1999 The year in review

March 25-31

March 25

PALMDALE - The B-2 stealth bomber - built and tested in the Antelope Valley - made its combat debut Wednesday, dropping 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs on targets in Yugoslavia. The missions came more than a decade after the $2 billion batwinged plane first rolled out into public view.

WASHINGTON - President Bill Clinton committed America to a risky and full-throttled military attack on Yugoslavia on Wednesday, asserting "a moral imperative" to save thousands of defenseless people from Serb aggression. He backed his words with a nightlong bomb and missile assault.

LANCASTER - Deputies arrested two white supremacist gang members who allegedly attacked an African-American employee of Wal-Mart with a hammer in the store parking lot.

Shaun Broderick, 19, of Newhall and Christopher Crawford, 25, of Lancaster were arrested less than 30 minutes after they allegedly attacked Nathaniel Harris, 20, a stock person at the store.

LANCASTER - Gang enforcement deputies are aware of 200 to 300 active white supremacist gang members in the greater Antelope Valley, according to Capt. Tom Pigott, commander of the Lancaster Sheriff's Station.

LANCASTER - To the delight of environmentalists and to the dismay of the county sanitation department, the City Council has banned sludge - the byproduct of treated sewage that is often used as a fertilizer.

March 26

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - NATO pounded Yugoslavia for a second night Thursday, following through on a pledge to systematically destroy President Slobodan Milosevic's military forces unless he accepts a peace plan for Kosovo.

WASHINGTON - The B-2 stealth bomber, after two decades of development, another decade of political wrangling and a cost of $2.1 billion a piece, still has not satisfied critics despite a perfect combat debut.

The two B-2 bombers that joined NATO air strikes against Soviet-built air defenses in Yugoslavia returned safely to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri after logging 31 hours in the air, prompting proponents to suggest that the controversial aircraft has finally answered its critics.

March 27

Allied forces battered Yugoslavia's capital on Friday as explosions sent fireballs into the sky, shook the Earth and shattered windows in suburbs of Belgrade. In Kosovo, Yugoslav forces were reportedly targeting ethnic Albanians in retaliation for the NATO airstrikes.

NATO said on Friday its forces shot down two Yugoslav MiG-29 jet fighters in neighboring Bosnia, a dangerous broadening of the showdown between the Western alliance and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic over Kosovo.

March 28

LOS ANGELES - Despite court records showing that Lindsay Gentry repeatedly complained of abuse at the hands of the parents now charged with her starvation death, child abuse claims were not substantiated by county caseworkers.

Michael and Kathleen Gentry of Lake Los Angeles have pleaded innocent to murder charges in the death of their 15-year-old daughter and are scheduled to begin trial next week in Van Nuys Superior Court.

WASHINGTON - The pilot of an American F-117A stealth fighter was rescued hours after his plane went down in Yugoslavia on Saturday, the Pentagon said. The crash and dramatic rescue marked the most harrowing moment thus far of the four-day military action against Serbian forces.

March 29

PALMDALE - For the second time in two weeks, fire has ripped through a mobile home trailer, claiming yet another life.

June Davis' life was cut short when an afternoon fire engulfed her mobile home at the Thousand Elms Mobile Lodge on 47th Street East in Palmdale on Sunday.

HOLLOMAN AFB, N.M. - Stealth fighters like the one that went down in Yugoslavia are vulnerable to enemy attack, despite their reputation, the commander of the fighter wing where the F-117A Nighthawks are based said on Sunday.

WASHINGTON - The American and allied air armada broadened its attacks on Yugoslavia on Sunday to target Serb military forces in Kosovo, raising the risk to NATO pilots but also holding the promise of more effective strikes against Serb ground troops.

The Pentagon announced that more American warplanes, including B-52 long-range bombers, would be added to the nearly 200 already participating in Operation Allied Force. Spokesman Ken Bacon said between six and 12 planes would go, and Britain announced it was sending 12 more fighters and light bombers.

March 30

EDWARDS - The Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle crashed on Monday, 20 minutes after taking off from Edwards Air Force Base, the Air Force said. Global Hawk, developed and built by Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical in San Diego, crashed at 10:14 a.m. south of Searles Lake on China Lake Naval Air Station's Echo Range.

NEW YORK - The Dow Jones industrial average climbed past 10,000 Monday and finally had enough momentum to stay above the milestone through the closing bell. The 103-year-old index closed at 10,006.78, up 184.54 points, and the floor of the New York Stock Exchange began a long-awaited celebration.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Ground-attack jets took off for Kosovo on Monday as part of NATO's expanded attacks on the Serb forces carrying out a "scorched earth policy" in the separatist province.

While tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees flooded neighboring countries, specialized A-10 Warthog planes were spotted taking off from Aviano Air Base in northern Italy. The A-10 is a low- and slow-flying tank-killer aircraft that could be used to strike Serb ground forces.

PALMDALE - An ongoing study could show up to a $2 billion saving for doing early phases of joint strike fighter work at Air Force Plant 42, said a representative of the Los Angeles office for the California Trade and Commerce Agency on Monday.

LANCASTER - Several hundred immigration detainees openly defied deputies armed with nonlethal guns and riot gear during a five-hour protest on Monday over conditions at the Mira Loma Detention Center.

A group of about 350 immigration detainees, in orange jump suits and T-shirts tied to cover their faces, held up improvised protest signs made from bedsheets and chanted in Spanish, "Libertad - libertad!"

March 31

LANCASTER - The worker who exposed the misconduct of a former Public Works superintendent filed a claim against the city, alleging he was forced out of his job of nearly two years for being a whistle blower.

Mike Robbins went public last summer with allegations that then-Superintendent David Mulkey drank on the job, used racial slurs, bullied some workers while favoring others and used workers for his personal benefit.

EDWARDS AFB - Global Hawk flight test activity has been delayed as a safety investigation board reviews data from this week's crash, Air Force officials said on Tuesday.

The delay is part of normal Air Force procedure when investigating a crash during flight test. Air Force officials arrived at Edwards on Tuesday but did not comment on possible causes of the crash that destroyed the aircraft.

Uploaded December 17, 1999