DEATH VERDICT: A teen-age murderer deserves the...

DEATH VERDICT: A teen-age murderer deserves the death penalty for kidnaping a Westlake mother and fatally shooting her in the back, a Ventura County jury has ruled (B1). . . . Mark Scott Thornton broke the silence he kept during the six-month trial, spurning a chance to delay sentencing in the 1993 slaying of Kellie O’Sullivan. . . . “I want to be sentenced as soon as possible,” Thornton said.

INK AND CHIPS: Mashed wood pulp, ink and information have been the flesh and blood of newspapers since printing-press inventor Johann Gutenberg taught his fellow 15th-Century Germans how to spread the word by machine. . . . But computer chips and color icons are taking over--and publishers are among those wondering: “Do Newspapers Have a Future?” Panelists, from USA Today founder Allen Neuharth to National Enquirer editor Ian Calder, ponder that question today at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

CASH STASH: Victor Nelson did not trust his eyes. The last Ping-Pong ball plunked down to spell out a $36-million Super Lotto win for him and 25 co-workers (B1). . . . But the Newbury Park technician says he kept reopening his safe to double- and triple-check their joint ticket. The numbers didn’t change, though. Each winner will receive just under $25,000 a year after taxes for the next 20 years.

DEADBEAT MOMS: Painful as it sounds, some children in single-parent families get no child support from their mothers. Deadbeat moms make up 3% to 5% of all cases handled by the Ventura County district attorney’s child support division, says its head, Stanley Trom (B1). . . . Non-paying mothers plead that they have no money for child support, but they never resort to the age-old excuse used by dodgy dads--that investigators have the wrong father. “The one issue you don’t have,” Trom said, “is maternity.”