Meetings

OPEC ministers won't reduce oil output quotas at this week's meeting in Vienna, Kuwait's oil minister said. "I don't see any further cut," Sheik Ahmed al Abdullah al Sabah told reporters, adding that Kuwait and the Gulf Cooperation Council would push for stricter quota compliance. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed at three meetings last year to cut output by 4.2 million barrels a day to 24.845 million to bolster prices.

As presidential candidates battle in New Hampshire and beyond, an older generation of prominent politicians is bemoaning the whole polarized scene -- grousing that could encourage New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to jump into the race and transform the political landscape. On Monday, a bipartisan group of these elders is meeting at the University of Oklahoma to urge candidates to set a less divisive tone and stop catering to their narrow political bases.

The state Board of Education canceled a Friday session that would have focused on 98 California school districts that have repeatedly fallen short of federally mandated improvement targets. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger identified those districts as the target of his major school-reform initiative for 2008. The districts comprise a third of the state's student body and include Los Angeles Unified. The board now plans to hold three regional meetings to allow for greater input and to give school systems a chance to review recommendations state officials have yet to prepare.

More than 150 bearded Santas -- looking relaxed, some clad in Hawaiian shirts, others in red suits -- gathered at a Buena Park hotel Sunday to reminisce about the busy holiday season and network over their next merry career move. The annual founders luncheon of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas drew an assortment of oversized gents, an equal number of Mrs. Clauses and a few real-life little people working as elves. They met to promote pride and improve performance.

Local transportation officials have come up with a list of about a dozen potential subway routes on the Westside, with most of the corridors following either Wilshire Boulevard or Santa Monica Boulevard -- or both. All of the routes, along with other mass transit options for the congested Westside, will be discussed at a series of public meetings that begin tonight.

Hundreds of parents filled an Oxnard gymnasium Tuesday night to ask hard questions about why school officials didn't intervene more aggressively in an escalating feud between two students, which ended last week with the shooting death of 15-year-old student Lawrence King. In orderly fashion, one parent after another asked for metal detectors on campus, more programs dealing with bullying and for stricter enforcement of the district's uniform policy.

"Death Spiral" [Feb. 10] did an excellent job of saying what we who are in recovery from prescription drug addiction already know all too well -- the rampant and growing danger of Rx drug abuse among people in all walks of life. Prescription opiates are every bit as dangerous as heroin, but our "pushers" are the physicians who, sometimes knowingly, sometimes out of ignorance or apathy, give them away like candy. There is not yet any national Pills Anonymous organization (a la Alcoholics Anonymous)

The public is invited to share ideas for tackling traffic congestion as part of a major transportation study that targeting South Orange County. Three meetings will be held to help develop a long-term transportation plan, which is the first comprehensive examination of freeways, toll roads, arterial streets, train and bus service in the area in two decades. "Hearing from South County residents who contend with this traffic on a daily basis is critical to ensuring the success of this study," said Supervisor Pat Bates, who is on the Orange County Transportation Authority board.

Trustees of the Capistrano Unified School District, long plagued by allegations of mismanagement including criminal indictments against a former superintendent and his assistant, are once again arguing about a familiar subject: violation of the state's open-meeting law.

The NFL has gone 20 years without a player strike -- longer than any other major sports league -- and that has paved the way for unparalleled popularity and riches. But nothing lasts forever. With labor unrest looming, the league's 32 owners will gather today in Palm Beach, Fla., for the start of their annual meetings.