TWIN TALENTS: Jamal Harris and Jason Victor...

TWIN TALENTS: Jamal Harris and Jason Victor are both star football players at Westlake High. Both are being heavily recruited for college. Off the field, though, their paths diverge (C8). . . . Jamal lives with his mother, a human-relations executive. Jason hasn’t lived with either of his parents for more than a year. . . . But both are counted as successful by their peers. “Jason does have a harder life then other people, and he gets through it,” Westlake teammate Mike Mini said. “That counts for something.”

INNOCENT PLEA: Schoolteacher Daniel Allan Tuffree has denied killing a Simi Valley police officer and asked a judge to start his death penalty trial as soon as possible (B1). . . . Defense attorney Richard Holly had advised seeking a delay but entered the plea at his client’s insistence. “We’re clearing the decks,” Holly said. “We’re stepping it up five notches.” . . . Trial is set for Dec. 18.

AIR FORCE: KCLU-FM, Cal Lutheran’s public radio station, is small but has been growing steadily since it beamed on a year ago (B1). . . . Long before the station opened, the university was embroiled in a dispute over where to put its tower. It originally wanted to put the 150-foot structure on Mountclef Ridge in Thousand Oaks, but after neighbors complained, the structure was erected on Calleguas Peak in Newbury Park.

TEN-HUT: When Rep. Elton Gallegly hits Oxnard tonight to meet with youths interested in attending a military academy, he’ll be accompanied by Ralph Radka, a junior at the U. S. Military Academy in West Point, N. Y. . . . Radka, who was recruited out of Simi Valley’s Royal High School in 1993 for water polo, is majoring in environmental engineering and hopes to join the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers after graduation. . . . The session will be in Building J at Oxnard High School, 3400 W. Gonzales Road, from 7 to 9 p.m. Last year, Gallegly appointed eight students to the four academies.