CHEER CHAMPS: Male classmates used to tease...

CHEER CHAMPS: Male classmates used to tease Mark Adams, 17, about being on the Canoga Park High School cheerleading squad. Then the team won the national co-ed show cheer championships on Saturday . . . and a free trip to Japan for the World championships in August. “The other guys used to say cheerleading is not a sport,” Adams said. “Now they want to be on the team.”

CRIMES OF LEATHER: The FBI is seeking a bank robber with a leather-clad alibi. . . . The “Briefcase Gun Bandit” has struck 19 times during the past year, mostly in the west San Fernando Valley (B4). Two robberies have occurred within the past week. “He typically enters a bank carrying a dark leather briefcase,” said an FBI official. “Then he will open the briefcase and point the gun at the teller.”

DREAM MAKER: For James E. Robinson, above, there is no such thing as a racial barrier. . . . The 85-year-old real estate agent has spent the better part of a lifetime navigating African American homeowners into predominantly white--and sometimes hostile--neighborhoods. “I was told that I wouldn’t be accepted--that I would never make it--because I was colored, but I wouldn’t believe it,” Robinson said. See Valley Business, Page 8.

X-MANIA: Glendale-based Graz Entertainment Inc. may seem like the animation industry super-hero with its popular cartoon series, “X-Men” and “The Tick.” . . . But the shows are so labor-intensive that the studio has seen little profit from the programs. See Valley Business, Page 3.

TV TURNOFF: The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in North Hollywood has a message for Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich: Don’t tread on PBS. . . . Gingrich has aimed the budget ax at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but Academy officials went public Monday against such cutbacks. “I would think there would be less of and less quality of national programming available,” warned Executive Director Jim Loper.