COUGH IT UP: In the first such...

COUGH IT UP: In the first such case filed by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, a North Hills store agreed Thursday to pay $10,000 in civil fines and costs for coercing suspected shoplifters into paying $100 to avoid arrest. The city’s lawsuit against Danish American Farms on Parthenia Street cited a complaint by a 70-year-old Canoga Park man who was detained after he walked out with a tube of denture cream. . . . Deputy City Atty. P. Greg Parham said the store’s employees “overreacted at best and engaged in extortion at worst.”

PAROLEE PROTEST: Neighborhood opposition is rising against a convicted child molester whose parole will end in August and who, neighbors fear, will move back to his mother’s Woodland Hills home . . . only four blocks away from his victim. But the man said Friday he has no such plans (B1).

LOOKING GOOD: Nathan Neser, above, was not expected to see this day. Stricken with pulmonary fibrosis, Nathan was given a year to live. That was four years ago. On Friday, the 16-year-old boy unveiled his photograph collection in Panorama City . . . and got a new camera too (B2).

PARK PROBLEM: Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon proposed Friday that the city take over El Cariso Park in Sylmar, which is threatened with closure by county budget cuts (B1). . . . Speaking to county supervisors, Alarcon called the park “absolutely vital to the northeast San Fernando Valley.”

DRIVING CHALLENGE: Sure, Granada Hills resident Marlow Howell is only 13 years old. And he’s blind. But that won’t stop him from getting on the road today. . . . Howell is one of about 42 blind teen-agers competing in the Braille Institute’s Braille Rallye. He’ll read a Braille map from a car passenger seat to navigate a sighted driver through Los Angeles and the Valley to a secret destination. His only concern: “I want to have a good driver.”