Management

It will be business as usual at the L.A. County Fairgrounds in Pomona today when the National Hot Rod Assn. opens its 2008 season with the annual Winternationals, which run through Sunday. Engines will roar, fat tires will lay down bands of rubber and cars will speed down the drag strip at upward of 300 mph. Off the track, however, the pro drag racing circuit hit an unexpected speed bump Jan.

Only 15 minutes after becoming chairman of Yahoo Inc., Roy Bostock was startled by his first order of business: how to deal with Microsoft Corp.'s $44.6-billion buyout offer. The 67-year-old Madison Avenue veteran, chosen for his marketing expertise, had barely replaced Terry Semel the evening of Jan. 31 when Microsoft made its unsolicited bid. Bostock took the news with aplomb, according to a person familiar with the events.

Robert Skotheim was at first amused when he was invited to become president of Occidental College, even for just 18 months. "I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of," he recalled. After all, the former professor of American history had been in happy retirement for six years in the Seattle area after heading the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino and, before that, Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash.

A federal judge took partial control of the Duroville mobile home park Monday, appointing three overseers, including a former diplomat, to investigate conditions, make emergency repairs and temporarily take over all financial operations of the Thermal shantytown. U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson in Riverside could have closed the park but decided instead to give the experts two months to make recommendations. "After 60 days I want to be able to make an intelligent decision," he said.

Federal auditors have called for the ouster of the Los Angeles County Housing Authority's director, saying his agency has not properly administered the $200 million federal housing voucher program for the county's poor and has sought to conceal its shortcomings. The unusual recommendations come in a report this month that criticizes the authority for failing to check annually, as required, on tenants' eligibility for subsidies under the federal Section 8 program.

Three years after state officials promised to fix California's troubled juvenile prisons, advocates for incarcerated youths are urging a judge to appoint a receiver to take over a system they say remains tragically broken. The plea came in a filing last week from lawyers who had settled with the state after suing to transform institutions they said treated children as hardened criminals without regard for their welfare.

The mayor's office acknowledged Thursday that two top hires it introduced this week are technically on loan from the San Diego Unified School District. One of the employees is Angela Bass, who was presented at a Monday news conference as the superintendent of instruction for the two academically struggling high schools and four middle schools that will fall under the stewardship of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Some health experts and community leaders have criticized news that a small private hospital is the prime -- and perhaps only -- candidate for the contract to reopen Martin Luther King-Harbor Hospital, signaling possible continuing hurdles to reestablishing a hospital for the county's most underserved communities.

Antionette Smith Epps, who was brought in to help save Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center but wound up instead presiding over its closing, left Friday, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services officials said. The county characterized Smith Epps' departure as a resignation, saying in a brief statement that she wanted "to pursue other career opportunities."

. -- The man picked by the John McCain campaign to run the 2008 Republican National Convention resigned Saturday after a report that his lobbying firm used to represent the military regime in Myanmar. Doug Goodyear resigned as coordinator of the Twin Cities convention and issued a two-sentence statement: "Today I offered the convention my resignation so as not to become a distraction in this campaign.