Hiring

Amid an aggressive push to bolster its ranks with thousands of new deputies, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department loosened its hiring practices and gave jobs to recruits who in the past would have been rejected, according to a department watchdog report released Thursday. Among those hired were applicants with criminal records, drug and alcohol problems and financial woes. One recruit, for example, had been released from another police agency after using excessive force.

The Justice Department is investigating whether former Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton illegally used her position to benefit Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company that later hired her, according to officials in federal law enforcement and the Interior Department. The criminal investigation centers on the Interior Department's 2006 decision to award three lucrative oil shale leases on federal land in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary. Over the years it would take to extract the oil, according to calculations from Shell and a Rand Corp.

Since landing his first job in the video game industry in 1992 as a salesman at Capcom Co., Justin Berenbaum never wanted for work -- until this month. The 39-year-old from Woodland Hills was laid off from his job as vice president of business development at EmSense Corp., a San Francisco game design consulting firm. A few days later, he was roaming the halls of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, browsing the career pavilion and hitting up former colleagues for leads.

Casino mogul Steve Wynn says hiring will begin Sunday for 5,300 positions at his new Encore resort on the Las Vegas Strip. Company executives said hiring would be handled online. Encore, with 2,034 rooms, is scheduled to open by the end of the year.

Their savings in shambles from the economic downturn, jobless seniors are dusting off their briefcases and trying to head back to work. Many, like Jim Mitchell, a 63-year-old former sales executive, are finding a merciless job market where decades of experience aren't necessarily an asset. The Long Beach resident rises daily before dawn and dresses neatly in business attire to keep himself motivated.

The financially strapped Los Angeles Unified School District says it cannot afford to hire any new teachers next year from Teach for America, a prestigious program that places high-achieving college graduates in low-income, underperforming schools. The district has worked with the nonprofit since the early 1990s; more than 600 Teach for America members have taught in L.A. Unified classrooms since 2004.

Two committees of the Los Angeles City Council recommended Monday that the city stop hiring police officers starting next month and wait until January to see if the budget picture has improved enough to resume recruitment. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will veto the proposal if the full council approves it next week, officials in the mayor's office said. The Budget and Finance and Public Safety committees agreed to discontinue a new recruit class in November as part of the effort to eliminate a $405-million budget shortfall.

Minnesota Timberwolves President David Kahn told the Associated Press on Thursday that the team and Kurt Rambis were not close to a deal to name Rambis as its new head coach. Kahn said Wednesday that he is in a position to "do something within a week" and would like one or two of the coaching candidates to meet with owner Glen Taylor before a decision is made.

Shakespeare, Edith Wharton and Internet poetry were supposed to be among the main topics of discussion at the largest gathering of humanities professors in the nation. But the sour economy and shrunken job market for academics proved to be more dramatic than any novel or play. An estimated 8,500 professors and wannabe professors of English literature, composition and foreign languages gathered for the annual meeting this week of the Modern Language Assn.

UCLA wants to talk to Norm Chow, and the chances of a significant conversation between Bruins Coach Rick Neuheisel and the veteran offensive coordinator increased dramatically Tuesday when the Tennessee Titans fired Chow after three seasons with the NFL team. Chow, who interviewed to become UCLA's head coach in December, acknowledged Tuesday night that UCLA had contacted his oldest son, Carter, who is his agent.