NEIGHBORLY PLAN: Have you gone years without...

NEIGHBORLY PLAN: Have you gone years without ever knowing your closest neighbors? A new crime-prevention effort could give you a chance to get acquainted. Tuesday evening, residents nationwide are being asked to participate in a “National Night Out.” You are supposed to just go outside and talk, says Huntington Beach police spokeswoman Suzie Wajda: “It’s a shot in the arm to get your Neighborhood Watch program going again. Crooks are not hard workers; the harder you make it for them, the less chance they’ll take advantage of you.”

CAN INVADERS: Tired of scavengers rifling through the recyclable trash you set out at night for morning garbage truck pick-up? A lot of cities are angry about it too. The thefts often leave messes and cause cities to lose state credits for trash diversion. . . . In Cypress, Police Chief Daryl Wicker says he’s ordering a crackdown: “The city has an anti-scavenger ordinance, and it will be enforced.”

TROUBLED TIMES: The A-bomb was 50 years ago. Tsuyuko Janzen of Mission Viejo survived the blast on her hometown of Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945 (E1). A freshman at a college in Tokyo at the time, she was spending her summer vacation at home when the bomb fell. . . . But as it turned out, she may have been safer in Nagasaki than at school: While she was gone, a fire bomb landed on her dormitory. “Tokyo,” Janzen says, “was practically wiped out with fire bombs.”

ADD SALSA? The Pond of Anaheim has hosted wrestling, rock concerts, basketball, hockey, indoor soccer--and now burrito making. Not just any burrito, of course. As a fund-raiser for the local Olive Crest Children’s Home, the El Pollo Loco chain, with help from the Anaheim Splash soccer players, plans to cook up the world’s largest burrito--3,100 feet and 4,000 pounds. It’s for the Guinness Book of Records--yes, Guinness already has a category like this. . . . Your company can buy a 50-foot section for $200.