Expulsion

The roughly dozen Corona del Mar High students accused of hacking into the school's computers to access tests and change grades are still facing the possibility of expulsion from the district, Newport-Mesa Unified officials confirmed Tuesday afternoon. The district made the clarification after published reports that Newport-Mesa was considering a disciplinary measure known as "restorative justice," the Daily Pilot reported. The district this school year moved away from the longtime zero-tolerance policy and began using restorative justice, which encourages students to develop empathy and understand the reasons for their actions.

Whatever you might say about Simon Schama, one of our most prominent and accomplished narrative historians, you can't say he's afraid to tackle broad and challenging subjects. "The Story of the Jews" is the first of a two-volume work aimed at covering 3 millenniums, from 1000 BCE to the present day, with the break coming at 1492 and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. That's a lot of ground to cover, greater geographically if not in chronological terms than Schama's last multi-volume work, a three-tome "History of Britain" published in 2000-02 that reached all the way back to 3500 BC. Like that work, the scale of "The Story of the Jews" was dictated by the requirement of a television documentary series, scheduled to begin airing on PBS toward the end of this month.

Neal Freitas thinks the system worked. On Tuesday, the Nevada school board member applauded a recent federal appeals court ruling that upheld the expulsion of a former student who referenced the Virginia Tech massacre and threatened violence against classmates through social media five years ago. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that Landon Wynar's threats to massacre classmates at Douglas High School in the town...

An administrator for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District resigned Wednesday after alleging the school district badly mishandled a computer-hacking scandal that resulted in the expulsion of 11 students. Jane Garland, who was deeply involved in the case for months as the district's head of discipline, said the district ignored her recommendations to give the students a lighter punishment. “They didn't stop to think about it,” Garland said. “They went ahead, and these children got destroyed in the newspapers.” Garland, in an email to school board members and administrators, called the handling of the expulsions “a total farce” and said the way in which students were selected for punishment seemed “arbitrary.” Eleven students were expelled last week from high-achieving Corona del Mar High School amid allegations they were involved in a scheme to hack into the district computer system to change grades and access exams.

Baghdad's expulsion of six U.N. employees and British efforts to clamp down on Iraqi oil prices dominated a heated Security Council meeting in which Iraq accused the U.N. staffers of being spies. Afterward, Benan Sevan, the director of the U.N. program that monitors the use of Iraqi oil profits for the purchase of humanitarian goods, denied the spying allegations. Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Douri said there had been two additional expulsions, but Sevan's office denied that claim.

Claremont school district officials and city leaders this month sent a letter condemning the county board of education's unilateral decision to overturn a district ruling that expelled three high school students accused of racially motivated vandalism and assault. The letter, which was sent to the County Board of Supervisors and signed by the Claremont Unified School District board as well as the City Council, mayor and chief of police, said the county's decision was "diametrically opposed to the tenets of providing safe schools in safe communities."

The Soviet Union protested the expulsion of a Soviet trade official from the United States and suggested that it might take further action, the Tass news agency said. The Foreign Ministry issued the protest to U.S. Ambassador Jack F. Matlock Jr., describing the March 23 expulsion order against Sergei Malinin, an employee of the Soviet trade organization Amtorg, as groundless, Tass said. The news agency asserted that U.S. authorities expelled Malinin in retaliation for the expulsion by Moscow of a U.S. military attache, Lt. Col. Daniel Francis Van Gundy.

Yugoslavia expelled a Swiss diplomat Friday, apparently in retaliation for the expulsion of a Yugoslav diplomat from Switzerland last week. Swiss Ambassador Alfred Hohl was summoned Friday to the Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs and told one of his staff must leave Yugoslavia, Belgrade radio said. The state-run radio did not identify the expelled Swiss diplomat.

Six Iranian consular officials left West Berlin under heavy police escort Monday, ordered out of the divided city by the Western Allies because of fears of planned terrorist attacks. Escorted by two police cars and two police vans, the Iranians drove to the Staaken border point for the four-hour trip to Hamburg along a transit highway cutting through East German territory. The West Berlin police escort ended at the border point. The six were heading for Tehran's consulate in Hamburg.

Britain ordered the expulsion of four members of the Czechoslovak Embassy today for "activities incompatible with their status" but said the move was not related to last week's expulsion of 11 Soviet diplomats and journalists. The British Foreign Office said Czechoslovak Ambassador Jan Fidler was summoned and told the four had 14 days to leave. The Foreign Office said Fidler was told the three diplomats and one technical adviser "had been engaged in unacceptable activities incompatible with their status"--a diplomatic euphemism for spying.

The roughly dozen Corona del Mar High students accused of hacking into the school's computers to access tests and change grades are still facing the possibility of expulsion from the district, Newport-Mesa Unified officials confirmed Tuesday afternoon. The district made the clarification after published reports that Newport-Mesa was considering a disciplinary measure known as "restorative justice," the Daily Pilot reported. The district this school year moved away from the longtime zero-tolerance policy and began using restorative justice, which encourages students to develop empathy and understand the reasons for their actions.

Richard Rodriguez's "Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography" appears at first to have been mistitled; it is neither a book about the spirit, strictly, nor an autobiography in any common sense. Rather, it's a collection of essays - some of which were originally published in Harper's, Kenyon Review and the Wilson Quarterly - that approach the larger questions of faith and character through a broad array of filters, from the 9/11 terrorist attacks to the legacy of Cesar Chavez, the collapse of newspapers to the reimagining of public space in a digital age. "I did not intend to write a spiritual autobiography," Rodriguez acknowledges in a brief "Note to the Reader.

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Nicolas Maduro's expulsion Monday of three U.S. diplomats was another sign of the increasingly dire problems Venezuela's government faces and the extreme measures he is taking to try to divert supporters' attention from them, analysts said. In a speech commemorating the 200th anniversary of a revolutionary battle in western Falcon state, Maduro said he was expelling acting charges d'affaires Kelly Keiderling, Elizabeth Hoffman and David Moo for allegedly meeting with opposition figures and “taking actions to sabotage the electricity system.” Maduro had previously charged right-wing opponents with sabotage last month in connection with the outage of a high voltage transmission line in western Venezuela that caused blackouts across the country.

Neal Freitas thinks the system worked. On Tuesday, the Nevada school board member applauded a recent federal appeals court ruling that upheld the expulsion of a former student who referenced the Virginia Tech massacre and threatened violence against classmates through social media five years ago. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that Landon Wynar's threats to massacre classmates at Douglas High School in the town...

TUCSON -- Jared Loughner's father described his son as “too smart for his own good” and said he “was just never the same” after he was kicked out of a community college and fired from a mall job, according to investigative records released Wednesday. Loughner, who pleaded guilty in August in the rampage that killed six and  injured 13,  was an “outcast” who didn't have anymore friends, according to his father, Randy Loughner, who was interviewed by authorities a few hours after the shooting.

The just-expelled Better Business Bureau of the Southland has no plans to end its mission of fighting for southern California consumers. The former Los Angeles affiliate of Council of Better Business Bureaus has renamed itself the Business Consumer Alliance and is going on the offensive after being booted from the council Tuesday over allegations that it strong-armed businesses into paying cash for inflated ratings. As a result, the new group can no longer use the BBB name or logo.

MOSCOW - A prominent opposition activist was stripped of his seat in the lower house of the Russian parliament Friday, a move that heightens concern the Kremlin will continue its aggressive crackdown on political dissent. Gennady Gudkov, 52, a protest movement leader and member of the opposition Just Russia party, was expelled by a 294-151 vote of the State Duma, controlled by President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. Gudkov, once an ally of Putin, called the action political vengeance by the Kremlin.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Uriel Alberto would seem to be a strong candidate for the recent federal policy change that temporarily protects certain young, undocumented immigrants from deportation. Thousands of applicants lined up last week to file forms under the new policy, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It offers a two-year waiver from deportation to immigrants aged 30 and younger who were brought to the U.S. by their parents before age 16. Alberto, 25, moved to the U.S. illegally from Mexico with his immigrant parents at age 7. He graduated from a U.S. high school - another requirement of the new policy - where he was a track standout.