Scooter

When food and gasoline prices started climbing, Thomas Franklin started putting one foot in front of the other and -- the horror -- often walked where he needed to go. "My friends ask me what's wrong with me," said the 29-year-old talent agency scout, who recently sold his Ford Escape and bought a Vespa scooter. Franklin relies on the scooter, public transit and his own two feet to get around town and estimates that he is saving about $70 a week by not driving to work in Los Angeles from his home in Van Nuys.

Razor USA is recalling about 20,000 of its E300 electric scooters over concerns that the handlebars can break off, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said. The recall covers scooters with bar codes of 100620-03 through -09. Consumers were asked to stop using the scooters and contact Cerritos-based Razor for a repair kit. Information is available at www.razor.com/recall.

With interest in alternative-energy vehicles reaching an unprecedented fever pitch, Vectrix couldn't have timed its arrival any more perfectly. Its new Vectrix Maxi Scooter, which has been in the works for more than 10 years, was approved for sale in California just last week and is now officially on the market. Cue excited screams here.

Thousands of miles from the Alaskan wilderness, a pair of huskies charge down a dusty path with their master in tow. There is no sled under the feet of Rancy Reyes. Instead, his hounds work up a lather pulling his two-wheeled scooter through the brush of a Southern California park as he shouts commands that are as foreign in this sunbaked part of the world as snowflakes. In a city better known for its high-end indoor mall than high-energy outdoor activities, "urban mushing" has taken hold.

There were questions about Segway scooters, Scooter the Muppet and a child's toy scooter. But Patrick J. Fitzgerald drolly dodged questions about the one scooter everyone was curious about during his guest appearance on National Public Radio's quiz show "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!"

Re "Bush spares Libby from prison," July 3 As alleged conservatives celebrate President Bush's commutation of the prison sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, they show their true colors. They are not principled, as they would have us believe. Only partisan. MICHAEL OLSON Pasadena * Any defense lawyer can now maintain that the president says there should be no jail sentence for perjury. What a precedent this sets for our judicial system.

A 9-year-old Santa Ana boy was in critical condition Monday after being struck by a car while riding a motorized scooter on a street with another boy. The second child, who is 3, was in stable condition, authorities said. Police did not release either boy's name. The accident occurred about 6 p.m. near Pacific and Marion avenues when the pair rode into the path of an oncoming car, said Sgt. Brad Sadler, a spokesman for the Santa Ana Police Department. No arrests were made.

Most legal experts were not surprised Tuesday when jurors convicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on four of five counts of lying to federal investigators. What puzzled some of the experts were the statements Libby made to investigators about when and how he learned that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. Libby said NBC reporter Tim Russert told him during a July 2003 phone conversation.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a federal grand jury three years ago that he did not believe he had discussed the wife of an administration critic with officials from the CIA and the State Department, contradicting sworn testimony by the officials at Libby's perjury trial here. The revelation came Monday as prosecutors began playing audiotapes of Libby's eight hours of testimony before a grand jury investigating how the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame became public.