Proceedings

At 1:51 p.m. Friday afternoon, Hollywood came to a standstill. A telephone call placed to the Directors Guild of America rang and rang unanswered. In executive office suites, on studio lots and in agents' offices, radios and televisions were tuned to news channels with live coverage of the "not-guilty" verdicts delivered in the "Twilight Zone" trial. Friends of director John Landis and his co-defendants were understandably pleased with the verdicts.

A partial text of Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Norbert A. Nadel's ruling Sunday in granting a temporary restraining order to Pete Rose, who was scheduled to appear today in New York for a hearing before baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti: It should be pointed out that we are here at a very initial stage of the case, and as we all know during the two days of evidence, we heard a lot of opinion, we heard a lot of hearsay testimony and...

As the House Judiciary Committee continues to clog the nation's airwaves with spirited lawyerly discourse about President Clinton's "sexual relations with that woman," the two Valley-area representatives on the panel are showing their markedly different political stripes. Of course, Howard L. Berman (D-Mission Hills) and James E. Rogan (R-Glendale) belong to political parties with largely opposing views of Clinton and the ongoing impeachment proceedings.

"Don't go there," a well-traveled friend said when I mentioned my plans to visit Capri, a sunny island off southern Italy. Why? "You're not going to want to come home," he said. I laughed. My friend, a know-it-all author, loves to give advice. I didn't need it; I already knew I would fall in love with Capri. It's been one of Europe's favorite island getaway for more than 2,000 years, enthralling a cast of characters ranging from Roman emperors to 21st century luminaries and A-listers.

It's fast becoming the money-laundering method of choice for Mexican drug traffickers, U.S. and Mexican officials say, and it involves truckloads not of cash, but of fruit and fabric. Faced with new restrictions on the use of U.S. cash in Mexico, drug cartels are using an ingenious scheme to move their ill-gotten dollars south under the guise of legitimate cross-border commerce. U.S. and Mexican authorities say trade-based money-laundering may be the most clever — and hardest to detect — way in which traffickers are washing and distributing their billion-dollar profits.

An identical twin whose plot to kill her sister made headlines around the world sobbed uncontrollably Friday as a judge sentenced her to 26 years to life in prison. Despite her emotional, last-minute protest of innocence, Jeen "Gina" Han, 24, dubbed "the evil twin," received the maximum sentence. "It is obvious Miss Han is a danger to society, particularly her own family," said Orange County Superior Court Judge Eileen C. Moore. "All of her family have been victims of her crimes."

LAS VEGAS -- A fuller-faced O.J. Simpson walked slowly into a courtroom here Monday wearing wrist shackles and a blue jail jumpsuit as he seeks a new trial in his sports memorabilia robbery and kidnaping conviction that sent him to prison. The disgraced former all-star NFL running back and Heisman Trophy winner from USC smiled and raised his eyebrows toward several friends and family members as marshals led him into a crowded courtroom before Clark County District Court Judge Linda Marie Bell.

Finally released after spending half of his life in prison, and still he had to wait. So Christopher Boyce hung around the prison parking lot, rubbernecking, taking in the fresh air around Sheridan, Ore., unsure what to make of freedom. A half hour went by before the big Suburban at last came lumbering up the driveway, carrying his father, a former FBI agent, and his mother, once a Catholic nun.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court judge presiding over the Michael Jackson wrongful-death suit admonished AEG Live's chief executive Monday to answer the questions from the Jackson family's attorney. Randy Phillips, who attended two years of law school, was on the stand for the fourth day when Judge Yvette Palazuelos halted proceedings and sent jurors out of the courtroom. She turned to the witness. "Mr. Phillips," she said, "you need to answer the questions being asked without comments.

WASHINGTON — The ads promised that if you used the Ab Circle Pro machine just three minutes a day, you'd lose weight fast. But the Federal Trade Commission said the only thing that would get substantially lighter was your wallet. In the largest FTC settlement ever concerning an exercise machine, the Ab Circle Pro marketers have agreed to settle deceptive-advertising allegations by refunding up to $25 million to people who bought the device, the agency said. The Ab Circle Pro , which cost as much as $250, was marketed largely via infomercials and pitched by fitness model Jennifer Nicole Lee. Ads featuring the machine were shown 10,000 times nationwide, according to the FTC. Marketers said three minutes on the device, which allowed users to swivel on a fiberglass disk, was the equivalent of 100 sit-ups and would cause them to shed 10 pounds in two weeks, the agency said.