TEACHER STABBED BY STUDENT ON CAMPUS: SANTA ROSA (AP) — Authorities say a California high school teacher has been stabbed by a student at the school that led to an hourslong lockdown.
Police say the 16-year-old boy approached the teacher toward the end of the lunch break at alternative Midrose High School in Santa Rosa on Wednesday. The teen allegedly attacked the teacher with a mechanical pencil as other students watched.
One student tried to pull the two apart. The teen fled campus and was captured a few blocks away.
The teacher suffered wounds to his head, neck and arm.
CAL POLY PROBES NATIVE AMERICAN-THEMED FRAT PARTY: SAN LUIS OBISPO (AP) — University officials in Central California are investigating complaints that the theme of a frat party was offensive to women and Native Americans.
The party held last week used a suggestive pun on the word "Navajos" and urged women to wear racy attire with a Native American theme. About 60 people attended.
It was hosted by a fraternity from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.
University President Jeffrey Armstrong denounced the party Tuesday in a campus email. University spokesman Matt Lazier says several Greek organizations are being investigated.
Similar parties with titles such as "Colonial Bros and Navajos" have been held by fraternities at other universities, including Harvard, for years — and have drawn similar criticism.
SCHOOL DISTRICT SETTLES VOTING RIGHTS LAWSUIT: CERRITOS (AP) — A Southern California school district has settled a lawsuit that challenged how board members were elected.
The board for ABC Unified School District in Cerritos voted Tuesday to resolve the lawsuit and to implement a new election system. Under terms of the settlement, the district will stop electing its board members at large and establish seven geographic voting areas.
The lawsuit claimed violations of the California Voting Rights Act because the at-large school board elections allegedly diluted Latino voting power. At least one of the newly created districts must have a majority Latino constituency by November 2015.
District officials said in a statement they settled the suit to avoid exorbitant legal costs.
CAPPS ASKS FOR FRACKING HALT OFF CALIFORNIA: LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Congresswoman Lois Capps has asked for a moratorium on offshore fracking until there's more study.
In a letter to the Interior Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week, Capps, D-Calif., said she wants the federal government to conduct a study of fracking's impacts to the marine environment.
Capps said there was "inadequate oversight."
A recent report by The Associated Press documented at least a dozen instances of hydraulic fracturing in the Santa Barbara Channel, site of a disastrous 1969 oil platform blowout that spurred the modern environmental movement.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves injecting large amounts of water, sand and chemicals into rock formations to recover oil.
MISTRIAL DECLARED IN OC DRUG-PLANTING TRIAL : SANTA ANA (AP) — A judge has declared a mistrial for a Southern California lawyer charged with planting drugs to frame a PTA leader at his son's elementary school.
Thursday's ruling came a day after an Orange County jury said it was deadlocked 11-1 in favor of convicting Kent Easter.
Prosecutors alleged that the Irvine man and his wife planted prescription painkillers, marijuana and a pot pipe in the car of a parent in 2011 and then called police. Authorities say the couple believed the woman, who volunteered at the school, had locked their first-grade son outside during an afterschool program.
Last month Easter's wife, Jill, was sentenced to nearly four months in jail after pleading guilty to false imprisonment.
