Mistakes

A man says he broke into an apartment in Oconomowoc with a cavalry sword because he thought he heard a woman being raped, but the sound actually was from a pornographic movie his neighbor was watching. "Now I feel stupid," said James Van Iveren, 39, who has been charged with criminal trespass, criminal damage and disorderly conduct in the case. "This really is nothing -- nothing but a mistake."

After mistakenly sending an 11-year-old girl from Los Angeles to Florida instead of to Detroit, America West Airlines has decided that it will no longer let children fly alone on flights that make en route stops. The Phoenix-based carrier said Thursday that starting Sept. 10, children between 5 and 11 who are flying without adult accompaniment will be booked only on nonstop flights. Children under 5 must be accompanied by an adult.

Citigroup Inc. mistakenly bought and sold hundreds of thousands of option contracts on the Nasdaq-100 tracking stock on the Pacific Exchange on Tuesday, leading to price swings in the stock market. New York-based Citigroup, a specialist in options trading at the Pacific Exchange, received an "incorrect price quote from a third-party data vendor, which we resolved within seconds," spokeswoman Danielle Romero-Apsilos said.

An Irish Republican Army bomb exploded Wednesday in an apartment booby trap set for British soldiers, killing an elderly neighbor and a woman. The IRA apologized for the trap that went "tragically wrong." Also on Wednesday, police said three men killed in a British army ambush Tuesday were IRA terrorists armed and dressed for action. The attack was seen as the start of a British crackdown on the outlawed IRA.

Two jurors in the trial of 20 people acquitted on all charges of being mobsters say the judge's instructions were misunderstood and led the panel to mistakenly find the defendants not guilty on some of the counts. Helen Bove said she and some other jurors did not say anything when the verdict was read Friday because they expected federal prosecutors to ask for a poll of the jury. Polling the jury is a common practice that can prompt the judge to order further deliberations or declare a mistrial.

KNBC Channel 4 has acknowledged that a news report it broadcast about a cosmetic cream whose manufacturer says it can remove facial wrinkles failed to note that one of the users seen offering positive comments about the product was the president of the company that makes it. After inquiries from The Times, KNBC News Director Nancy Valenta said that "we made a mistake" in the July 10 report by medical reporter Dr. Bruce Hensel. Management had not previously known of the error, she said.

Five Palestinian policemen killed this week at a checkpoint were deliberately ambushed by Israeli forces who were carrying out a new and more aggressive brand of warfare but executed the wrong prey, Israeli officials acknowledged Wednesday. The operation, and its results, raised more questions about the military tactics employed by Israel in its so-far unsuccessful attempt to halt a raging Palestinian uprising that has claimed more than 520 lives in 7 1/2 months.

Iran's spy chief said the 1998 killings of dissident writers by rogue intelligent agents were a "slight mistake" and insisted that Iranians need not fear security services. Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi also told newspapers that Iranians had forgiven the killings. The killings, which forced Yunesi's predecessor to resign, began Nov. 22, 1998, when Dariush Forouhar and his wife, who ran a small opposition party, were stabbed to death.

As a USC alumnus and avid Trojan football fan I am thoroughly embarrassed over the latest football violations announced. After the harsh penalties the university has recently endured, you would have expected the athletic department to have learned by its mistakes. Apparently they have not! What does it take to convince the football staff and athletic department to live within the rules? It is completely inexcusable. JIM OLIVER Anaheim

Union Pacific's regional vice president, Robert Starzel, said that small mistakes led to the massive logjam that clogged West Coast ports and left Midwestern grain sitting on the ground, but that the company is digging its way out of the mess. At a hearing of the state Public Utilities Commission in Long Beach, Starzel said the congestion is beginning to clear, although operations probably won't return to normal until late December or early January.