THE NEW NEW MATH: State lawmakers wanted...

THE NEW NEW MATH: State lawmakers wanted to hear from parents about California’s new math curriculum, and they got an earful Thursday (A3) . . . The anger expressed at the Sacramento hearing is echoed in Thousand Oaks, where some parents object to new textbooks rejecting rote skills--such as memorizing multiplication tables--in favor of analysis. “It sounds really good, but it does not prove beneficial in the long run,” says Coleen Ary, a mother of two. The questions are “fluffy and lightweight,” she says, and the teaching shows “a real lack of rigor.”

BLACK BADGES: Law enforcement officers across Ventura County mourned one of their own in the traditional manner: with blackened badges . . . . At a predawn briefing for a Simi Valley gang sweep--just one day after Oxnard Police Officer Jim Jensen was cut down by his partner’s gunfire in a similar raid--officers passed around a roll of black tape and tore off strips to cover their badges. That done, they set out and arrested six suspects. (B1)

A MARINE SALUTE: Marine Master Sgt. Dennis Rehmeier never knew Jensen. But when he found out the officer died in a nearby condominium and that Jensen had been a Marine, he decided to show his respect. . . . He’s now trying to pull together a Marine honor guard for the funeral Monday. (B1) “We take care of our own,” he says. “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

COLD TURKEY: Ventura County’s anti-smoking activists can hardly contain their glee over a tobacco firm’s offer to nix ads aimed at children and donate a portion of its profits to helping smokers quit. . . . Sure it’s just one company, the Liggett Group, settling a lawsuit. But activists hope others will follow. They don’t expect to see any money locally, but say the advertising ban should keep more youngsters from lighting up. . . . “If we don’t do something soon, we’re going to have another generation of kids hooked,” says Jerry Leavitt of the American Lung Assn.