TEEN SHOPLIFTING: Teen-agers shoplift for many reasons:...

TEEN SHOPLIFTING: Teen-agers shoplift for many reasons: peer pressure, thrills, a rush that relieves depression or fills unmet emotional needs (E1). . . . During Christmas break, Ventura County teens have been behaving themselves at The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks: “Arrests are down,” security director Joe Baxter said. “I’ve been here since 1978 and haven’t seen kids this well-mannered, orderly and peaceful.” . . . But Victor Escudero, head of security for Sears at Oxnard’s The Esplanade shopping center, said: “We were busy with juveniles; it picked up during the holidays.”

BALANCING ACT: To walk on a rope high above the ground at the Wilderness Institute retreat in the Santa Monica Mountains (B4), you don’t necessarily have to be young and agile--you can be old and agile, too. . . . Even grandmothers have taken the confidence-building courses from the Agoura Hills-based company. . . . “We custom-design each program to meet the needs of seniors,” President Bradley V. Childs said.

OIL’S WELL: The oil spill at McGrath State Beach near Oxnard (A1, B1) brought back bad memories for residents of Solimar Beach Colony. . . . Nearly nine months ago, about 800 gallons of black crude oil leaked from a Conoco pumping station in the hills above the tiny community, fouling a barranca and sections of beach, above. . . . Today, no traces of oil remain. “They cleaned it up beautifully,” resident Marjorie Haycox said. “They couldn’t have been more conscientious and careful.”

SHOCKING: Would you want to spend New Year’s Eve with a rude, crude megalomaniac? Maybe not, but a lot of other Ventura County residents have no reservations about ringing in 1994 with shock jock Howard Stern. . . . County cable stations report brisk sales for Stern’s pay-per-view special Friday night. . . . “We’ve had lines in the lobby out the door,” said Richard Yelen of Ventura County Cablevision. “Our advance sales are three times what they would be for a fight.”