Dismissals

The Supreme Court struggled Wednesday over whether the Boy Scouts have a constitutional right to exclude gays, atheists and others who do not fit within their moral code. That issue arose only because the New Jersey Supreme Court, in a one-of-a-kind decision, ruled that the Scouts are a type of public business and therefore may not, in keeping with state law, discriminate against people based on race, gender, religion or sexual orientation.

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller removed his son Saturday as preacher on the syndicated "Hour of Power" television show less than three years after handing over to him the ministry he began more than 50 years ago. Schuller announced the removal of his son, Robert A. Schuller, in a statement read to some 450 Crystal Cathedral congregants by Jim Coleman, the church's president.

As the congregants filed out of a Catholic church in south Orange County on Sunday, some were angry, others in tears. All were stunned. They had just learned that their priest for the last 12 years had been forced to resign because, at one point in his ministry, he had sexually molested a teenager.

Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler won't be broadcasting Angels games anymore. Physioc and Hudler have been told jointly by FS West and the Angels that they will not be part of the Angels' on-air team next season. A statement by Fox and the Angels said that Rory Markas and Mark Gubicza will be the television voices for the team on FS West and KCOP next season, and Terry Smith and Jose Mota will do the radio on KLAA AM 830. Physioc, 54, who has called baseball for 25 years for the San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Cincinnati Reds and ESPN, said the news was "a total shock.

One of the most heated and emotional political battles between labor and management in a generation will climax today when the U.S. Senate casts a critical vote on legislation that would prohibit corporations from replacing striking union workers. Both corporate America and organized labor have poured their lobbying resources into the bitter congressional fight, one both sides see as critical to determining who will have the upper hand in the American workplace of the 21st Century.

Before the sermon Oct. 9 at the Islamic Center of Irvine, a member of the board got up and informed the congregation that the beloved and charismatic religious director, Sadullah Khan, had been dismissed, citing inappropriate conduct. No further explanation was given. Many in the congregation were stunned; some demanded more information. One called out, "We deserve to know the reason why," according to Khalid Abdurrahman, a college student who attends Friday prayers at the mosque.

The teacher whom the Los Angeles school district has spent seven years and nearly $2 million trying to fire spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday, saying he did not sexually harass students and is the target of discrimination. Matthew Kim, a former special education teacher at Grant High School in Van Nuys, had declined to speak to The Times numerous times over the last several months.

A night out at a risque West Hollywood nightclub was an "after-hours nonofficial get-together" that followed a meeting of young Republican donors and should not have been paid for with party money, a top Republican National Committee official said in a memo released Tuesday. RNC Chief of Staff Ken McKay said no senior party officials attended the outing at Voyeur, which features performers in bondage and sadomasochistic scenes. Nor did party officials know of the purpose of the reimbursement to the donor who paid the nearly $2,000 tab, the memo said.

A judge has dismissed a misdemeanor prostitution solicitation charge filed against the former athletic director of a Woodland Hills high school, authorities said Wednesday. Los Angeles police officers arrested David Siedelman in May after they said he solicited sex from an undercover police officer posing as an employee of a Tarzana massage parlor.

A longtime bus driver and union activist fired by the Orange County Transportation Authority is seeking arbitration to win reinstatement. Teamsters Local 952, which represents 1,200 OCTA bus drivers, has exhausted grievance procedures for Curtis Gamble and notified the agency last week that it is requesting arbitration. Gamble, 36, of Anaheim was fired in February after an OCTA inspector noted four violations of regulations -- enough to qualify him for dismissal.

With the nation's unemployment rate still hovering close to 10% -- more than 12% in California -- and the typical unemployment spell stretching to 20 months, politicians of both parties are rightly looking for ideas to improve labor market conditions. This recession clearly threatens to do permanent damage to the careers of a generation of workers, and policy action is urgent. After surveying policies around the world, we found that there is one that clearly dominates in terms of impact and cost-effectiveness: work-sharing.

A night out at a risque West Hollywood nightclub was an "after-hours nonofficial get-together" that followed a meeting of young Republican donors and should not have been paid for with party money, a top Republican National Committee official said in a memo released Tuesday. RNC Chief of Staff Ken McKay said no senior party officials attended the outing at Voyeur, which features performers in bondage and sadomasochistic scenes. Nor did party officials know of the purpose of the reimbursement to the donor who paid the nearly $2,000 tab, the memo said.

USC sophomore forward Leonard Washington has been dismissed from the team and is looking to transfer, sources close to the situation told The Times on Friday. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because Washington has not yet been granted his official release. That announcement is expected soon. According to the sources, Washington was dismissed March 7 after the team returned from Arizona, where its season had ended the day before. Washington was told that afternoon that he would not be returning to the team, primarily because of his poor attitude, the sources said.

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon said Friday that he should have been notified by L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley's office that a case involving an intruder at his home had been dismissed and the suspect released from a state mental hospital. Alarcon spoke out one day after an intruder broke into his Panorama City home for a second time in six months. Lawrence Lydell Payton, 42, was arrested Thursday night on suspicion of burglary at Alarcon's Nordhoff Street home.

Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said Thursday that he will reassign three South Los Angeles elementary school teachers who were suspended for having their students display pictures of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul in a Black History Month parade. Cortines said he had no evidence that the teachers' actions were racially motivated. But he said, "I think it was an exercise of very poor judgment." "These were not novice teachers," he said. The teachers, white men who teach first, second and fourth grades at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School, were suspended without pay for three days and will be kept out of the classroom until they are assigned to three other schools.

An Illinois man who has spent more than 30 years in prison for a 1978 murder asked that much of the evidence pointing to his innocence be dismissed, and on Wednesday a judge agreed. But Judge Diane Gordon Cannon asked that Anthony McKinney sign an affidavit stating that he understood the consequences. The evidence that could free him was unearthed by Northwestern University journalism students on a project for the Medill Innocence Project. Prosecutors have subpoenaed the students, their professor, a private investigator working with the project, the grades students received for their research and their unpublished notes, among other things.

According to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a prisoner who was slammed to a concrete floor and punched and kicked by a guard after asking for a grievance form -- but suffered neither serious nor permanent harm -- has no claim that his constitutional rights were violated. Thomas objected when the high court, in a little-noted recent opinion, said this unprovoked and malicious assault by a North Carolina prison guard amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The court's decision came a few days after Thomas' now-famous former law clerk John C. Yoo was charged with flawed reasoning, but not professional misconduct, as a Justice Department lawyer when he applied much the same view toward the treatment of Al Qaeda prisoners.

A Los Angeles Police Department disciplinary panel Wednesday decided that a detective should be fired for leaking confidential information about the investigation into a relative's murder. The final say on Det. Michael Slider's career rests with LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who can affirm the firing or impose a lesser punishment on the 22-year veteran. Slider's case stems from a night in September 2006 when his teenage niece, Khristina Henry, was robbed at gunpoint outside a bowling alley near Los Angeles International Airport.

The Supreme Court backed away Monday from a confrontation with the Obama administration and Congress over the handling of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who are judged to be wrongly held as "enemy combatants." The justices dismissed a case brought on behalf of 17 Chinese Muslims, or Uighurs, who were held as prisoners at Guantanamo even after a judge ruled they deserved to go free. Congress and the Justice Department balked at a judge's plan to release them into the United States.

Federal officials have removed the management team overseeing a national database of dangerous or incompetent caregivers after questions were raised about its accuracy. The reassignments of the division director and four managers came in response to a joint ProPublica-Los Angeles Times story last month that found the repository was probably missing thousands of serious disciplinary cases against health providers. Congress ordered up the database more than 20 years ago. It was supposed to provide an alert system for hospitals, flagging them to disciplinary actions taken in any state against nurses, therapists, pharmacists and other licensed health professionals.