Dismissals

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 majority of Los Angeles school board members said Tuesday that they believe state laws governing teacher discipline need to be revised to allow more swift and effective removal of substandard teachers and other employees, although they acknowledged that changes appear unlikely this year.

Karl Rove will be interviewed today as part of a criminal investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys under President George W. Bush, two sources say. Rove, a former senior aide to Bush, will be questioned by Connecticut prosecutor Nora Dannehy, who in September was named to examine whether former Justice Department and White House officials lied or obstructed justice in connection with the dismissal of federal prosecutors in 2006. Robert Luskin, a lawyer for Rove, declined to comment.

It's official: Carrie Prejean, the darling of conservative media pundits and the scourge of gay marriage advocates, has been fired as Miss California USA. First runner-up Tami Farrell, a.k.a. Miss Malibu, will take her place. Prejean's termination, according to pageant officials, had nothing to do with the anti-gay-marriage comments that catapulted her from beauty queen to political commentator.

No immigration agents descended on Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in Vernon. No one was arrested or deported. There were no frantic scenes of desperate workers fleeing la migra through the gritty streets of the industrial suburb southeast of downtown Los Angeles. For more than 200 Overhill workers, however, the effect was devastating: All lost steady jobs last month and now find themselves in a precarious employment market, without severance pay or medical insurance.

After listening to the debate at last week's Los Angeles school board meeting, business leader Carol Schatz said she was appalled. She had attended to support a resolution to speed the firing of teachers accused of serious crimes. But even this proposal -- tiptoeing on the margins of improving teacher quality -- generated heated objections from the teachers union and its supporters. With some last-minute amendments and sniping among board members, the resolution passed by a single vote.

Paramount Pictures, shaking up its management ranks, ousted its two top production executives Friday, signaling unhappiness with the pace of development and performance of movies developed under their watch, including the current Eddie Murphy bomb "Imagine That."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced most members of the state Board of Registered Nursing on Monday, citing the unacceptable time it takes to discipline nurses accused of egregious misconduct. He fired three of six sitting board members -- including President Susanne Phillips -- in two-paragraph letters curtly thanking them for their service. Another member resigned Sunday. Late Monday, the governor's administration released a list of replacements.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has given school district officials the go-ahead to fire a special education teacher seven years after they decided he did not belong in a classroom because of alleged sexual harassment. In his decision made public Monday, Judge David P. Yaffe sharply criticized the state panel that oversees contested teacher firings for disregarding earlier judicial orders.

Duane Cooper is out as boys' basketball coach at Compton Dominguez High, and star center Norvel Pelle may have played his last game as a Don. Hours after learning the Compton Unified School District let go of Cooper, a former USC and NBA player, Pelle said he intended to transfer. "For now, I'm still checked in, but I'll leave," Pelle said here Wednesday at a club tournament.