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The Times is pleased to have Green Bay Packers wide receiver Donald Driver guest-blogging for us while he competes on "Dancing With the Stars. " Each week, Driver, a Super Bowl champion and three-time Pro Bowl player, will answer a few questions from Sports Now editor Houston Mitchell and give some insight into the competition. Here are Driver's thoughts about Week 3, which he offered via email. Q: You seemed to be having a lot of fun dancing the paso doble. Was that the easiest dance for you to connect to so far?

Deborah Pauly, the outspoken Villa Park councilwoman who drew community ire when she protested outside an Islamic charity event, was removed this week from a leadership position with the Orange County Republican Party's central committee. Party officials said Pauly, who is running for county supervisor, has been a divisive figure. Her removal comes a month after Orange businessman Bob Walters mailed out letters supporting Pauly's candidacy on a "George Wallace for President" letterhead.

General Motors Co.plans to pull its paid advertising from Facebook Inc. after the nation's largest automaker determined its ads on the social network had little effect on consumers. The move represents an ill-timed setback for Facebook, which is gearing up for what is expected to be the largest ever initial public stock offering of an Internet company. In the run-up to its IPO, expected Friday, investors have been weighing Facebook's revenue prospects and have questioned the effectiveness of advertising on the social networking site.

There's consternation in Palin Nation. The former Alaska governor surprised many supporters this week when she endorsed Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, a political fixture who would seem to represent everything that Palinistas loathe, which can be conveyed in a simple phrase: “the entrenched Washington elite.” Though she has taken herself out of contention for office, Palin continues to keep herself in the political game as a kind of would-be kingmaker,...

Brian Frons, the longtime president of ABC Daytime, is leaving the network amid its high-stakes transition from soap operas to lower-cost talk and lifestyle shows. In recent months, there have been rumblings about Frons' own future as ABC canceled two of its three long-running soap operas — "All My Children" and "One Life to Live. " Frons joined the network in 2002 to oversee soap operas and other daytime programming. But the once-lucrative soap opera genre has steadily lost viewers, and the shows no longer are profitable.

Can a county judge tell you what to post on your Facebook page? That question is at the heart of the interesting case of Mark Byron, a Cincinnati-based photographer who was ordered to post a court-approved apology to his soon to be ex-wife on his Facebook page every day for 30 days -- or spend 60 days in jail. "The idea that a court can say, 'I order you not to post something or to post something' seems to me to be a 1st Amendment issue," free-speech expert Jack Greiner, told the Cincinnati Enquirer . In June 2011, Byron was found guilty of civil domestic violence against his Elizabeth Byron, and the court gave her a temporary protection order.

Channing Tatum lowers his green eyes and stares at the camera. "Your friend wanted me to tell you that they think you're pretty awesome," the 31-year-old actor says. "And they love hanging with you. " Tatum's performance wasn't from a movie, but a "Sweet Nothings" video that marketers for his new film, "The Vow," posted on Facebook in advance of its opening last weekend. It worked: The romantic tear-jerker blew past expectations to open at No. 1 with $41.2 million in North American ticket sales.

A Pinon Hills man suspected of killing his 9-month-old son before committing suicide apparently posted details of the plans on his Facebook page in an emotional, rambling letter beginning with, "So This Is Goodbye." "I led everyone on my side of the family to believe I wouldn't have done this because I did not want them to know. . . . ," reads the post attributed to Stephen Garcia, 25. "I did this out of love for our son, to protect him and myself. I am sorry. . . . Do not dwell on what I did, it's something you could not fix."

The International Atomic Energy Agency has been providing updates on the damaged Japanese nuclear plants on its Facebook page. "Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has informed the IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre that there has been an explosion at the Unit 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, and that they are assessing the condition of the reactor core," the latest statement said. "The explosion was reported to NISA by the plant operator, TEPCO, at 0730 CET. Further details were not immediately available.

Trouble is brewing in the Bay Area bastion of bicyclists' rights. UC Berkeley students ? already squeezed by steep tuition increases ? are banding together to protest campus citations for bike infractions that run $220 apiece and exceed many vehicle violations. UC Berkeley police say they have issued 103 bike citations from August to November, a 41% increase over the same period last year, nabbing students for riding through designated "dismount zones" and locking their bikes to railings instead of often-overfilled racks.

General Motors Co.plans to pull its paid advertising from Facebook Inc. after the nation's largest automaker determined its ads on the social network had little effect on consumers. The move represents an ill-timed setback for Facebook, which is gearing up for what is expected to be the largest ever initial public stock offering of an Internet company. In the run-up to its IPO, expected Friday, investors have been weighing Facebook's revenue prospects and have questioned the effectiveness of advertising on the social networking site.

SAN DIEGO - A Marine sergeant who criticized President Obama on Facebook was notified Wednesday that he is being dismissed from the service with an other-than-honorable discharge. Gary Stein, 26, a nine-year veteran who served in Iraq, will be demoted to lance corporal, and his discharge status will make him ineligible for most federal veterans benefits, after Brig. Gen. Daniel Yoo accepted the unanimous recommendation of an Administrative Separation Board. The panel found that he made disparaging comments about Obama that were detrimental to good order and discipline and violated military law. Civilian lawyers for Stein said they would continue to fight in federal court to prevent Stein from being dismissed or to win his reinstatement.

I'm pretty close to being a 1st Amendment absolutist, but I can't get too upset about the dismissal from the U.S. Marines of Gary Stein. He's the sergeant who is being given an "other-than-honorable" discharge for Facebook postings in which he called President Obama a coward and an enemy, vowed not to salute him, declared he wouldn't follow presidential orders he considered illegal, and urged the president's electoral defeat. The American Civil Liberties Union is defending Stein.

Skittles candies have been front and center lately, usually accompanying an image of Trayvon Martin -- the 17-year-old who was carrying the confection when he was slain by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. Now a Denver artist has taken the totemic use of the rainbow-colored candy a step further and spun it on its head, or rather, Zimmerman's. Art student Andy Bell used purple, yellow, orange and lime-colored chews to construct a 36-inch by 48-inch mosaic portrait of a Zimmerman mugshot.

The Times is pleased to have Green Bay Packers wide receiver Donald Driver guest-blogging for us while he competes on "Dancing With the Stars. " Each week, Driver, a Super Bowl champion and three-time Pro Bowl player, will answer a few questions from Sports Now editor Houston Mitchell and give some insight into the competition. Here are Driver's thoughts about Week 3, which he offered via email. Q: You seemed to be having a lot of fun dancing the paso doble. Was that the easiest dance for you to connect to so far?

Who owns your personal information - you or the business you share it with? It's a fundamental question that gets to the heart of whether existing privacy protections are too strict or not strict enough. It also addresses matters of accountability when data go astray, as was the case this week when a major credit card processing company said as many as 1.5 million card numbers may have been stolen by hackers. I wrote on Tuesday about the lack of adequate disclosure rules when people's privacy is violated.

When the Orange County Sheriff's Department launched its blog three years ago, the first entry hinted at the department's motivation for venturing into social media. "The Media's Rush to Judgment," penned by then-Sheriff Michael S. Carona, who was in the midst of a corruption scandal, addressed public perceptions surrounding a police shooting and an inmate's death at a county jail. With his blog, Carona had made an end-run around the print and electronic media that he felt had sabotaged his career, overlooked the good things his department had done and overreacted to events such as the beating death of an accused sex offender at Theo Lacy jail.

The relationship status feature of Facebook appears to be central to the happiness - or not - of many romantic relationships among young people, according to new research. The study, appearing in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, surveyed 58 heterosexual couples -- most college-age -- who had been dating for an average of 19 months. The study showed that partners tended to be similar in how they used social media and the importance they placed on it. In 45 of the 58 couples, both partners reported being in a relationship on Facebook.

You might not be able to walk in the footsteps of U.S. athletes who have competed in the Olympics, but you can walk alongside them in one of 20 walking events designed to celebrate Olympians and Paralympians in advance of the London Summer Games. The Southern California chapter of the U.S. Olympians Assn. -- one of the largest groups in the country -- will kick off the series of events on Saturday in Exposition Park. The Olympians' aim is to have enough people walk enough miles to stretch from all the U.S. cities that have hosted the Summer Games -- Los Angeles, St. Louis and Atlanta -- to London.

CAMP PENDLETON - A Marine Corps board Thursday night recommended that a sergeant who made "contemptuous" comments about President Obama be booted from the service and be given an other than honorable discharge. Sgt. Gary Stein, who left a variety of anti-Obama comments on a Facebook page, was stoic when the three-member board announced its decision at about 11 p.m. after an all-day hearing. The final decision on Stein's status will be made by the commanding general of the Marine Corp Recruit Depot San Diego.