News in Brief: A National Roundup

A New York state judge has ruled that the Nyack school district must rehire and give back pay to a custodian who resigned after admitting he threw a lighted cigar into a trash can and started a fire in a school gymnasium.

The school board received an involuntary resignation from the custodian and failed "to make even a minimal inquiry regarding the circumstances of the resignation letter," despite the urgings of the Civil Service Employees Association, State Supreme Court Justice Howard Miller said in a written decision Oct. 15.

The custodian, Michael Maiorano, 41, was convicted in May of reckless endangerment and criminal mischief for starting the Sept. 22, 1994, fire that damaged Nyack High School. He was sentenced to probation and community service and was ordered to...