Conflicts

The San Fernando Valley is 260 square miles of suburbia. Actually, make that suburbia on nutritional supplements. And antidepressants. With perhaps a little cosmetic surgery south of Ventura Boulevard, where the big money is. Or maybe - now that it's grown to more than 1.7 million people in nearly three dozen cities and neighborhoods rich and poor - the Valley isn't even a suburb anymore. It begins just 10 miles northwest of Los Angeles City Hall, sprawling west to the Simi Hills, north to the Santa Susana Mountains, and east to the Verdugo and San Gabriel mountains.

WASHINGTON - A senior Pentagon official told a Senate committee Thursday that the U.S. would be at war with Al Qaeda for 15 to 20 more years and said the military could target terrorists anywhere under a law passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Michael Sheehan, assistant secretary of Defense in charge of special operations, said America's battle with terrorist groups spanned the globe "from Boston to the FATA," meaning Pakistan's tribal areas. He did not explain why he believes the effort could last another generation.

Not since the waning days of World War II have the mammoth wooden blimp hangars at the former military base in Tustin seen as much airship manufacturing work as they do today. Inside the 17-story structures that rise above southern Orange County, Worldwide Aeros Corp. is building a blimp-like airship designed for the military to carry tons of cargo to remote areas around the world. "Nobody has ever tried to do what we're doing here," Chief Executive Igor Pasternak said of the 265-foot skeleton being transformed into the cargo airship.

ESCONDIDO - The eighth Amgen Tour of California begins at 11:15 a.m. Sunday in Escondido, and for the first time the largest cycling stage race in the United States is traveling from south to north. The 750-mile trip will end May 19 in Santa Rosa. Matt Bettenhausen, vice president and chief security officer for race owner AEG Worldwide, joined cyclists and race officials at a Friday news conference, where he discussed increased security for this year's event in the wake of the bombings at the Boston Marathon.

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West reportedly wanted to name their baby North. As in North West. Besides being ridiculous, this makes us wonder, if West had additional kids, would he name them based on all the directions of the compass? South, East and West West? Probably not. Sources close to the reality star have shut down the "North" rumors, first reported by the Sun, which said the rapper, 35, thought it sounded good with his last name. However, omg! Yahoo reports that the couple will not be naming their child North.

The top executive of Herbalife International has resigned his $3.3-million-a-year position amid investor pressure to auction the company. Chris Pair, Herbalife's 46-year-old president and chief executive, said Thursday that he is leaving the Los Angeles-based multilevel marketing firm, which he joined in 1985. He declined to comment further on his departure.

Will someone please just write a show for Chi McBride? In work as varied as "Pushing Daisies" and "Human Target," McBride has become a go-to guy for ballast-providing second lead - tough but tolerant, wise in that one-line-delivering sort of way that can brighten up even the sludgiest scene, like a Matisse in a small room with limited exposure. But how long can the man be expected to serve as accent wall? He's at it again in the new CBS cop drama "Golden Boy," which premieres Tuesday.

REMEMBERING HER DAYS AS A young girl--"No one would have accused me of being a happy child"--Leslie Abramson has an enduring memory of her favorite means of escape. After school, at the corner luncheonette, she'd buy button candies and chocolate marshmallow twists (two for a nickel) and spend hours at the comic-book racks, reading. Mad magazine was good for a giggle. But it was the spooky stuff, the horror comics like "Tales From the Crypt," that she really loved. And hated, too.

The tourists think big. Arriving in Southern California, they expect to conquer Disneyland and Hollywood, perhaps on the same day, in between the surfing and snowboarding. Then they get stuck in traffic. Then come the recriminations, the tears, the vows to visit an island next time. The locals think small. Tracing tight little loops between home and work, they dodge freeways and alien neighborhoods. There are Los Feliz people who haven't set foot in Venice since the latter Bush administration (I'm one)

For three decades, relationship research psychologists have been able to pinpoint behaviors in couples that lead to successful, fulfilling and enduring relationships and conversely, behaviors that are corrosive, insidious and deleterious to the bonds of love. Over the last dozen years, such relationship data have spurred an explosion of therapeutic approaches, relationship education courses and 911-emergency-like interventions for the divorce-bound.