Resignations

Guy Mehula, the highly regarded head of the Los Angeles Unified School District's massive school construction program, has resigned after an apparent power struggle with district leadership. In a brief letter to subordinates Monday, Mehula gave no hint of discord, painting his departure as an opportunity to search for new challenges. "The work that we have done together and the investments we have made in our schools, community, and economy are significant," he wrote. But critics say Mehula's resignation is fallout from a growing rift between his facilities services division and district headquarters, prompted by policy changes made by Supt.

The chief executive of FirstFed Financial Corp. is resigning after 13 years at the helm of the Los Angeles savings and loan, whose fortunes rose and fell with the boom and bust in pay-option mortgages. Babette E. Heimbuch, 61, stepped down as chairwoman of FirstFed and its subsidiary, First Federal Bank of California, on Wednesday, the company said Friday. She is to retire as CEO and as a director of the thrift and its holding company Dec. 31. Brian Argrett, an independent FirstFed director and head of private equity firm Fulcrum Capital Group, was named the new chairman.

Pope Benedict XVI has rejected the resignations of two Irish bishops who came under heavy pressure to step down in the wake of a damning report on clerical sex abuse in Dublin, Irish media reports said Wednesday. Auxiliary bishops Raymond Field and Eamonn Walsh tendered their resignations in December after a government-backed investigation found evidence of widespread cover-ups involving cases of priestly abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese from the 1970s through the 1990s. The report caused an uproar in Ireland and deepened public disillusionment with the once-dominant Roman Catholic Church.

Charles J. Cooper, head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, Friday became the latest aide of Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III to hand in his resignation, but he denied that the move was related to Meese's legal troubles. Cooper said in a letter to Meese that he will leave the department July 8 and said in an interview that he does not have a job.

Frank C. Carlucci, the new national security adviser sweeping clean the senior ranks of the National Security Council before he takes over the White House agency on Jan. 2, has secured the resignations of more than a dozen top NSC officials and could receive a dozen more before year's end, Administration officials said this week.

New United States Tennis Assn. President Alan Schwartz has been in office for only six days and already he's dealing with major tumult, brought about by twin resignations in the front office Monday. Rick Ferman, the association's executive director and chief operating officer for nearly seven years, quit but will stay on until a replacement is found.

Theodore B. Olson, whose arguments before the Supreme Court in 2000 were a crucial factor in the election of George W. Bush as president, is resigning as solicitor general to return to private practice, the Justice Department announced Thursday. Olson was nominated for the solicitor general post in June 2001, six months after successfully representing candidate Bush in the Supreme Court case involving a recount of the vote in Florida.

Ex-Communist Prime Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz announced the Polish Cabinet's impending resignation as official results underlined the center-right Solidarity Election Action party's triumph in elections. Cimoszewicz said the resignations would mean that the new Cabinet could take over right after the new Parliament first sits Oct. 20. In the 460-member lower house, Solidarity took 201 seats and Cimoszewicz's Democratic Left Alliance was in second place with 164.

Bell City Council members are seeking the resignations of the city manager and two other top officials amid growing public outcry over salaries that appear to be among the highest in the nation, according to three sources close to the discussions. The embattled council directed its attorney to immediately begin negotiating with the three. At a closed-door meeting Monday night, as hundreds of residents protested outside, council members also discussed reducing their own pay. Most of them make $100,000 a year.

Paul Amos, executive vice president in charge of programming for Cable News Network, confirmed Tuesday that he is leaving CNN today. He was said to have been unhappy at not becoming president of the company last year. "After 11 years with the company, I looked at what was in store over the next couple of years, and I had some reservations about a long tenure in middle management," Amos said in an interview. "I have a desire to run my own business."