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Ventura resident Charles E. Brandt died in a local hospital Monday after a lengthy illness. He was 72. Brandt was born Nov. 5, 1926, in Lyons, Neb. He moved to Ventura in 1947 from Omaha and worked as an operating engineer for S.P. Milling Co. for 30 years. Brandt was a World War II Navy veteran and a member of American Legion Post 339 and VFW Walter Chaffee Post 1679, both in Ventura.

An American Eagle commuter flight is scheduled to land this morning at Oxnard Airport, becoming the first commercial flight to use the runway since it was closed 10 days for repaving. The $1.7-million refurbishment was completed before a July 15 deadline set by federal aviation officials, who ordered the repairs after the 6,000-foot runway failed a safety inspection. During the round-the-clock repairs by S. P. Milling Co.

Once, Pabst owned this town. Now T-shirts and signs at small corner bars read "Shame on Pabst!"--condemning the 152-year-old brewer's move to cut benefits for more than 800 retired workers. "What they did was a slap in my face. After putting 42 years into that place, I thought that someone put a knife into my back," said Roman Makarewicz, 74, his voice shaking in anger. "I will never drink another drop of Pabst as long as I live."

Comfortable, well-padded upholstered furniture was not considered proper until the middle of the 1800s. Earlier generations had been taught that it was important to sit up straight. You were not to slouch or bend into positions that would be considered ungraceful. Your back was not supposed to touch the chair. Women were not to lean forward or cross their legs. Men were not to put their feet on the chair rungs.

A top administrator in the city of Compton was charged Friday in connection with the New Year's Day theft of more than $100,000 worth of office equipment from the city attorney's office. Melvin C. Smith, the city's labor relations officer, allegedly helped arrange the burglary in which typewriters, word processors, calculators, telephones, cameras and a fax machine were carted out through unlocked City Hall doors. Some stolen computer equipment was allegedly found in Smith's apartment.

Santa Monica has a message for its good neighbor, L.A.: We don't want your old toilets. Both cities offer $100 rebates to residents who purchase low-flow potties and discard their old water-guzzlers. Santa Monica has a plan for recycling the used fixtures. L.A., with no such plan, has deposited 17,000 used toilets with the rest of its trash in rapidly vanishing landfills.

Debbie Rodgers-Teasley does not need a traffic study to tell her that the number of cars and trucks running through Moorpark has surged in the last year. She just has to look out her office window. "It's constant," said Rodgers-Teasley, a real estate agent and president of the Moorpark Chamber of Commerce. "On any given day at any given time, you'll find a line of trucks heading down (California) 118 through Moorpark. If you don't see them, you feel them roaring by."

THE clouds above the docks hurried along like freight trains on their way to big towns. A teenage girl selling flowers at the Saturday farmers market in Stonington jumped up and down, trying to generate some body heat against the relentless winds. Produce sellers blew on their hands and tried to interest the few browsers in the foodstuffs that characterize the end of the season: apples, fingerling potatoes, buttercup squash, bread-and-butter pickles.

The sweat rolled down Chrysler executive Bill Kennedy Jr.'s face as he raced to complete the paperwork so that his nervous customer could be driven down a certain street in Bangkok in her new Jeep Cherokee at exactly 7:49 a.m. With just minutes to spare, they closed the deal, and Kennedy handed over the keys to the older Thai woman, her astrologer's wishes satisfied.