The James Logan Courier

By Rebecca Soltau, Courier Staff Writer


Students who record fights on their cellphones or other video device will face suspension just like those fighting will, according to a new school rule recently announced.

On January 30, Mr. Don Montoya, principal of James Logan High School, came on the PA System to address the school in order to review the school rules, as he does at the beginning of every semester.

After covering the rules about headgear and electronics, Montoya described the recent increase in school fights and violence and made it clear that he sees this as disrespectful activity.

By Mike Dorning
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama's newly revamped Web site looks a lot like MySpace and Facebook, and that is no accident.

As a presidential candidate offering himself as a generational change agent, Obama is leveraging online social networking in a nearly unprecedented way in yet another clear measure of how the Internet is transforming politics.

By Michelle Raskin, Courier Staff Writer

The newest addition to New Haven District, Conley-Caraballo High School, has something that no other school in Alameda County has. During the 120 days that it took to build Conley, they added solar power.

Enrique Palacios, Executive Director of Operations for New Haven, said the idea installing an array solar power panels came to him when the idea of building the school, to replace the demolished but sorely missed El Rancho Verde High School, was proposed. In an interview with The Courier, he said “Since the school was going to be rebuilt, it made it even easier to install. Conley is a new school, there is no history, so I thought, let’s test it.”

By Rick La Plante, New Haven Schools Public Information Officer

The Board of Education on Tuesday night received a report on its Ivy League partnership to improve literacy, Writing Workshop.

A research-based approach to writing instruction being implemented in association with Columbia University, Writing Workshop is a proven means of improving student achievement not only in English/language arts but also by building literacy skills that help in math and science. Built around daily teaching of writing, the program focuses on “authentic” writing and emphasizes the writing process. Published pieces are celebrated, and rubrics are used to promote consistency across grade levels and throughout the District.

By Jessica Rosales, Courier Staff Writer

The second meeting of the new club , the Female Aid Organization (FAO), started by an ambitious freshman, Jivata Raja, is tomorrow.

Raja, inspired by her Ethnic Women’s class led by Megan Safford, founded the club earlier this year. The first meeting was Feb. 8.

Raja originally did not want a club with a female theme, though males are welcome anyway, but there were already clubs such as the Youth Humane Society. Though these clubs offered her membership, Raja wanted a more active position. With support from her friends, who also hold positions in FAO, and Safford acting as supervisor, FAO was created.

By Howard Witt
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

HOUSTON — Tired of badgering the kids to quit wasting time with those computer and video games and get started on homework? Here's a news flash for the 21st Century: It turns out many of the games might be better than homework.

In a series of research projects as likely to thrill young people as they are to horrify their parents and teachers, academic experts across the country are unearthing educational benefits in the digital games that surveys show are now played by more than 80 percent of American young people aged 8-18.

By Scott Stearns, VOA News
White House


U.S. President George Bush has nominated a new director of national intelligence as he continues to shake-up senior staff with a new deputy secretary of state.

President Bush wants the current intelligence chief, John Negroponte, to move to the State Department while putting retired vice admiral Mike McConnell atop the nation's intelligence community.

By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

BEIJING — Now that North Korea has agreed to shut down and seal its nuclear facilities within 60 days, the hardest challenge ahead may be ridding the country of all of its nuclear weapons, several analysts said Wednesday

The accord signed Tuesday in Beijing compels North Korea to list all of its nuclear facilities, weapons and atomic fuel stockpiles but doesn't require it to hand over bombs immediately. That would come in a later phase.

Logan Principal Don Montoya told staff and students to stay in their classes rather than go to lunch or otherwise leave their rooms while administrators dealt with the aftermath of an on-campus disturbance in which non-students on campus were suspected of bringing a weapon with them.

A campus security technician later found a BB-gun in a school trash can, and one of the four suspects detained was found to be in possession of pepper spray.

Changes to the New Haven Unified School District's email system have hampered The Courier's efforts to publish student-written stories for the past week, but the online paper will return to normal operation since the problems appear to have been ironed out.

The school district last week rolled out its new email system for teachers and staff members, a Novell product call GroupWise, to replace the antiquated and kludgy OpenMail system that served the district for the past several years.

By Laurence Iliff
The Dallas Morning News (MCT)

MEXICO CITY — As President Felipe Calderon marched across the nation unveiling social programs and touting the military-led crackdown against drug lords, a round shadow followed him, darkening his sunny message.

It was the ubiquitous tortilla, rising rapidly in price and reminding Mexicans that all is not well with the once-humming economy.

At public events, angry women intercepted the new president, who faced his first mini-crisis since taking office Dec. 1. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in the Mexican capital last Wednesday, demanding an emergency wage hike to counter surging prices for sugar, onions and tortillas.

By Tom Lasseter
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Army 1st Lt. Antonio Hardy took a slow look around the east Baghdad neighborhood that he and his men were patrolling. He grimaced at the sound of gunshots in the distance. A machine gunner on top of a Humvee scanned the rooftops for snipers. Some of Hardy's men wondered aloud if they'd get hit by a roadside bomb on the way back to their base.

"To be honest, it's going to be like this for a long time to come, no matter what we do," said Hardy, 25, of Atlanta. "I think some people in America don't want to know about all this violence, about all the killings. The people back home are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated."

By Clint Swett
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — First there was Y2K. Then came the plagues of viruses and worms. Now computer experts must cope with an extra hour of sunshine.

On March 11 at 2 a.m., most of the nation will switch to daylight-saving time — three weeks sooner than normal, thanks to the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

James Logan Principal Don Montoya delivered his annual "State of the School" speech recently , mixing praise for Logan's student body and facility with admonitions to do even better in the just-underway second semester.

"We made it through Semester number one," he said in opening his address. "We have had an excellent first semester in terms of behavior and attendance,with only a few exceptions that you might recall.

By Mary Anne Ostrom
San Jose San Jose Mercury News (MCT)

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace-prize-winning Holocaust survivor and scholar, was grabbed and pulled out of a San Francisco hotel elevator last week — and now police and Jewish groups are mounting a intensive search for his attacker.

A blogger boasted about the Feb. 1 incident on an anti-Zionist Web site based in Australia on Wednesday, prompting the first media reports. The blogger claimed he had been trailing Wiesel for weeks and wrote he intended to get "a cornered Wiesel" to come to his room and renounce the Holocaust on video. The posting also suggests the attacker was seeking publicity from the attack on the 78-year-old Wiesel.

By Rick LaPlante, New Haven Unified School District Public Information Officer

UNION CITY - All-day kindergarten, which studies have shown can lead to increased student achievement and accelerated behavioral and social development, is coming to the New Haven Unified School District.

By Hassina Obaidy, Courier Staff Writer

Since Monday, Edress Waziri has been filling in full-time as a counselor in House 5 while Leslie Felipe takes maternity leave.

Before filling in for the pregnant Felipe, Waziri served as a sustitute counselor at Barnard White Middle School and a substitute teacher at the New Haven Middle and Elementary schools.

By Frank Davies
San Jose Mercury News (MCT)

WASHINGTON — At her first hearing as chairwoman of the committee that oversees election reform, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Wednesday she will push for legislation requiring a paper-trail record for all votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election.

Election officials and computer experts testified before the Senate Rules Committee about the security and reliability of electronic systems, and whether all states and localities would have time, if Congress passed a mandate this year, to install a verifiable paper record before next year's election.

By Jasmeen Banwait, Courier Staff Writer

The Vietnamese Student Association, also known as the VSA, is selling fresh carnations and handmade cards for Valentine’s Day for its 2nd consecutive year. Members of VSA will be taking orders in colt court this whole week, from February 5 to the 13th.

By Veronica Brown, Courier Staff Writer

The New Haven School Board Tuesday praised Erin Cross, a life skills teacher as well as varsity basketball coach at James Logan who received one of several mini-grant sfrom the New Haven Schools Foundation.

Cross received her mini grant for a work book she has been developing to use for teaching. She is planning on getting her book published by this June. This workbook is an interactive homework book that is designed to benefit and hopefully better the relationship between parents and their kids.

By John Chau, Courier Managing Editor

Logan students on Friday visited Microsoft headquarters in Silicon Valley to get an idea of how the computer industry works.

“The Computer industry is rapidly expanding on all fronts,” said Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer Steve Ballaero in a speech to the students, “companies today are especially focusing on Human capital. You may see corporations merging and buying out one another, but really we are not eliminating workers. Instead, we are consolidating them into a centralized Nexus, to counteract the sale and distribution smaller companies often face.”

By Jasmeen Banwait, Courier Staff Writer

After their first teacher quit just weeks into the school year, and a time with a long term substitute teacher as their instructer, one James Logan sophomore English class has finally got a teacher who expects to teach them for the rest of the year.

Now, Linda Gray teaches sophomore English in room 462. Gray took over for a teacher who quit his job within a few weeks of this first semester. For a short period of time, he was replaced by a substitute teacher, Logan Alumnus and former Courier Editor Jeff Coker temporarily.

By Tom Hundley
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

LONDON — A predawn raid by police in the West Midlands city of Birmingham netted eight suspects who, according to news reports, were plotting to kidnap a British Muslim soldier and broadcast his torture and execution — possibly live — on the Internet.

A ninth suspect was arrested later Wednesday.

Police declined to confirm the details of the alleged plot but they said it was in the advanced stages of planning.

By Dave Montgomery
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

WASHINGTON —Are they mistreated heroes or rogue lawmen?

That question is at the heart of a nationwide uproar over Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, who are beginning decade-long sentences in federal prison for the non-fatal shooting of a suspected drug smuggler, who was given immunity to testify against them.

Scores of Republican lawmakers, and thousands of grassroots petitioners, have besieged President Bush with demands that the agents be granted an immediate pardon. But to federal prosecutor Johnny Sutton and his defenders, the two Texas-based agents abridged the public trust by attempting to cover up an unauthorized shooting and must face the consequences.

"Prosecutors take cases as they come. We don't get to choose the facts and we don't get to choose the witnesses," the San Antonio-based U.S. attorney said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "We hate the thought of having to prosecute law enforcement because those are the people we work with every day. But nobody is above the law."

By Edwin Garcia
San Jose Mercury News (MCT)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Assemblyman Joe Coto has a provocative proposal to increase voter participation among young people: He wants to require high school students to register to vote before they can receive a diploma.

If his measure becomes law, graduating seniors beginning with the class of 2010 who meet the state's criteria to become voters — be 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, for example — would be required to submit proof of registration to the school.