Misstep Can’t Trip Up Prom Pair

--The two girls who won a court battle to attend their high school prom together enjoyed the big event, but only after overcoming a last-minute problem: They forgot to bring their ticket. “I can’t believe I forgot the prom bid,” said a distressed Stephanie Salgado, 17, realizing she was armed with a court order but no $25 ticket to the event. School officials, however, admitted Salgado and her friend, 18-year-old Marie Hawkins. Once inside, they were the stars of the prom. Hawkins, dressed in a tuxedo with a blue bow tie and top hat, and Salgado, wearing a black-and-white gown, gave TV and newspaper interviews. The girls decided in January to go to the prom in Monterey together because their boyfriends were unwilling to attend, partly because of the cost. But the two young women were denied permission by the Salinas Union High School Student Council, which said such an action would threaten the prom’s couples-only tradition. The school board upheld the council’s decision. But the day before Saturday’s dance, Monterey County Superior Court Judge Richard Silver issued a temporary restraining order allowing the two to attend. Salinas High Principal Bill Evans said the episode, particularly the court ruling, had been educational for the school’s students. “I think what they have learned through all of this . . . is that they have set up a rule that violated a person’s civil rights,” he said. “I’m glad they’re going,” said Sharon Buckalew, a junior. “The only thing I feel is that in the future it’s going to be all singles.”

--Television talk show host Phil Donahue got into a scuffle with a pro-nuclear supporter of independent presidential candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. at New York’s La Guardia Airport, police said. The unidentified activist who was handing out leaflets shouted an obscenity at Donahue, who “took offense,” police said, and the two reportedly had to be separated. Donahue was accompanied by his wife, actress Marlo Thomas.

--A French doctor, on a 63-day, 500-mile trek in the Arctic, became the first man to walk on his own to the North Pole, an organizer for the expedition said. Organizer Michel Franco said that Jean-Louis Etienne, 39, had reached the pole. Franco said satellite pictures confirmed that Etienne, using cross-country skis and pulling a small sled, had reached the pole. He said Etienne had to walk 20 hours nonstop to cover the last few miles in a dramatic fight against time as the Great Ice Barrier was melting due to higher temperatures. Franco said Japan’s Naemi Uemura, in a solo attempt, reached the pole in 1978, but used sled dogs.