October 1998: Manson shot video in Palmdale

LANCASTER - State and city officials gave Lockheed Martin Corp. a boost in funding to complete the X-33 launch site at Edwards Air Force Base. A $1 million grant awarded to Lockheed was part of the Highway to Space Program to assist local communities to develop infrastructure for commercial space projects.

JAWBONE CANYON - Kern County sheriff's deputies arrested three people after raiding a remote general store northwest of Mojave they suspected as a site for producing large quantities of methamphetamine.

LAKE LOS ANGELES - Antelope Valley Hospital will again link with Los Angeles County to provide health-care services for needy residents, this time in Lake Los Angeles.

The site of the Lake Los Angeles clinic has not been determined, but "we are negotiating for a couple different locations," said Mel Grussing, administrator of the county's High Desert Hospital.
Oct. 2

PALMDALE - Support work to keep the stealthy F-117 fighter in top flying condition will be done at Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Skunk Works' Plant 42 site, bringing $1.8 billion in work to the Valley for the next eight years, the Air Force announced.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Pete Wilson, hours before the deadline to sign or veto legislation, slashed $200,000 for Antelope Valley projects, and $100,000 in military base retention funds for Edwards Air Force Base and Air Force Plant 42.
Oct. 3

LANCASTER - Patricia Welch worries that when the Lancaster Community Shelter opens its doors in November she may have no room for some of the people seeking respite from the cold. "Last year, we didn't turn anyone away," said Welch, the shelter's director. "We did everything in our power last year not to. But this year, we fear it may happen."
Oct. 4

LITTLEROCK - Efforts to make the heavily traveled Highway 138 safer for motorists came too late Saturday morning for a Camarillo woman, her mother and several Antelope Valley residents.

The 33-year-old Camarillo woman died instantly and five people, including the dead woman's mother, were injured when a Littlerock driver ran a stop sign at 96th Street East and Highway 138 and broadsided the woman's car at about 9:35 a.m.
Oct. 5

PALMDALE - The Antelope Valley Press made some local history late Sunday night, going to press with the first regular Monday edition in the newspaper's history.

Another first may be less obvious, that by adding the additional and final publication day, "The Antelope Valley Press," now becomes the first locallypublished newspaper in Antelope Valley history to be printed seven days a week.

The battle to re-vegetate a dust-plagued area of the Antelope Valley is being won, according to University of California scientists. After sandstorms blew up from abandoned farms on the westside of the Valley in 1991 and 1992, 5th District Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich called for the creation of the DustBusters Task Force.

Its members replanted 2,500 acres of barren land near 110th Street West and Avenue B.

PALMDALE - Some 500 teenagers and young adults rioted in three Palmdale motels Saturday night, racing cars in parking lots, fighting and throwing beer bottles and fire extinguishers until they were dispersed by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies.
Oct. 6

LANCASTER - A neurosurgeon at Antelope Valley Hospital is suing two colleagues over their alleged comments about his surgical skills: One for libel and the other for slander.

The lawsuit was filed Sept. 15 on behalf of Dr. George C. Perdikis, one of three neurosurgeons with staff privileges at AV Hospital. Perdikis is suing Dr. Abdallah Farrukh, the head of the hospital's medical staff and a practicing neurosurgeon at AV Hospital.
Oct. 7

WASHINGTON - Funding for two projects in the Antelope Valley believed to be lost was revived Tuesday by Congressman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon.

McKeon lobbied to have $500,000 for the projects placed in the Veterans Affairs/Housing of Urban Development appropriations bill, HR 4194.

LANCASTER - A Paraclete High School football star who also served as student body president is under investigation in a September freeway rock-throwing incident in which he allegedly broke a woman's arm.
Oct. 8

PALMDALE - Not formal farewell music, but a thunderous rumble from the jet engines sounded the end of more than 16 years of work on the B-1B bomber in the Antelope Valley.
Oct. 9

LANCASTER - Dorothy Flitton, a 78-year-old who gives with her heart as well as her time, was named 1998 Senior of the Year at the Antelope Valley Senior Expo.

WASHINGTON - Congressman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon joined with the majority of the House of Representatives in voting for an impeachment inquiry into the behavior of President Bill Clinton.

LANCASTER - Prisoners attacked and injured seven guards Thursday at the north Los Angeles County prison. The attack on the guards erupted during a prison lock-down at the California State Prison Los Angeles County, at Avenue J and 60th Street West.
Oct. 10

PALMDALE - Word that Palmdale schools Superintendent Nancy Smith may have been asked to resign cast the Antelope Valley's largest school district into fresh turmoil.

Some district staff reported Smith was leaving. Two school board members said they couldn't confirm that report, but they didn't deny it either. Two others denied Smith was on her way out. A fifth board member didn't return calls.

PALMDALE - A road-weary Gary Devore, the screenwriter who vanished for a year until his truck was found in the California Aqueduct, died in a wrong-way accident. That's the theory California Highway Patrol teams are sticking with in the case of the formerly missing screenwriter's death.
Oct. 11

PALMDALE - A trio of political personalities and a former astronaut descended upon Antelope Valley Saturday to entertain and garner more support from voters. U.S. Senate candidate Matt Fong, former Tennessee governor and potential Republican presidential contender Lamar Alexander, and media celebrity Arianna Huffington appeared at a fund-raising dinner at the Palmdale Cultural Center.

EDWARDS AFB - Fiftyone years to the week after the sound barrier was broken over Edwards, the Air Force's newest fighter traveled faster than the speed of sound for the first time. The F-22 Raptor broke the sound barrier late Saturday in the skies over Edwards.
Oct. 12

PALMDALE - A young man who tried to crash a teenager's birthday party early Sunday morning opened fire on the party-goers, discharging several rounds and wounding the teen's father, authorities said.

PALMDALE - By 1:30 Sunday afternoon, the two lines of people waiting to get into the Palmdale Fall Festival each snaked more than 100 feet, and cars were still rolling into nearby parking lots. But no one was complaining. The day was ideal. The sky was blue; the breeze was mild and the temperature hovered in the low 80s. The only haze was from the thick, sweet smoke coming from dozens of grills laden with barbecue.
Oct. 13

LANCASTER - A spirit of cooperation among the cities of Lancaster, Palmdale and the state of California is enabling stepped-up enforcement of the 55-mile per hour speed limit along State Route 138.
Oct. 14

LOS ANGELES - Nearly a million dollars per year will be spent during the next three years to help alleviate flooding in Quartz Hill.
Oct. 15

LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles County has decided to step up efforts to notify residents living in unincorporated areas of the arrival of convicted high-risk, violent sex offenders.

LANCASTER - The City Council, seated as the Redevelopment Agency, voted quickly and unanimously to take over operation of the Lancaster Business Park.