Dismissals

The editor of the Los Angeles Times will leave the paper in a dispute over newsroom cuts, becoming the fourth senior executive in less than three years to depart after resisting budget reductions. James E. O'Shea, editor since November 2006, said Sunday that he was forced out after disagreeing with Times Publisher David D. Hiller's plan to shrink the newsroom budget. "We did not share a common vision for the future of the L.A. Times," O'Shea said.

Tribune Co. Chairman Sam Zell on Monday backed Los Angeles Times Publisher David D. Hiller's decision to replace the newspaper's editor. "I've said loud and clear that I am returning control of our businesses to the people who run them," Zell told Tribune employees in an e-mail message. "That means David Hiller has my full support. He carries direct responsibility for the staffing and financial success of the L.A. Times." Hiller said in an interview that he notified Zell last week that James E.

The Washington Redskins fired defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and offensive coordinator Al Saunders on Saturday, promoted Greg Blache to lead the team's defense and announced that a head coach would probably not be in place for at least another week. The Redskins also formally announced the hiring of Jim Zorn, who agreed to a three-year deal on Friday to be offensive coordinator.

The dismissal of a judge who handed down convictions and tough sentences in the slayings of several labor leaders came in for harsh criticism from an influential U.S. legislator as Congress considers a free trade agreement with Colombia. The judge sat on a special tribunal that last year began looking into the killings of 2,554 labor leaders and organizers since 1986, a panel formed at the urging of the U.S. government, which provided millions of dollars to fund it.

A Quaker math instructor who was fired by Cal State East Bay after she refused on religious grounds to sign a state loyalty oath has been reinstated, university officials said Friday. Marianne Kearney-Brown, a pacifist, was concerned that signing the oath to "support and defend" the California and U.S. constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic" could commit her to take up arms. She was fired Feb.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Wednesday called on Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey to explain the recent disbanding of a high-profile unit in the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles that specialized in prosecuting public corruption cases. In a letter to the attorney general, Feinstein said she read about the shake-up in news accounts. The articles described how U.S. Atty. Thomas P.

The Colombian government said Saturday that it had fired Mark Penn's public relations firm after Penn, the chief campaign strategist for presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton, apologized for meeting with Colombian officials pushing a trade deal with the U.S.

Iraqi officials said Sunday that they had fired about 1,300 soldiers and police officers who refused to fight Shiite Muslim militias during the recent government crackdown, desertions that raise questions about the likely performance of Iraqi forces as U.S. troop levels decrease.

A judge hearing a war crimes case at Guantanamo Bay who publicly expressed frustration with military prosecutors' refusal to give evidence to the defense has been dismissed, tribunal officials confirmed Friday. Army Col. Peter Brownback III was presiding over the case of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr. Marine Col.

A popular former principal of Locke High School filed a lawsuit Monday accusing the Los Angeles Unified School District and its top officials of illegally firing him last year after he threw his support behind a plan to turn over the troubled campus to a charter school operator. Frank Wells said he lost his job because of comments he made criticizing the district and supporting the charter petition of Green Dot Public Schools.