dominated the past year are officially over. Teachers are getting a raise. More than 92 percent of the Santa Barbara Teachers Association (SBTA) approved the wage settlement reached with the district last month, avoiding a potential strike.
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Jul 10, 2024 | 
independent.com | Keith Hamm |Jack Magargee |Callie Fausey |Jackson Friedman
No Final Agreement Between Santa Barbara School District and Unions Teachers’ Voting Still ‘Underway’ and Other Workers Still Negotiating Credit: Carl Perry For months, the two unions representing teachers and other employees of the Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) have been fighting for better wages with the administration. But while the teachers union and the district have reached a tentative agreement on pay, other school employees are still at the bargaining table. So far...
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Jul 9, 2024 | 
independent.com | Ángel Albino Corzo |Jack Magargee |Callie Fausey |Jackson Friedman
Santa Barbara County Workers Flood Supervisors Meeting to Demand Living Wage Union Members Tell County to ‘Get Creative’ After Hitting Wall in Contract Negotiations Nearly one hundred public sector workers rallied outside the entrance of the County Administration Building on July 9 to demand a living wage.
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Jun 20, 2024 | 
independent.com | Jack Magargee |Callie Fausey |Nick Welsh |Leslie Dinaberg
This article was originally published in UCSB's 'The Current'. A sunny and warm Goleta Beach provided a fitting backdrop for the Surfrider Battalion as 13 graduating UC Santa Barbara Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) cadets were commissioned to the rank of second lieutenant. The June 14 ceremony, attended by about 150 family and friends, opened with a violin solo of the national anthem by Sergeant First Class Myles Moore.
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Jun 18, 2024 | 
independent.com | Melinda Burns |Jack Magargee |Ryan Cruz |Callie Fausey
A proposed cannabis tax increase that was designed to address the problem of chronic under-reporting by some outdoor growers failed to pass muster at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors hearing, at least for now. Currently, as approved by the county voters in 2018, cannabis growers are required to pay a quarterly cultivation tax of 4 percent of their gross receipts, or sales.
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Jun 18, 2024 | 
independent.com | Nick Welsh |Tiana Molony |Callie Fausey |Jack Magargee
In the past 10 years, nearly 1,000 county residents died of accidental opioid overdoses. In compensation, the county's cut from a nationwide settlement extracted from the pharmaceutical industry - worth $4 billion - for deceptive advertising practices, promoting a public nuisance, and the chronic, systemic, and terminal oversight lapses is $22.2 million. Aside from an advance payment of $4.2 million, this amount is to be doled out in smaller increments over a 15-year period.
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Jun 18, 2024 | 
independent.com | David Starkey |Nick Welsh |George Yatchisin |Jack Magargee
Anyone who has looked out an airplane window while flying between the Americas and Asia has no doubt marveled at the vast expanse of water and the relatively few specks of land that dot the ocean, particularly in its northern and eastern regions. Christina's Thompson's successfully answers the questions: "How did anyone ever traverse and survive, much less thrive, in such a potentially hostile environment?
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Jun 18, 2024 | 
independent.com | Margaux Lovely |Jean Yamamura |Jack Magargee |Ryan Cruz
The Supreme Court ruled on June 14 to reverse the federal ban on "bump stocks," a gun accessory that amplifies the speed with which one can fire a semiautomatic weapon. Bump stocks were originally banned with the Trump administration's pleas following the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music festival. With 58 fatalities and more than 500 wounded, it was the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history.
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Jun 18, 2024 | 
independent.com | Jack Magargee |Ryan Cruz |Callie Fausey |Jean Yamamura
Fourteen poets gathered on State Street for First Thursday on June 6 to type free poems, composed on the spot, on any subject, for anyone. Thanks to Simon Kieffer who provided typewriters and tables, we were able to make this month's event even bigger than last September, when we only had five poets on five vintage typewriters. It was wonderful collaborating with Simon to bring poems to so many people. We had poets who could write poems in Spanish, English, and German.
