HIGHWAY INN: Toll road agencies came up...

HIGHWAY INN: Toll road agencies came up with a “Good Neighbor” plan 16 months ago for those living close to the noisy pile-driving work on the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor. The agencies would pay hotel room costs for those who needed peace and quiet during construction periods. . . . So far, the agencies have spent $11,000 for hotel rooms. A spokeswoman says that about a dozen people, especially those who need to sleep during the day, have taken advantage of the program.

HAPPY IN SECOND? Al Haig’s White House comments to the nation that he was “in charge” (he wasn’t really) the day Ronald Reagan was shot is considered one of the great political gaffes of U.S. history. Haig seems to accept it with humor (B3). . . . He mentioned in remarks at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace on Wednesday that he’d love a chance to be vice president, noting: “I’ve already been President twice--once during the last hours of Watergate and then for that all too brief a period the day President Reagan was shot.”

REAL McCOY: If you heard that Rudy from that Notre Dame football movie will be at Aliso Viejo Middle School today, don’t expect Sean Astin. It’s not the actor who played the determined bench scrub who got his big chance to play for the Fighting Irish. . . . No, this is the real Rudy--Rudy Ruettinger--whose story of his college days inspired the movie. . . . Says Principal Sherine Smith: “I can’t think of a better way to instill in our young people that you can be anything you want to be in life.”