HEAVY LIFTING: The Los Angeles Police Department...

HEAVY LIFTING: The Los Angeles Police Department has a new weapon in the war against crime: a forklift. Cobbled together by the LAPD and the city’s General Services Department, it’s a remote-controlled prototype designed to remove bombs placed in cars. . . . City Councilwoman Laura Chick, who unveiled the device in a City Hall ceremony on Friday, said it will allow the LAPD to safely handle bombs similar to the one detonated in Oklahoma City last year.

BURN VICTIMS: Guy Arnone, who survived a bolt of lightning last week in Calabasas, thanked God during his first public appearance since the accident (B1). . . . In Sherman Oaks, meanwhile, doctors downgraded Michael Halsell’s condition from extremely critical to grave (B3). Halsell was badly burned while climbing an electric tower.

STAR PITCHER: As a child, Randy Wolf loved nothing more than a Pepperdine University baseball game. Today, the West Hills native with a mean fastball is Pepperdine’s star pitcher (C10). . . . “Randy is competitive, determined and single-minded,” says teammate Josh Oder.

FAREWELL: Even in death, George Burns went in style. The 100-year-old comedian was entombed in Forest Lawn’s Glendale cemetery last week with his sheet music, three cigars, his keys and a wallet carefully stuffed with $1,008 in cash. . . . “So wherever he went to play bridge he’d have enough money,” Burns’ assistant told Daily Variety columnist Army Archerd.