PALMDALE - A new report that suggests ways to retool U.S. defense for future threats contains suggestions that could boost Antelope Valley efforts to consolidate test and evaluation facilities in the West, officials said.
PALMDALE - A new report that suggests ways to retool U.S. defense for future threats contains suggestions that could boost Antelope Valley efforts to consolidate test and evaluation facilities in the West, officials said.
The 94-page "Transforming Defense" report urges more base closures, consolidation of facilities across military branches and more research and development.
LANCASTER - James Allen spent his first three years at Antelope Valley High School as a C student. Now, not only is he a straight-A student, but he achieved a perfect score on the verbal portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
Dec. 3
LOS ANGELES - An attorney for Marshall Redman, a developer accused of massive Antelope Valley land-fraud deals that targeted Spanish-speaking immigrants, lost a bid to have criminal charges against his client dismissed.
Dec. 4
LANCASTER - Vandals broke windows, sprayed fire extinguishers, poured glue on the fingerboards of a piano and a computer, and stole about $25 worth of pennies at the Jack Northrop Elementary School (formerly New Vista Elementary School) sometime between Thanksgiving and the following Saturday, Nov. 29.
LANCASTER - California's Superintendent of Schools Delaine Eastin has come out against Assemblyman George Runner's legislative proposal to move up the cutoff date for children to turn age 5 before entering kindergarten.
Dec. 5
PALMDALE - Newly seated Councilwoman Shelley Sorsabal cast her first votes, using one to join her four colleagues in unanimously directing municipal staff to reopen negotiations with the county over the possible construction of a civil courthouse. That courthouse could be "a catalyst for jobs and economic development" by bringing attorneys, court reporters and support businesses to the city's downtown, Mayor Jim Ledford said.
LANCASTER - Some Antelope Valley school districts pay thousands of dollars a year for security services. But as recent burglaries and acts of vandalism have shown, schools don't always get much protection in return.
Security companies contracted by the districts - one district shells out more than $50,000 a year - often provide only cursory service, simply driving by school campuses once a night, according to school records.
Dec. 6
WASHINGTON - Federal drug agents have seized three methamphetamine labs and arrested 100 people on charges of helping the leading Mexican-based meth gang produce and distribute the drug in this country. The ninemonth-long sting stretched from Acton to North Carolina and resulted in the arrests of 100 people.
QUARTZ HILL - Matt Landis scored a perfect 800 on the SAT's math portion, he gets good grades, and he's a semifinalist for a national merit scholarship.
Dec. 7
LANCASTER - Participants in Lancaster's "A Dickens of a Holiday" Christmas Parade braved Saturday's cold, wet weather while spectators bundled-up under blankets or huddled together in doorways of businesses along Lancaster Boulevard.
PALMDALE - A powerful Pacific storm rolled into the Antelope Valley early Friday afternoon, dumping almost two inches of rain in 24 hours, according to a Palmdale weather monitoring service. The storm also caused flooding in some streets and dropped temperatures to freezing with a wind chill factor dipping to 21 Saturday morning.
Dec. 9
THREE POINTS - A Palmdale mother of five children was found dead Sunday - her body face up under an oak tree with her arms folded across her chest - after becoming lost while hiking in snow-bombarded Angeles National Forest. Karen Leigh Tellez, 40, was found by rescue workers about 10:30 a.m. Sunday on Truck Trail on the peak of Liebre Mountain, officials said Monday.
LAKE HUGHES - The Pacific storm that hit the Antelope Valley over the weekend dumped more than 2 inches of rain in most communities and up to a half-inch of snow in far western reaches of the Valley.
PALMDALE - How does 661 grab you?
Get used to it. Beginning in early 1999, the 805 area code will be history, and 661 will become the Antelope Valley's new area code.
Dec. 10
MOJAVE - With tests of the world's first all composite cabinclass business jet meeting or exceeding design and performance expectations, testing of the Vantage Jet will shift early next year from Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites in Mojave to the St. Louis, Mo., firm that commissioned the new jet.
Dec. 11
LANCASTER - The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit staff at Antelope Valley Hospital took its first venture into new tele-medicine Wednesday. It went off without a hitch. The moving ultrasound image (echocardiogram) of a live baby's heart was sent from AV Hospital to UCLA via a digital phone line in a project funded by General Telephone Co. It was the hospital's first such test with a real infant.
PALMDALE - The city's planning department has been directed to review business-permit fees charged for taxi-cab and entertainment operations to make Palmdale more business friendly. Staff was also directed to find ways to eliminate business-license fees that are set by both number of employees and sales.
Dec. 12
PALMDALE - City workers scrambled this week to find alternative housing for residents of an eastside apartment complex after the building's owner refused to comply with health and safety code violations, forcing the city to post notices to vacate.
LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley Union High School District will consider changing hours at Valley high schools. The district board of trustees voted unanimously to examine how to accomplish the change. District Superintendent Robert Girolamo emphasized that the district was only examining the possibilities of change.
VAN NUYS - A gang member was convicted of rape, sodomy, burglary and a stack of other felonies in Lancaster's most notorious home-invasion in which four women were sexually brutalized and four men were robbed and terrorized.
Dec. 13
MIDDLE RIVER, Md. - Military technicians failed to install four of five fasteners on the left wing of an F-117A jet, causing the $42 million stealth fighter to crash into a residential neighborhood in September, the Air Force reported.
Dec. 14
EDWARDS AFB - A 13year-old girl hiked nearly 20 miles across the desert im freezing temperatures to get help for her stranded mother and brother, an Air Force spokesman said Saturday.
The girl began her trek Thursday night when the family car broke down on the sprawling base.
