Civics I: Main Street in Sauk Centre,...

Civics I: Main Street in Sauk Centre, Minn., the roadway immortalized by native son Sinclair Lewis, is being rebuilt over the objections of merchants and residents. “This will kill us . . . economically,� Al Tingley, co-owner of the historic Palmer House Hotel and Restaurant, said last week. The City Council OKd a state plan to rebuild Main Street, which Lewis wrote about in his book of the same name. The project will eliminate parking spaces, which Tingley and others say will destroy the street’s historic flavor and reduce shopper and tourist traffic.

Civics II: Eastern Germans will be able to keep their beloved right turn on a red light, and the idea may be tried in the rest of Germany. Parliament has voted to permit the five former East German states to keep the right-turn regulation until 1996. The rule was to have been eliminated on Jan. 1 as part of the gradual introduction of western German regulations in the former Communist state. But easterners saw red and protested.

Reduced: A judge in New Orleans has sliced a $10-million defamation award against evangelist Jimmy Swaggart to $6.64 million. Retired state District Judge Julian Bailes said he trimmed the award to rival evangelist Marvin Gorman because two of Swaggart’s co-defendants settled with Gorman before a trial on his lawsuit began. Gorman claimed that Swaggart and close associates plotted to ruin his reputation and growing television ministry with false stories of multiple adulterous affairs. Gorman admitted to a single act of adultery.

Making Amends: A man whose conscience prompted him to surrender to face a 16-year-old drug warrant has been fined $5,000 and sentenced to 120 days of work release. Rudolf Valentino Santos, 46, was one of 14 people indicted in connection with a nine-ton shipment of Mexican marijuana smuggled through Seattle in 1975. The Vietnam veteran wasn’t sought by police. But living in fear of arrest was “a thousand times worse than Vietnam,� said lawyer Michael Rosen.