CAMPUS
The Resource Center for Sexual & Gender Diversity, Undocumented Student Services, MultiCultural Center, and UC Immigrant Legal Services Center are kicking off the 2018 Immigration Awareness Week this week. Events include an art workshop, panel on intersectionality, and updates on “immigration policies protections including DACA, Dream Act, TPS.”
UC activists will head to UC San Francisco for the first Board of Regents meeting of 2018, where the regents are expected to vote on a proposed 2.7 percent in-state tuition hike on Wednesday and Thursday. An action item document from the University of California website states that the new funds will be used to make up for “lower-than-expected” state support. Funds will go to financial aid, mental health services, additional classes, and improving technology. If passed, it would generate an extra $137 million in funding.
ISLA VISTA
Once the home of Crushcakes Cafe and Kol’s Café, Chinese restaurant 212 Degrees Hot Pot will soon inhabit the empty storefront at 6533 Trigo Rd, next to the Amazon lockers storefront. The owners of Kol’s Café placed a temporary closure sign on the door in May 2017 and officially closed the restaurant in September 2017.
COUNTY
County officials announced that the Thomas Fire had been 100 percent contained on Jan. 12, just over a month after it broke out near Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula. By the time firefighters contained the blaze, the Thomas Fire had become the largest wildfire in modern California history, totaling 281,893 acres burned. Over 1,000 structures burned, and two people were killed.
Women across the nation participated in the second annual Women’s March on Jan. 20, with a rally of nearly 3,500 people in Santa Barbara’s De la Guerra Plaza. The Santa Barbara Police Department asked that people not march, according to the Santa Barbara Independent, because a number of officers are still aiding the mudslide recovery efforts in Montecito.
NATIONAL
Alaskan residents woke up early on Jan. 23 to a 7.9 magnitude earthquake, which prompted tsunami alerts down the West Coast. The National Weather Service called off the alert for the Californian coast at 4:17 a.m. Had a tsunami hit the Central Coast, the National Weather Service estimated that large waves would arrive in Santa Barbara between 6 and 7 a.m.
A budget proposal from Governor Jerry Brown’s office earlier this month showed that the state has a $6.1 billion budget surplus for the 2018-19 fiscal year. In his projection, Brown allocated $33.7 billion for the state’s higher education systems, which is approximately $893 million more than 2017-18. Critics say that the governor has not contributed enough to close the funding gap at the UC and CSU. In turn, Brown told reporters at a press conference on Jan. 10 that administrators need more “scrutiny” and “need to step up and more creatively engage in the process of making education reasonable and affordable.”