LANCASTER - Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies parted a line of Teamster pickets twice Friday afternoon when a reported area supervisor for United Parcel Service drove a package-laden tractor-trailer into the company's shipping yard at Avenue L and Sierra Highway.
PALMDALE - Shirley Young left her job as executive director of the Palmdale Chamber of Commerce Thursday to take care of a family matter out of state. Acting in her stead is chamber President Cheryl Duggan, who would not elaborate on Young's reason for leaving.
KALAMAZOO, Mich. - Kellie Cox celebrated her second World Series finals appearance in three years by getting locked in her grandparents' hotel bathroom. Andrea Cabriales celebrated with a game of laser tag. Valerie Rodriguez celebrated with a satisfied smile that wouldn't stop.
PALMDALE - Firefighters built a 3 1/2-mile sprinkler system to defend the town of Wrightwood as a raging wildfire, pushed by 15mph winds, advanced to within four miles of the mountain town Friday, fire officials said. The fire had charred 5,463 acres of rugged Angeles National Forest land as of Friday, causing an estimated $1 million in damage and injuring a firefighter.
Aug. 17
PALMDALE - Hundreds of people gathered at Avenue N and Sierra Highway Saturday morning to bid a final farewell to John Calvert "B.J." MacWhirter, Antelope Valley's legendary airplane watcher. MacWhirter, 59, was the founder and leader of a band of aircraft buffs who gathered across the street from a Plant 42 runway.
KALAMAZOO, Mich. - This West Side Story is hard to put down. It's getting to be habit-forming.
Bring a boisterous, unflappable, talented softball team into Kalamazoo. Win over the locals off the field as you win over your opponents on it.
Win a dynamic championship game over a favored foe. Hoist the California Golden Bear up over the flag staff at Vanderburg Park's Wilson Field.
Begin celebrating.
WRIGHTWOOD - Flames from a 9,437-acre wildfire were only 2 1/2 miles away from the scenic winter resort of Wrightwood in the Angeles National Forest Saturday, according to a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman.
Aug. 19
WRIGHTWOOD - As a fiveday-old wildfire raged nearby, residents clustered around the fire information post in front of Mountain Hardware for news of the fire threatening their mountain community. The hardware store is a community meeting place with a map set up displaying where the fire line is, as well as vendors hawking T-shirts with the legend "Narrows Incident," the name given the fire for the narrows in the Sheep Mountain Wilderness area where the fire started Wednesday.
Aug. 20
PALMDALE - Employment at Air Force Plant 42 is up 600 people since January, and there is optimism that jobs will at least be stable for now. Installation commander Lt. Col. Peter "Pete" Drinkwater said he is cautiously optimistic about the future because projects have come and gone before - and it could happen again.
Department of Justice Special Agent Anthony D. Valente testified in the first day of a preliminary hearing for Frank Joseph Ryan, a 33-year-old charged with a host of sex crimes involving a home-based Internet business.
WRIGHTWOOD - Tuesday was day six of a wildfire in Wrightwood that Los Angeles County firefighters said was 60% contained and burning just two miles west of downtown Wrightwood.
Aug. 21
LANCASTER - School district trustees expressed unanimous readiness to throw out controversial cross-cultural training for teachers Tuesday night, but relented when district superintendent Steve Gocke asked for a two-week delay.
Aug. 22
KERN COUNTY - In one week in Kern County, three separate child-abuse cases, involving 10 children, resulted in the arrests of three adults. What is most alarming to law and health officials is that such cases recently have become almost common in Kern County.
LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley Union High School District may have a more powerful tool against truancy this year. The district is considering taking away students' driver's licenses if they are habitually truant.
The program would be based on a law written by state Sen. William J. "Pete" Knight, R-Palmdale, and passed in 1996. The law allows a judge to suspend a license or delay the process of obtaining one if a teen is habitually truant from school.
Aug. 23
LANCASTER - The battle between Gov. Pete Wilson and the state Legislature has delayed a decision on a statewide standardized testing program.
The delay will cost Eastside Union School District more than $8,000 this year, according to a district official.
LANCASTER - A newborn baby was found in a trash dumpster behind a west Lancaster apartment complex Friday morning, authorities said.
A man rummaging through the trash discovered the 4- to 5-hourold infant at 9:40 a.m.
ANGELES FOREST - Twelve of some 250 telephone call boxes to be placed in unincorporated areas throughout Los Angeles County were installed on the heavily traveled, curvy Angeles Forest Highway, officials said Friday.
The highway is used daily by thousands of Antelope Valley commuters. Its hairpin twists and turns make the road a hotbed of accidents and lonely breakdowns, records show.
Aug. 24
LANCASTER - The temperature during Friday's opening ceremony at the 59th annual Antelope Valley Fair and Alfalfa Festival, The Days of Swine and Roses, read 109 degrees. However, as the hot afternoon turned into a comfortable evening, attendance figures went steadily up and up from last year's totals.
PALMDALE - A family dispute spilled over into an east Palmdale neighborhood Saturday, when a despondent man held Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies at bay for more than six hours.
PALMDALE - More than $19 million worth of tax credits are waiting for some Antelope Valley employers if they hire 807 prescreened employees.
Each pre-screened worker is worth at least $24,000 in state income-tax credits to companies located within the local Enterprise Zone, said Carrie Rogers, trade zone manager for the city's Department of Economic Development.
The zone, established Feb. 1, encompasses 40 square miles and provides a variety of tax breaks from the state during the next 15 years.
Aug. 26
EDWARDS AFB - It's got a new name, but the mission remains the same.
Air Force Phillips Labs Propulsion Directorate will become the Air Force Research Laboratories Propulsion Directorate in October, spokesman Ranney Adams said.
LANCASTER - Authorities investigating the circumstances of a severed cow's tongue found hanging last month outside a local welfare office are looking at links between the incident and a Cubabased religious cult called Santeria.
Aug. 27
LANCASTER - Employment at Air Force Plant 42 is up and the mergers of aerospace giants could mean more work will find its way to Palmdale, Lt. Col. Peter "Pete" Drinkwater told the Antelope Valley Board of Trade Tuesday.
Employment, which has increased by 600 people since January, now equals the 1994 employment total of 9,100 employees, he said. On an even better note, the facility's payroll is up $59 million compared to 1994 figures, Drinkwater said.
Lancaster and Palmdale were included on a list of America's "Kid Friendly" cities released Tuesday by Washington, D.C.based Zero Population Growth.
LAKE LOS ANGELES - For nearly three hours Tuesday, rescue workers struggled in 110-degree heat to free a Lake Los Angeles boy wedged in a crevice in a giant boulder above this eastside community.
Aug. 28
PALMDALE - A plan to build a southern campus of Antelope Valley College in East Palmdale suffered more setbacks during recent negotiations with the city and area homeowners, college President Linda Spink said.
Suggested changes to the plan are so extensive that city planners are requiring submittal of new studies and a new plan application - steps that could burden the college with tens of thousands of dollars in additional fees.
Aug. 29
LANCASTER - They came, they saw, they bought - at the 42nd Annual Kiwanis Junior Livestock Auction held Thursday in Jaqua Arena at the Antelope Valley fairgrounds. And not even a fraudulent buyer who "purchased" almost $28,000 worth of animals could put a lasting damper on the high-spirited event.
bf]Aug. 30
WRIGHTWOOD - Aircraft wreckage discovered during cleanup of the 18,000-acre Wrightwood fire turned out to be that of a T-34 trainer which crashed 32 years ago.
Aug. 31
PARIS (AP) - Britain's Princess Diana, who had been struggling to build a new public and private life after her turbulent divorce, was killed Sunday along with her companion, Dodi Fayed, in a car crash as their car was being pursued by photographers on motorcycles.
The 36-year-old princess died at 4 a.m. (10 p.m. EDT Saturday) after going into cardiac arrest, doctors told a hospital news conference.
Quartz Hill and Desert High schools received the Antelope Valley's highest scores for public schools this year on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), according to results this week. At Desert High School in the Muroc Joint Unified School District, students earned a verbal score of 523, the same as last year. Their score on math was up from 494 in 1995-96 to 502 this year.
