LANCASTER - The public high school district will begin a large campaign to ease the crisis of overcrowding in Valley schools next year with a five- to seven-year plan that includes a $50 million local school bond.

Such a bond would be used to build two new high schools, rehabilitate and modernize Quartz Hill, Palmdale and Antelope Valley High Schools and build a new high-end learning academy in the Rancho Vista area.

LANCASTER - The board of directors of Antelope Valley Hospital terminated the contract of one consultant Wednesday and earmarked the contract of a second for termination after 30 days.

Both decisions were made with 4-1 votes, with director Larry Chimbole dissenting. The affirming votes included those cast by incoming board members Dr. Donald Bean and Gary Hill, who recited their oaths of office before Wednesday's board meeting began.
Dec. 12

WASHINGTON - The thin sheaf of pages shook in his hands as President Bill Clinton invited punishment without impeachment. "I understand that accountability demands consequences," he said.

Minutes later, the House Judiciary Committee approved the first article of impeachment for his conduct in the Monica Lewinsky grand jury inquiry.

LANCASTER - About two dozen employees and customers of a Bargain Barn clothing store in Lancaster were evacuated Friday afternoon after an unknown chemical irritant caused some to become sick.

Six people were taken from the store, 1070 West Ave. K, to area hospitals after the 3:21 p.m. incident, said Los Angeles County Fire Department Capt. Ray Thompson.

LANCASTER - Paraclete High School football star Tommy Breech was arraigned Friday in juvenile court in Lancaster, a day before the Spirits' CIF Southern Section Division XII championship game.

Neither prosecuting attorney Richard Naranjo nor Breech's attorney Nancy Kelso would comment about the case or how Breech pleaded.

LITTLEROCK - A citizen's group called for nullification of the Nov. 3 election of next year's Town Council and asked for the help of an outside organization to arbitrate the situation.

This year's council - which had trouble summoning a quorum of elected representatives, and took votes by consensus of citizens at meetings - ended its term Thursday night without resolution of issues and left uncertain the fate of the incoming council.
Dec. 13

PALMDALE - Sheer luck prevented a midair disaster over the skies of southeastern Los Angeles Thursday when a jetliner bound for Honolulu crossed unchecked through one of the heaviest air traffic corridors in the nation, an air traffic controller told the Valley Press Saturday.

Radio requests for guidance transmitted by the pilot to the Los Angeles Federal Aviation Administration Control Center in Palmdale went virtually unanswered for eight minutes, the controller said.

WASHINGTON - Marked by partisanship to the end, the House Judiciary Committee on Saturday approved a fourth and final article of impeachment against President Clinton, submitting his case to the full House for its verdict. A Democratic call for the lesser punishment of censure was rejected.

By a vote of 21-16, the committee accused the president of abuse of power, saying he had "given perjurious, false and misleading" answers to some of the 81 questions the panel recently asked about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

That was just one of dozens of signs held high overhead by giddy airmen Saturday as Mariah Carey crooned for the cameras during production of a video for her latest single, "I Still Believe."

As a salute to all of Carey's fans in the military, she and director Brett Ratner chose to give the video the feel of a USO show for deployed troops.
Dec. 14

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Hyde publicly called for President Bill Clinton's resignation on Sunday.

But Clinton, during his trip to the Mideast, declared he will not resign and, "It's never crossed my mind."

And he suggested Republican leaders oppose a censure vote in fear the lesser punishment might pass.

LANCASTER - Professor Ivan Van Sertima says he's not trying to advocate the superiority of one race over another.

He says his life's work is simply to set the record straight on Africa's contribution to the Americas - that in the early 14th century, West Africans sailed across the Atlantic twice to Central and South America, well before the European discoverers.

LANCASTER - California State University, Bakersfield plans to have a satellite campus in the Antelope Valley as early as next spring and no later than fall of 1999, according to CSUB Provost Fred Dorer.

Repeated requests by the community over the years to transform Antelope Valley College into a four-year university have sparked similar plans.

LANCASTER - Ray Bell has not had an easy life, but he has survived his struggles with toughness and perseverance.

He's about to do it again in his struggle with lung cancer.

Ray Bell is a 64-year-old former pipe fitter and welder for oil companies. He has spent his whole life matching his hands against steel for a living, in some very unhealthful environments.
Dec. 15

WASHINGTON - The ranks of pro-impeachment Republicans swelled on Monday in the run-up to a momentous House vote, and one prominent moderate arranged a meeting with President Bill Clinton to discuss the case against him. Vice President Al Gore accused the GOP of ignoring the "wisdom of the American people" by blocking censure.

Dogged by the issue on a trip to the Middle East, Clinton said he was open to "any reasonable compromise" with Congress short of impeachment.

PALMDALE - A conscientious detective in Palmdale may have given homicide detectives a new suspect in several old cases involving slain prostitutes from the Antelope Valley.

The man being scrutinized is a convicted rapist who lives in Lancaster.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Detective Julia Honiger informed the homicide division when Glenn Bernard Hilke was arrested on charges of kidnapping, forcible sodomy and attempted sodomy.

LANCASTER - The city's hired environmental consulting firm said Monday it has found no evidence of contamination at the Public Works yard, where the FBI conducted a raid to seize evidence of a suspected toxic dump.

Waterstone Environmental Inc. co-owner Jeff Dagdigian said employees from his firm reached the conclusion late last week that the city-owned yard is clean after several weeks of tests.

LANCASTER - The Air Force Flight Test Center announced the start of a study that will determine if 460 military and civilian positions in the 95th Air Base Wing should be contracted out or done in-house.

It's the most positions to be part of the cost-comparison to date at the Flight Test Center.

LITTLEROCK - The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's new Littlerock substation was inaugurated Monday, with the new county sheriff presiding, kicking off a new era of law enforcement in the east Antelope Valley.

The communities of unincorporated Littlerock, Pearblossom, Llano, Valyermo and the Los Angeles County portion of the Wrightwood area will be served by the substation in Littlerock off Highway 138.

TEHACHAPI - The city's existing prison may be joined by a new mental hospital that would house sexual offenders believed too dangerous to release.

The California Correctional Institution at Tehachapi is one of several sites being considered for the new hospital, City Manager Jason Caudle said Monday.
Dec. 16

WASHINGTON - On the brink of an impeachment showdown, President Bill Clinton suffered a steady loss of support from House Republican moderates on Tuesday and weighed advice to make an explicit, last-minute confession of wrongdoing to stop the slide.

"No one is above the law, not even the president," Rep. Nancy Johnson of Connecticut said as she joined the ranks of Republicans favoring impeachment and a Senate trial for the nation's 42nd chief executive.

PALMDALE - Racy advertisements sporting sexually suggestive material for local video stores throughout Palmdale have drawn fire from community members.

Not only the advertisements, but the video stores' existence themselves, were the topic at the Palmdale Chamber of Commerce "Hot Topics and Toast" monthly meeting Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES - After nearly three hours of testimony about what a lousy job L.A. County District Attorney Gil Garcetti does collecting child support, the County Board of Supervisors called for possible privatization of the task.

County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich got board support Tuesday in his call for a request to evaluate privatizing collection of child support. The concept should be clearer by Jan. 19, when the board will discuss it again.

PALMDALE - A bid to assemble the joint strike fighter in the Antelope Valley - a proposal that seemed dead four months ago - is getting a breath of life over at Air Force Plant 42.

On Tuesday, The Boeing Co. brought about 10 production experts through the facilities at Plant 42 Sites 3 and 4, evaluating them as potential sites for JSF production.
Dec. 17

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bill Clinton ordered a "strong, sustained series of airstrikes" against Iraq on Wednesday in response to Saddam Hussein's continued defiance of U.N. weapons inspectors. U.S. and British forces unleashed a punishing volley of missiles.

The attack, which began without warning, was designed to cripple Iraq's ability to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, Clinton said in a nationally televised address from the Oval Office.

LANCASTER - Operation Desert Fox will call on many weapons built, tested and maintained in the Antelope Valley.

The Gulf War in 1991 made the F-117A stealth fighter a star in the Air Force. It's out there again, joining other birds of prey from the Antelope Valley.

LANCASTER - City workers who lined up to testify before a federal grand jury investigating suspected illegal waste dumping at the Public Works yard have had their appearances postponed at least until the new year.

Meanwhile, the city has retained a second law firm in connection with the ongoing federal probe of activity at the city yard.

PALMDALE - The on-again, off-again Ritter Ranch project is on again, and in a big way. And it's due mostly to the efforts of one man - a man who lives a thousand miles from Palmdale, but may be the city's most ardent supporter.

The massive development west of the Antelope Valley Freeway near Leona Valley has been on the drawing board for ten years. But not one house has ever been built there.

LANCASTER - A former interim hospital administrator who engaged in a stormy round of litigation with Antelope Valley Hospital just got the fill-in job again.

Directors of Antelope Valley Hospital voted 4-1 in closed session Wednesday to hire Mathew Abraham as the facility's new interim chief executive officer.

LANCASTER - A Lancaster man, arrested for allegedly luring women to his home through advertisements, would drug his victims and rape them, detectives said Wednesday.

Early in the case, four women contacted Lancaster station Detective Brian Schoonmaker after initial reports that Ronald Rowen, 47, used false advertising as a ruse to lure women to his home in the 1300 block of West Avenue H-15.