Transcripts

Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens turned down a plea offer that would have spared him a corruption trial and the possibility of imprisonment, according to newly released transcripts of conversations between attorneys and the judge. Stevens pleaded not guilty. He was convicted, but the conviction was voided because of alleged prosecutorial misconduct.

Special coverage of Campaign 2000 also can be found on the Los Angeles Times Web site at: http://www.latimes.com/campaign2000 Video archives and transcripts from the March 1 and 2 Los Angeles Times/CNN presidential debates. Audio analyses of the campaigns from Times political writers. Archived election stories and profiles by The Times. Background, bios and platform positions of the presidential candidates. Detailed analyses of the most recent Times polls.

With pieces of tail section tearing away and the hydraulic controls of his jumbo jet gone, Capt. Masami Takahama desperately tried to nurse the wildly bucking craft to a safe landing by manipulating power to its four engines, transcripts showed today. But the 49-year-old pilot's special expertise in the technique was not enough, and the Boeing 747 jetliner plowed into a mountain ridge about 70 miles northwest of Tokyo on Aug. 12.

A college graduate seeks a first job. A homemaker must assemble scattered course credits and a dated college transcript to prepare for a second career. A teacher making a transcontinental move needs rush delivery of university credits from this country and abroad. All are likely clients for Academ, a Cardiff-based central holding house for transcripts from institutions of higher learning. Academ is the brainchild of identical twins Don and Dave Megill.

First baseman Ed Howard went 4 for 7, hitting 3 home runs and a double for 10 runs batted in, to lead Cal Lutheran University to a 30-4 rout over host Pomona Pitzer in the first game of a Saturday doubleheader. Cal Lutheran batters shelled three Pomona Pitzer pitchers with 32 hits in the first game, a seven inning contest. The Kingsmen played with only 11 available players. Eight players were declared ineligible Friday, until their grades and transcripts could be processed.

It is one of the more memorable rituals of passage endured by high school sophomores--not quite as terrible as a breakout of acne, but comparable to the dread of being driven on a date by parents. Year after year, millions of American juveniles take scalpel in hand and slice open the innards of martyred frogs that have been pinned in the prone position to little trays of wax or pegboard.

On a cold, rainy January night last year, James Marty Stafford sat in a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge in Lake Charles, La., sipping a beer and chatting with a former Bank of Industry teller. When the meeting ended, Stafford slipped an envelope to the former teller, Lucilla Rowlett. "What's in it?" she asked. "Don't ask so goddamned many questions," Stafford said. "Money."

The last time Navy Lt. Bradley Lorenzen saw his wife, Lisa, she was in a wheelchair. So he failed to recognize the thinner, smiling woman who came running toward him at Los Angeles International Airport on his return from a six-month stint in the Antarctic. A car accident three years ago ruptured two disks in Lisa's back and she was unable to leave her wheelchair and had become addicted to pain-killing drugs.

At Olympic High, Santa Monica's alternative school for students who have struggled in traditional programs, inappropriate behavior is not uncommon. But what a veteran English teacher saw on the computer screen of a student named John Zawahri stopped him cold. The solitary teen who regularly ditched class was surfing the Internet for assault weapons, the teacher recalled Monday. Alarmed, he sent Zawahri to the principal's office. Within days, the police were involved and Zawahri was admitted to UCLA's psychiatric ward.