REASON TO SHOP: Hundreds of early holiday...

REASON TO SHOP: Hundreds of early holiday shoppers have a special reason for Saturday’s trip to the Desert Hills Factory Stores in Cabazon. Everybody pays $25 for the bus trip to the desert--organized by Ginsburg Craig & Associates of Newport Beach--and all the money goes to benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. . . . Says Heather Lage, who took the trip last year: “It’s knowing that you’re shopping to help other women, or maybe yourself.” The county is second-highest in the state in breast cancer deaths.

STEP ASIDE? Demonstrators demanding statehood for the District of Columbia have taken to blocking the entrance to the Capitol Hill building where Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) has his offices. And he’s not taking it lightly. . . . The irate congressman, who serves on the House’s D.C. Committee, is urging colleagues to cut the district’s budget by $17 million. The demonstrations, he says, “constitute an unprecedented illegal attack on Congress.”

COURTING A WITCH: Chapman University student George Anderson figured that since his mother, Harbor Municipal Judge Margaret R. Anderson, already had the black robes, no reason she couldn’t turn into a witch and help the college’s Haunted Crypt fund-raiser. . . . She’ll help out, and in a witch’s costume. “But I am not wearing my judicial robes,” she says. Tours through the elaborate, 12-room haunted house are $5. They begin tonight and run through Halloween.

NEW UNIFORMS: It’s not just the youngsters who will dress up on Halloween. In Tustin, half a dozen police officers will be in costume that night, handing out candy as well as anti-drug and anti-gang literature. . . . “It’s a fun kind of way to break down police/community barriers,” says Sgt. Steve Lewis. “I think children would love to come up to a police officer wearing a Batman mask.” . . . All the costumes, he says, will be non-threatening. No Freddie Kruegers.

Breast Cancer Deaths

Orange County is projected to be second only to Los Angeles in breast cancer deaths statewide this year.

Los Angeles: 1,445 Orange: 410 San Diego: 365 Alameda: 240 Santa Clara: 220

Source: American Cancer Society