Terry Nichols was convicted of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter but acquitted of first-degree murder in the Oklahoma City bombing. Experts explained the manslaughter verdict as a finding of recklessness, not premeditation, but puzzled over how to reconcile this with the conspiracy conviction. The prevailing theory: an awkward compromise among the jurors. Best explanations as to why Nichols got off easier than Timothy McVeigh: 1) he wasn't at the bombing and 2) he didn't act like a sociopath in court. Families of the victims expressed outrage at the murder-charge acquittal. The catch: Prosecutors get another chance to win a murder conviction and death sentence against Nichols in state court. (12/24)

A French court convicted Carlos the Jackal of three murders and sentenced him to life in prison. He has been linked to scores of other murders, in addition to bombings and kidnappings. In his final speech to the jury, Carlos: 1) dismissed the prosecution as a Zionist-U.S. conspiracy, 2) declared "There is no law for me," and 3) extolled his terrorism as a struggle against "the McDonaldization of humanity." After the verdict, he raised a fist and exclaimed, "¡Viva la revolución!"(12/24)

A jury ordered the producers of Melrose Place to pay actress Hunter Tylo nearly $5 million for firing her because of her pregnancy. She had been hired to play a husband-stealing vixen. Tylo's lawyers and some feminist leaders called the verdict a victory for women everywhere and compared Tylo to Rosa Parks and Susan B. Anthony. Pundits ridiculed the feminist spin, citing the case's peculiar combination of glamour and sleaze. As a New York Times editorial put it, "if there were ever a case in which pregnancy really did jeopardize one's ability to do a job, surely this was it." The plaintiff's argument: The show's producers treated Tylo like a "a piece of meat." The defense argument: That was the job description. The punch line: She won the case by looking sexy while pregnant throughout the trial, thereby convincing jurors that she could credibly have played her TV vixen role while pregnant. (12/24)

The Food and Drug Administration approved a pill to fight baldness. The drug, Propecia, has stopped or reversed male-pattern baldness in 83 percent of men who have taken it. The cost: $45 to $50 a month. Caveats: 1) It fights male-pattern baldness (on top of the head) but not receding hairlines. 2) It causes impotence in 2 percent of the men who take it. (William Safire's retort: "Listen up, drug makers: You with the baldness pill, get together with you with the potency pill and come to us when you've worked it out.") 3) If a pregnant woman touches the powder that is inside the capsule, her male offspring might be born with the penile opening in the wrong place. Critics were too busy with the impotence question to pay much attention to this. (12/24)

Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders became the third player in National Football League history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season. The others were O.J. Simpson (2,003 yards in 1973) and Eric Dickerson (2,105 yards in 1984). Sanders went over the top with a 184-yard effort in the season's final game, leading his teammates to a fourth-quarter comeback that carried them into the playoffs. He also set an NFL record with 14 consecutive 100-yard games. The New York Times lionized Sanders: "He is modest. A team player. A tremendous athlete who has had enough individual glory, who yearns for ... a championship ring." Bonus: the Lions' victory crushed fans in New York and Washington by knocking the Jets and Redskins out of the playoffs. (12/22)

Abortions are becoming feasible in the first days of pregnancy. The New York Times reported that some clinics have begun offering abortions within 10 days of conception, thanks to tests that are detecting pregnancies earlier. The Times added that RU486, IUDs, high doses of birth-control pills, and other methods that can either prevent or terminate pregnancies--without the woman knowing which--"come close to erasing the line between contraception and abortion." Pro-life activists say early abortions are as bad as late ones. But analysts point out that the tiny early embryo is "nobody's picture of a little baby sucking its thumb."(12/22)

Time named Intel Chairman Andrew Grove its Man of the Year. Achievement: Propelling the crucial variable of the information age--microchip power--while others (e.g., Bill Gates) earned more fame and money. Legend--"His character traits are emblematic of this amazing century: a paranoia bred from his having been a refugee from the Nazis and then the Communists; an entrepreneurial optimism instilled as an immigrant to a land brimming with freedom and opportunity." Requisite MOTY boilerplate: "He shuns the philosophical mantle ... a courageous passion alloyed with an engineer's analytical coldness ... the dawn of a new millennium ... technology is not inherently good or evil. It is only a tool reflecting our values." (For David Plotz's prophetic and visionary preview of Time's Man of the Year profile, click here.) (12/22)

The war against Microsoft escalated. Weekend editorials rallied behind the Justice Department's claim that Microsoft is flouting a judge's injunction in the DOJ antitrust case. The Chicago Tribune accused Microsoft of "thumbing its nose" at the court by making the alternatives to the enjoined practice (bundling Internet Explorer with Windows 95) unworkable. "Microsoft's Macro-Gall," headlined the Los Angeles Times. The New York Times reported that a hands-on test by the judge "demolished" Microsoft's contention that removing IE from Windows would cripple the latter. The Wall Street Journal added that DOJ's hiring of top antitrust litigator David Boies "signals that the government is preparing to expand its legal attack." The backspin: This rash of setbacks is jarring Microsoft into telling politicians "its side of the story" the same way other companies do: by hiring politicians-turned-lobbyists and handing out campaign money. (12/22)

South Koreans chose opposition leader Kim Dae Jung as their next president. The romantic spin: He's "the Nelson Mandela of Korea," a pro-democracy dissident who survived jail, torture, and attempted assassination; defeated the ruling party's presidential candidate for the first time in the country's half-century; and will shake up the government and stand up for workers. The sober spin: Global markets have humbled him already (he threatened to renegotiate the International Monetary Fund's bailout of South Korea, but quickly reversed himself after his comments spooked foreign investors and walloped the Korean stock market). This will make him govern as deferentially to capital and as harshly to labor as any other candidate would have. (12/19)

New Jersey approved the nation's first nondiscrimination policy for gay couples seeking to adopt. Under a settlement, gay and unmarried heterosexual couples will be evaluated just as married couples are. Spin roundup: 1) It's no big deal, because other states are already letting gay couples adopt kids without acknowledging in principle that gays are fit for parenthood. 2) It's a big deal precisely because it acknowledges this principle, thereby advancing the movement for gay family rights everywhere. 3) Courts are becoming more sympathetic to gay couples who want to adopt kids, because many heterosexual parents are doing a lousy or indifferent job. 4) New Jersey's policy increases the likelihood that a heterosexual couple will lose an adoption opportunity to a gay couple, triggering a political explosion. (12/19)

President Clinton said he would keep United States troops in Bosnia past the June 1998 withdrawal deadline. Members of Congress are so tired of Clinton's reneging on Bosnia deadlines that this time they asked him not to insult their intelligence by stipulating another one. He obliged by scrapping the whole concept of a withdrawal date (which was clear, thereby making him accountable) in favor of withdrawal conditions (which are unclear, thereby making him less accountable). Critics argue that U.S. troops, whose original mission was to keep Bosnians from killing each other, have become a crutch for European powers that ought to finish the repair job themselves. (12/19)

Cultural news: 1) Comedian Chris Farley died of a heart attack at 33. Even before the exact cause was determined, obituaries compared him to John Belushi (who died of a drug overdose at the same age) and implied that Farley may have similarly burned out on "food, drugs, alcohol and women" (the Washington Post). 2) The New York Times reported that author Barbara Chase-Riboud, who has filed a $10-million suit claiming to have been plagiarized in Amistad, egregiously plagiarized another book 11 years ago. Her explanation: "I have a technique of sort of weaving real documents and real reference materials into my novel and making a kind of seamless narrative." 3) The Clinton administration picked the head of Nashville's Country Music Foundation to chair the National Endowment for the Arts. The Times questioned whether this is another maneuver to appease congressional Republicans by "installing a kind of Southern folklore mafia inside America's cultural institutions."(12/19)