SOUTH

VA. SCHOOLS WIN CHRISTIAN POSTER DISPUTE

RICHMOND, Va. – A Virginia school district didn’t violate a teacher’s free-speech rights by removing Christian-themed postings from his classroom walls, a federal judge has ruled. In her ruling filed last week, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith said William Lee’s posters at Tabb High School were part of his instructional tools and school curriculum and were subject to school review. Mr. Lee, a Spanish teacher who advises the school’s Christian students club, had displayed news articles about President Bush’s religious faith, a National Day of Prayer flier and a depiction of George Washington praying at Valley Forge. Officials removed the postings from Mr. Lee’s classroom in 2004 after a parent complained, but they allowed some to stay, including a photo of Boy Scouts praying in memory of those killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks.

– Associated Press

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

SKIN PATCH FOR DEPRESSION APPROVED

Federal regulators approved the first antidepressant skin patch yesterday, providing a different way to administer a drug already used by Parkinson’s disease patients. The Food and Drug Administration approved the selegiline transdermal patch, agency spokeswoman Susan Cruzan said. The drug belongs to a class of medicines that is rarely a first or even second choice to treat depression. It will be marketed as Emsam, said Somerset Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, which developed the drug, and Bristol-Myers Squib Company, which will market it. The FDA will require the drug to bear a so-called “black-box” warning of the risks of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children and adolescents treated with antidepressants. The drug is meant for use only by adults.

– Associated Press

WEST

ISLAMIC SOCIETY TO PAY $1.7 MILLION IN LEGAL FEES

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – The Islamic Society of Orange County and two of its officials must pay more than $1.7 million to lawyers for a woman who successfully sued the organization for discrimination, a judge has ruled.

Zakiyyah Muhammad, a 60-year-old black woman who converted to Islam, served for five years as principal of the Orange Crescent School in Garden Grove before she was fired in 2003. The school is operated by the Islamic Society.

An Orange County Superior Court jury awarded her $788,000 in damages last September after she claimed she was dismissed for challenging her male bosses and that the school board denied her a grievance hearing because she’s a Muslim woman.

– Associated Press

WASHINGTON

COURT REFUSES TO HEAR OUTSIDERS IN AIPAC CASE

A federal judge has denied requests from a journalists’ association and an anti-Israel organization seeking to file friend-of-the-court briefs in a criminal case against two former lobbyists for a pro-Israel group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Judge Thomas Ellis, who is based in Alexandria, Va., said the requests by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy threatened to turn the court into a public forum for debate over the classified information laws used to charge the two men, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman.

“The point is that this prosecution is not the appropriate procedural context in which various elements of society should debate the constitutional validity or wisdom of” those statutes, Judge Ellis wrote in an order dated Monday.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun