Management

Khadijah Williams stepped into chemistry class and instantly tuned out the commotion. She walked past students laughing, gossiping, napping and combing one another's hair. Past a cellphone blaring rap songs. And past a substitute teacher sitting in a near-daze. Quietly, the 18-year-old settled into an empty table, flipped open her physics book and focused. Nothing mattered now except homework. "No wonder you're going to Harvard," a girl teased her. Around here, Khadijah is known as "Harvard girl," the "smart girl" and the girl with the contagious smile who landed at Jefferson High School only 18 months ago. What students don't know is that she is also a homeless girl.

About 300 labor union members and other activists staged a demonstration to protest the potential sale of the Los Angeles Times to the politically conservative Koch brothers. Demonstrators marched outside the downtown L.A. headquarters of Oaktree Capital Management, an investment firm that holds a roughly 20% stake in Tribune Co., which owns The Times. Protesters alleged that Charles and David Koch, billionaire siblings who fund conservative causes, want to buy The Times in order to skew the paper's coverage to favor anti-union objectives.

WASHINGTON - President Obama forced out the head of the IRS on Wednesday, seeking to restore the public's faith in the tax agency while asserting a measure of control over a rapidly growing political problem. Making a hastily scheduled statement at the White House, Obama denounced the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service as "inexcusable" and pledged to "do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. " "Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," he said.

Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly held outfielder Carl Crawford out of the lineup Wednesday and he plans to do the same with Andre Ethier on Friday, when the team opens a six-game trip in Atlanta. Only Matt Kemp has played in more games or had more at-bats than Crawford and Ethier, both of whom, the manager said, were in need of a break. "The [body] language tells you kind of where he's at. And then you see it on the field in his energy level," he said. "You can kind of feel it with guys.

Students filed into Chris Cox's dim classroom at Daniel Webster Middle School in Los Angeles' Sawtelle neighborhood, took their seats and immediately began working on a language arts warmup exercise. While Cox took roll, the eighth-graders silently worked. When they went over the answers, students raised their hands and waited to be called on. Down the corridor, seventh-graders streamed into Brent Walmsley's classroom and took over. Some sat on table tops; others wandered around the room, pausing to grab foamy handfuls of hand sanitizer that sloshed on the floor.

The schism between the Rev. Robert H. Schuller and his son at Orange County's Crystal Cathedral arose over a disagreement about broadening the church's long-running television show, "Hour of Power," beyond a single personality -- a move opposed by the younger Schuller, pastors involved in the matter said Sunday. The elder Schuller announced Saturday that he was removing his son, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, as the show's only preacher three years after turning the program over to him.

SACRAMENTO - California has been flooded with revenue this tax season and is on track to finish the fiscal year with a surplus of billions of dollars, according to officials. State coffers contain about $4.5 billion more than expected in personal income tax payments. Nearly $2.8 billion of it arrived April 17, the third-highest single-day collection in California history, according to government figures. Business taxes have also rebounded and are likely to be $200 million ahead of projections.

Pity the poor Hollywood agent. In the '80s and early '90s, talent agents ruled the industry. Movie studios and television networks found themselves beholden to International Creative Management, the Creative Artists Agency and the time-tested William Morris Agency, the "big three" agencies that had a lock on most A-list stars. Agents made big money for both their clients and themselves, charging the TV networks, for example, huge so-called packaging fees to assemble talent for shows.

There are frequent fliers, and then there are people like Steven Rothstein and Jacques Vroom. Both men bought tickets that gave them unlimited first-class travel for life on American Airlines. It was almost like owning a fleet of private jets. Passes in hand, Rothstein and Vroom flew for business. They flew for pleasure. They flew just because they liked being on planes. They bypassed long lines, booked backup itineraries in case the weather turned, and never worried about cancellation fees.

After 18 years at the helm of Los Angeles' oldest Spanish-language TV station, Daniel D. Villanueva resigned Wednesday and said he expects another Latino to be named to succeed him as general manager of KMEX Channel 34. "I've been wanting to slow down for the last five years," Villanueva said.

Arte Moreno has placed blame for the team's brutal 2013 start, its failure to make the playoffs for three straight years and several high-priced moves that have paid minimal dividends on the one person the Angels owner can't fire: Himself. "If you're going to blame anyone, you've got to blame me," Moreno told FoxSports.com on Wednesday in New York, where he is attending the owners' meetings. "I'm the one at the end of the day that has the final call. " Moreno orchestrated the signing of first baseman Albert Pujols to a 10-year, $240-million deal before 2012.

After the scoreboard bulbs showing a playoff-eliminating loss were turned off at Honda Center on Sunday, more came to light Tuesday as Ducks players were processed through exit interviews. For one, the team was more banged up than advertised down the stretch. For another, veteran star Teemu Selanne might indeed be swayed to return for a 21st season because of the "unfinished business" after the first-round Stanley Cup playoffs loss to the Detroit Red Wings. Also, General Manager Bob Murray is bent on toughening his team after regular-season and playoff bullying incidents went unchecked, and admitted Tuesday that the Ducks were hamstrung late in the season by injuries.

After watching Brandon League struggle through another tough outing in the series finale with the Miami Marlins, Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly was asked Monday whether the right-hander was still his closer. His answer wasn't exactly a vote of confidence. "Yeah, for now he is," Mattingly said. "I hate to say it like that. But yeah, for now. " League has given up runs in six of his last seven appearances and has just two hitless innings in the last month.

If Sir Alex Ferguson had stuck with his original plan, today we might be praising his pasta and Chinese noodles rather than his decision to start Robin van Persie over Wayne Rooney. Or if he had chosen to pursue his interest in U.S. history, particularly the Civil War and the JFK assassination, he might have become a master teacher of men rather than a master motivator of them. But then again, if Ferguson hadn't passed on those two options to become the most successful coach in British soccer history, we wouldn't be calling him sir. After all few chefs, and even fewer U.S. history buffs, get knighted by the queen.

The Dodgers' starting lineup Sunday did not include first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, who has been bothered by a strained neck. And there was some doubt outfielders Carl Crawford (hamstring) and Andre Ethier, who banged his toe against the outfield wall Saturday, would play, adding to the growing injury concerns for a team that already has nine players on the disabled list. But Manager Don Mattingly said the small, persistent injuries do little more than complicate his lineup card from time to time.

Matt Kemp came to Don Mattingly's defense Friday in light of the mounting speculation regarding the manager's job status. "He doesn't go out there and hit for us, pitch for us, field for us, run for us," Kemp said. "It's not his fault that we're losing. It's the players. " The Dodgers are in last place in the National League West. "All he can do is talk to us and help us out," Kemp said. "That's it. " As much as the Dodgers players like and respect Mattingly, Kemp said rumors about his possible dismissal wouldn't be a distraction.

A bit of ratings counseling is in need for Charlie Sheen's TV comeback: His FX series"Anger Management" saw another double-digit drop in viewership in its third week. Its fourth episode, which aired Thursday night, delivered 2.4 million total viewers, according to Nielsen figures - down 28% from the previous week and 27% in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demo. The viewership dive is all the more troubling considering its second week had already experienced a drop of 2 million viewers.

Six years ago, Dan Songer and partner Jeffrey D. Ring formed Innovative Management Systems, an Irvine company that teaches workers how to manage increasingly demanding workloads. It has consulted more than 200 businesses, including the Vons Cos. Inc., TRW Inc., Yamaha, Unisys Corp and First Interstate Bank. Songer, 42, said workers in Orange County are under more pressure than ever, but with proper training the problems are manageable. He recently spoke with Times correspondent Debora Vrana.

A makeup artist and longtime friend of Michael Jackson said Thursday that in the days before his death the singer was paranoid, repeated himself continuously and was so cold she bundled him in a blanket, put him in front of a space heater and hugged him to try to stop the shivering. Karen Faye, who had known Jackson for 27 years, said she took her concerns to an AEG executive five days before Jackson died of an overdose of the anesthetic propofol at his rented Holmby Hills mansion.

A judge ruled on Thursday that The Times could not be stopped from reporting on testimony from the top manager of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in a deposition for an open-government lawsuit. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Luis A. Lavin said that in asking the court to deny Times reporters access to the testimony and a prohibition against articles about it, the commission sought “essentially a gag order.” “This is a public matter,” Lavin said of the lawsuit brought against the commission by The Times and a 1st Amendment group, Californians Aware.