September 30, 2003

California recall election enters its final week with oddly familiar look of more conventional race; big candidates are raising bundles of money, airwaves are congested with campaign commercials, and each side is stepping up psychological gamesmanship, passing along juicy rumors and crying foul over tiniest perceived transgressions; analysts predict television advertising in final stretch will top $15 million; in past few days, hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions have poured into offices of two main figures in campaign to recall Gov Gray Davis: Davis himself and his leading Republican challenger Arnold Schwarzenegger; some donors are even hedging their bets; photos (M)

Sun Microsystems says it will post wider-than-expected loss for its first fiscal quarter and will restate its results for previous quarter to reflect $1.05 billion write-down; chief financial officer Steve McGowan comments (M)

As the Iraqi Governing Council presses for a transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis, a dispute over who will control the drafting of a constitution is embroiling Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Iraqi officials who have been deliberating for two months as a 25-member committee to recommend a procedure for drafting the constitution said they were deadlocked.

18-month-old conjoined twins Carl Aguirre and Clarence Aguirre arrive from Philippines and prepare for surgery to separate them; Dr James Goodrich of Montefiore Medical Center (Bronx, NY) leads team that expects to perform first surgery around October 2003; boys are joined at head and although they have separate brains they share major veins, which require multistage operations to reroute vital circulatory functions; mother Arlene Aguirre says that although she was not aware she was carrying conjoined twins until she was in her fourth month, she would not have considered terminating pregnancy; conjoined twins occur more often in developing nations where prenatal care is limited; many parents, given advanced warning of conjoined twins through ultrasound, choose to terminate pregnancy; photos (M)

New York Jets coach Herman Edwards will spend bye week trying to revamp struggling offense, but says that platooning running back Curtis Martin is not option (M)