I included an item yesterday predicting that University of California Regents would raise student fees by 32 percent. Well, they did. And the New York Times followed that news with a profile of the diminishing state of campuses around the University of California system, including its crown jewel, Berkeley. Anyone who knows Berkeley’s history, and the prominent roles it has played over the years in math and sciences as well as cultural studies,  will find it a much-chastened institution.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry refused Thursday to stop the execution of a man convicted of murder for his role in the 1996 shooting death of a Houston convenience store clerk despite a rare recommendation to commute a death sentence, the Austin American-Statesman reports.

From the media world, the Journal Inquirer of Manchester, Conn., has sued The Hartford Courant, the state’s largest paper, charging that it plagiarized The Journal Inquirer’s work in articles published last summer, a time when The Courant was also, in a subsequent admission, lifting material from several other northern Connecticut newspapers, reports the New York Times. Can I just say: Whoa!!!!

According to FishbowlNY, the Associated Press finally divulges how many staffers it laid off this week — 90. That includes our own talented, smart and extraordinarily experienced Deborah Baker, who covered the Capitol in Santa Fe for close to 20 years. Frankly, I’m still in shock, which is why I haven’t written anything up to this point. Nothing I write will do justice to the injustice of this crappy situation. So let me just say that I’ll miss Deborah for her wonderful way with words; her wry, irreverent sense of humor; her institutional knowledge; her toughness; her compelling stories about West Virginia — where she lived once upon a time; her unflappability; and her wonderful singing voice. Deborah, other reporters and I will miss your expertise and reporting and writing skills. But, more than that, we’ll miss you.