CLEAN SKUNK: Lockheed’s new “skunk works” in...

CLEAN SKUNK: Lockheed’s new “skunk works” in Palmdale carries on some old traditions--and hopes to lose another. Like the original, the new center does secret military work, including updates on the stealth fighter-bomber and even the venerable U-2. Unwanted: another bill like the $263-million pollution cleanup at the original site in Burbank. . . . Lockheed spent $22 million on preventive measures in Palmdale. See Valley Business, page 3.

DITCHING PACOIMA: Arleta residents are still in there slugging in their long campaign to divorce Pacoima, last of the community name and boundary upheavals that shook the Valley several years ago. More than 5,000 signed petitions to reclaim 91332, Arleta’s ZIP code before it was melded into Pacoima’s 91331 (B3). . . . One argument: a sense of community. Another: lower home and car insurance rates.

ROOTS OF BIAS: What’s the root of Cal State Northridge’s race and PC quarrels? President Blenda Wilson, above, points to the university’s role as an arena for ideas, and to students getting their first exposure to “attitudes, cultures, behaviors that are not their own. . . . And they bring with them . . . the prejudices of their homes and their communities.” (B5)

YOUNG DEATH: The day’s lesson for 13-year-olds at a Reseda school was death, but they hadn’t known how close it would come. A boy in the cast of a pageant on the Kennedy assassination 30 years ago had himself been killed by a hit-run driver. . . . Dedicating the performance to his memory, classmates went on with the show (B2), adding meaning to a teacher’s eulogy for Kennedy: “An age of innocence ended.”

MOTHER SENTENCED: The saga of Catherine Thomas, who fled with her daughter after a judge granted the girl to a Van Nuys man unrelated to the child, came to a close. Thomas, pleading no contest, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service. . . . She may have to compensate the man for his expenses reclaiming the 5-year-old girl (B6).