NO HAWKS: Valley-area congressmen say constituent callers...

NO HAWKS: Valley-area congressmen say constituent callers overwhelmingly favor a U.S. pullout from Somalia. “They want us out,” says Howard (Buck) McKeon. Howard Berman and Anthony Beilenson--both Democrats--criticized previous Administration policy but wouldn’t second-guess the President’s decision to send more troops. Not reluctant was Republican Carlos Moorhead: “They’re just that much bigger targets.”

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COLLISION COURSE: The long-simmering tension between black athletes and Cal State Northridge administrators has reached a boil. When student protesters jeered the football team bus, one of the players joined them. And with two starters lost to the turmoil, officials are threatening to cancel the season (C1) . . . or just drop football entirely.

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WOES GROW: Singer Rick James (above) had a rotten day. Bailiffs nixed his courtroom wedding to Tanya Hijazi, found guilty with him of assaulting a woman in a sex-and-drug party. Then his scheduled sentencing was postponed, prosecutors saying two more women showed up with similar stories--and one had a videotape. (B4)

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ON THE OTHER HAND: Prisons have too few friends to lose any, but that’s what’s happening in Lancaster. The new state lockup there was sufficiently popular as a job base that city officials were in favor of hosting another one . . . until that murderer escaped. Outlook now: chilly (B16).

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GOD AND COUNTRY: Country music has been kicking butt and taking names lately, sweeping through rock and rap, packing booted and Stetsoned city folk onto night club dance floors. New conquest: religion. A Porter Ranch church offers country music services, with the minister in jeans and boots (B9). . . . Whooping in the pews is encouraged.