Marv Albert pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of assault and battery. In exchange, prosecutors dropped forcible-sodomy charges, which carry a possible life sentence. Albert could get a $2,500 fine and a year in jail, but experts doubt he'll do time, since he has no record. His attorney's spin: He accepted the plea deal because the judge crippled his defense by barring challenges to the accuser's history. The prosecutor's spin: He accepted the deal because a second woman, a longtime lover of Albert's, testified that Albert had bitten her and tried to make her perform oral sex. Upside: He halted a trial that had revealed not only his alleged proclivities--biting, wearing women's underwear, and double-male threesomes--but also his real name: Marvin Philip Aufrichtig. Downside: NBC fired him, ostensibly for having falsely denied the charges to his bosses. Dick Morris offered advice on proper contrition and rehabilitation. Celebrity-trial pundits consoled themselves with the prospect of a lurid civil trial. (9/26)

President Clinton went to Little Rock to commemorate the 1957 desegregation of Central High School. He pleaded for racial reconciliation and symbolically opened the school's front door for the nine blacks who, as students, had braved a violent white mob to enter the school 40 years ago. Summary of his speech: We have progressed from de jure segregation and discrimination to de facto segregation and discrimination. The local and state NAACP, citing insufficient progress, boycotted the ceremony. Reporters noted that Clinton looked passionate and sincere, just as his aides had hoped. (9/26)

The Senate held hearings on IRS misconduct. Taxpayers and former IRS agents testified about mistaken-identity prosecutions, snooping, collection quotas, baseless seizures, shakedowns, forgeries, and cover-ups. The acting IRS commissioner apologized and promised to clean up the agency. The White House pleaded that the IRS is improving, and that with so many returns to process, mistakes are inevitable. Analysts portrayed the hearings as a Republican political ploy but chided the IRS for making itself such a deserving target. The New York Times urged IRS agents to be nicer. (9/26)

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for undermining the peace process. Netanyahu's offense: announcing plans for more Jewish settlements in the West Bank days after Albright had urged both sides to abstain from such provocations--and just hours after a phone call with Albright, in which he had neglected to apprise her of his plans. Analysts said the episode underscored Netanyahu's ability to screw up the peace process and Albright's inability to save it. (9/26)

Travelers Group bought Salomon Brothers for $9 billion. This is the latest--and according to analysts, not the last--in a series of megamergers in the financial industry. Analysts predicted the consolidation of world finance into a handful of behemoths. Critics charged that these conglomerates will be indifferent to individuals and ethics and will take excessive risks, knowing they'll be bailed out if necessary because they're too integral to the global economy to be allowed to fail. (9/26)

Miscellany: David Brinkley announced his retirement. The House voted to raise its own pay. British newspaper editors approved a new code of conduct that forbids them from buying paparazzi photos obtained by "stalking and hounding." Cynics pointed out that the code is unenforceable. Christopher Darden married Marcia Carter (not Clark). (9/26)

NASA dispatched a new astronaut to the Mir space station via shuttle. The agency's administrator said he had decided that the station did not pose an "unnecessary peril." The astronaut currently aboard Mir said that it's a great place to work, and that the new astronaut should go right ahead and replace him. (9/26)

The Food and Drug Administration will approve thalidomide for relieving symptoms of leprosy. The drug deformed thousands of babies whose mothers took it during pregnancy in the 1960s. The FDA will let women of childbearing age take the drug only if they submit to monthly pregnancy tests and prove they are using birth control. Nevertheless, analysts predict doctors will prescribe the drug "off-label" for AIDS, cancer, and other diseases, inevitably creating a few thalidomide babies. Defenders argue that many sick people are already getting thalidomide on the black market, so it's better to legalize and regulate it. (9/24)

Teamsters president Ron Carey asserted his innocence and blamed his aides (who have pleaded guilty) for the union's money-laundering scandal. Carey said he was out of the loop ("You can't control people") and had been betrayed ("If there is a victim, I certainly am the victim"). Reporters skeptically noted Carey's simultaneous excuses that 1) he had put his campaign in the hands of people he trusted and 2) he hardly knew them. Carey was trying to dissuade Barbara Zack Quindel, the government-appointed supervisor of the Teamsters election, from prohibiting his candidacy in the new election she has ordered (after throwing out his previous victory). Hours later, Quindel quit the case after learning of remotely possible conflicts of interest in the investigation--leaving Carey's fate to her successor. (See Slate's "Assessment" of Carey.) (9/24)

Raiders trapped and slaughtered 200 civilians in an Algerian suburb. This adds to the 300 civilians slaughtered four weeks ago and the 60,000 people killed so far in the five-year war between the government and Islamic militants. Methods of slaughter: slitting throats, decapitating children, throwing children from roofs, eviscerating pregnant women, and tossing grenades into houses. No one is sure who the raiders are. An Islamic opposition group announced a unilateral cease-fire and called for a truce, which nobody expects to succeed. (9/24)