MALL MANIA: Oxnard officials will try to...

MALL MANIA: Oxnard officials will try to persuade their Ventura counterparts next week to scuttle their mall expansion plans in favor of a regional shopping center in Oxnard (B1). . . . But some Ventura residents are less than enthusiastic. Outgoing Councilman Greg Carson, who has worked for four years to expand Buenaventura Mall, says Oxnard is only trying to delay things now that Ventura is ready to proceed: “They are the kind of people who take their marbles and go home when it doesn’t go their way.”

PASSING THE TORCH: When Newbury Park plays Diamond Bar tonight in a Southern Section football final, (C14,17) quarterback Chris Czernek will probably break the state record for passing yardage. . . . The record was set in 1993 by former Panther Keith Smith, who is expected to come for the game from the University of Arizona, where he will play next year. . . . Keith’s dad, Stuart, said his son is happy for Chris. “Records are made to be broken.”

WHIZ KID: Logan Kay, above, is the scientific type: His experiment on the boiling time of water won him a first-place physics prize in the county science fair last year, and now he’s taken a first in the fair’s annual poster contest. . . . Logan, a seventh-grader at Colina Middle School in Thousand Oaks, came up with the idea for the crossword-puzzle background, then “basically did a lot of fiddling around on the computer,” says his father, Moorpark College professor David Kay. . . . The toughest part? “Trying to fit the words into the right places,” Logan says.

REALLY DEAD: Four months after the death of leader Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead has called it quits (A30). The band, formed in San Francisco in 1965, was one of rock’s top draws for three decades. . . . The breakup isn’t surprising, says Lisa Hicks, who books bands at the Ventura Theatre and who used to date Dead guitarist Bob Weir. “It was inevitable. I knew it was going to be that way. Who could replace Jerry Garcia?”