Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. UC chancellors get big raises, putting them between $785,000 and nearly $1.2 million The UC regents approved pay raises for seven chancellors at their September meeting. At UC Irvine, above, the chancellor will earn $895,000 a year, effective this month. University of California chancellors will get big salary boosts -- near or exceeding 30% in most cases -- as the Board of Regents agreed Thursday that higher pay was needed to bring leaders of the nation's top public university system closer to what their peers earn. The increases, which will be paid through private sources rather than tuition dollars or state funding, are effective this month and will vary by campus.

UCLA police, who were called on to handle some of the nation's largest campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war last spring, are asking for approval to double their stockpile of pepper balls and sponge rounds, obtain eight more projectile launchers and purchase three new drones. The University of California Board of Regents will consider the requests by UCLA, along with the other nine UC campus police departments, on Thursday. All California law enforcement agencies are required by state law to report annually on the acquisition and use of weapons characterized as "military equipment." A UC spokesman called the police requests a "routine agenda item" not tied to protests or other particular incidents. "All of the campus's requests are for non-lethal alternatives to standard-issue firearms, enabling officers to de-escalate situations and respond without the use of deadly force," UC spokesman Stett Holbrook said in a statement.

The U.S. is solidifying a defense package to Ukraine, which would help assist Ukraine with shooting down Russian drone strikes on civilian targets. North Korea is supplying arms to a Russian mercenary group and could continue to deliver military equipment to support the Kremlin's war against Ukraine, the Biden administration said Thursday. The White House said the weapons "will not change battlefield dynamics," however, the private entity receiving the equipment, Wagner Group, is committing atrocities and human rights abuses across Ukraine. "Because the Russian military is struggling in Ukraine, President [Vladimir] Putin has increasingly been turning to Wagner, which is owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, for military support," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday. Kirby said Prigozhin has been spending more than $100 million per month to fund Wagner's efforts inside Ukraine.

Last month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted in favor of allowing that city's police department to deploy robots equipped with a potential to kill, should a situation--in the estimation of police officers--call for lethal force. With that decision, the board appeared to have delivered the city to a dystopian future. The vote garnered a loudly negative response from the public, and this week the supervisors reversed course and sent the policy back to committee. But the fact that the decision initially passed--and may yet pass in some form--should not have been surprising. Police departments around the country have been acquiring robotic devices for decades.

Footage has emerged showing bizarre prototypes of military contraptions during a parade in Ghana. A robot'walking tank' shaped like a pair of human legs and a giant armoured vehicle with leather seats inside were among the items on display at the event, said to have taken place in the capital, Accra. There were also people walking in military fatigue-coloured exoskeletons, in what appeared to be a product launch by manufacturer Kantanka. It is unclear whether the new products have any connection to the official Ghanaian military. Footage from the event shows the men in exoskeletons taking cumbersome steps in their heavy gear.

"When they order military equipment from us, we will get it taken care of and they will get their equipment rapidly," Trump told reporters at a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Florida on Wednesday. "It would be, in some cases, years before orders would take place because of bureaucracy with Department of Defense, State Department. It's now going to be a matter of days. If they're our allies, we are going to help them get this very important, great military equipment. And nobody, nobody, makes it like the United States.

The US's military leaders have agreed on a strategy to guarantee the US military retains its global dominance during the twenty-first century: Connect everything with everything, as DefenseOne describes it. An unimaginably large cephapoloidal nervous system armed with the world's most advanced weaponry, and in control of all military equipment belonging to the world's most powerful army. A networked military – an extreme take on the "internet of things" - would connect everything from F-35 jets to the Navy's destroyers to the armor of the tanks crawling over the land to the devices carried by soldiers – every weapon would be connected. Every weapon, vehicle, and device connected, sharing data, constantly aware of the presence and state of every other node in a truly global network. Of course, the development of these "smart" weapons should unnerve Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has repeatedly warned that AI and machine learning poses a greater threat to the future of the US than North Korea.

Havoc broke out at a peaceful protest against police violence and racism in Dallas on Thursday evening when a sniper opened fire, shooting 12 officers and 2 civilians. Police cornered the suspect, now known to be Micah Johnson, in a downtown parking garage around 11 p.m. As negotiators tried to talk him out of the parking deck over a series of hours, news came out that five of the officers had died. Negotiations broke down; gunfire was exchanged between police and Mr. Johnson. Then, around 3 a.m., police reported that the sniper was dead.

Negotiators had been talking for hours with the hunkered-down killer of five police officers in downtown Dallas when the man suddenly resumed firing with an assault rifle. Fearing additional casualties, the officers deployed a small, remote-controlled robot to carry an explosive device near shooter Micah Xavier Johnson, which they then detonated, killing him. "We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was," Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference Friday morning. "Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger .… We have confirmed that he's been deceased because of the detonation of the bomb."