The District Attorney’s office “inadvertently erred” in placing Ka Pasasouk, the lead suspect for the quadruple homicide in Northridge, in a drug program three months ago rather than going to prison. Los Angeles County District Attorney Public Information Officer Sandi Gibbons said the office has done an internal review on the case and concluded that the office had wrongly indicated Pasasouk was eligible to be in a Proposition 36 drug program.  The drug program is the result of the Substance… Read more

The Supreme Court will review two court cases that challenge current laws on gay marriage. The first case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, challenges California’s Proposition 8, a measure that banned same-sex marriage by amending the state constitution.  The second, United States v. Windsor, challenges a section of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, law that defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman. The cases will likely be argued before the court in March with… Read more

The Keck School of Medicine at USC and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles released a study and a video last week that claimed there is a correlation between the development of autism and the amount of air pollution a mother is exposed to during pregnancy. as well as pollution exposure during a newborn’s first year of life. “What we found is that moms who live in areas with higher levels of particulate matter are about twice as likely to have a… Read more

Tom McCarron, CSUN’s vice president of Administration and Finance, will retire in June, according to an email sent by President Dianne Harrison to the campus community. During his tenure, multiple campus construction projects were completed, including the Sierra Center, VPAC, Arbor Court, Chaparral Hall, the SRC, and the new floor installation in the Matadome. “The university has celebrated many notable accomplishments under Tom’s leadership and these have benefited students, staff, faculty, and the region we serve,” Harrison said. “Tom has… Read more

The Matadors (21-10, 12-6 in Big West) fell short of a Big West title this year, but made progressive strides as the season wore on. “The team’s development is a highlight for me,” head coach Jeff Stork said.  “We were running a couple of new systems that we saw the team buy into and struggled early, but then understood them more and started to execute them on a very high level in the second half of the season.” After starting… Read more

 A day after a single-engine Cessna plane crashed into CSUN’s East Field near Zelzah Avenue and Plummer Street, students and local emergency personnel continued to react to the scene. “I didn’t think it was real, it was a shock,’” said Erick Rodriguez, a 20-year-old Pierce College student who said he saw the plane go down while he was driving northbound on Zelzah on his way home from church. “I threw the car in park and grabbed my friend and we… Read more

On an emotional Senior Night, the CSUN women’s volleyball team swept the visiting Cal State Fullerton Titans in the Matadome, capping of a Thanksgiving week that saw the team go 6-0 in sets. “We’re getting better and better,” head coach Jeff Stork said.  “It’s unfortunate that maybe the season is over, and it would be nice to have our second half of the season be our first half.  If we could go another four or five matches, we’d be even… Read more

>>>CORRECTION: Steven Stepanek is the chair of Computer Information Technology, not the dean. The CSUN community is addressing suicide prevention in the wake of a recent suicide attempt on campus. A computer information technology major attempted suicide in Juniper Hall on Nov. 8.  Students and faculty have received communications from the university urging them to contact University Counseling Services if they were affected by the incident or need help. “The most important thing counselors do is meet with people in… Read more