Palmdale Ca

After buying 17,750 acres in Palmdale for an intercontinental jetport that has not gotten off the ground, Los Angeles airport officials say they might finally have a use for much of the property: a solar power facility capable of generating up to 100 megawatts of clean energy.

Crediting aggressive crime-fighting strategies and partnerships with local cities, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca announced Wednesday that Lancaster and Palmdale and surrounding desert communities had seen a 10% reduction in overall crime last year. That makes for the lowest crime rate in the Antelope Valley since 2001, Baca said. Gang-related violent crimes dropped by 33% last year throughout the 1,370-square-mile region.

A farmworker found her body this week wrapped in a rug in a ditch beside an onion field east of Palmdale. Stevona Campbell, 13, had been missing since Sunday night. Known to her family as "Teeny" for her small size at birth, she had attended a large Mother's Day party at her family's apartment in east Palmdale. But she darted out of the apartment about 7 p.m. -- disobeying her mother's orders to stay home -- and never returned, family members said.

Reacting to the cancellation of passenger service this month at Palmdale Regional Airport, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday demanded that Los Angeles World Airports disclose its plans for the 17,000 acres it purchased in the high desert city but never developed into an international airport. The action is the latest in an ongoing effort by Supervisor Michael D.

Most people don't need an atlas to locate Los Angeles. But they may require a map to pinpoint Palmdale and Ontario. With this in mind, Los Angeles' airport agency plans to link the city's world-famous moniker to airports that it operates in the Antelope Valley and Inland Empire. Officials hope that providing the facilities with a well-known geographic hook will draw travelers from outside the state and help take pressure off aging Los Angeles International Airport.

A brush fire swept through a mobile home park in the Lake Los Angeles area near Palmdale on Tuesday afternoon, destroying eight residences and leaving 10 people homeless. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department said the blaze, which took two hours to extinguish, killed a cat and charred five acres. No firefighters or residents were hurt. The cause of the fire, which was reported about 2 p.m. from the 39800 block of 145th Street East, was under investigation.

A brush fire burned at least 100 acres in the high desert north of Los Angeles on Tuesday, threatening several structures and forcing the evacuation of animals in the area, officials said. The blaze was reported about 3 p.m. and was spread rapidly by 26 mph winds.

The mothers of students involved in a recent altercation with a security guard at Palmdale's Knight High School are demanding that the guard be fired and their children not be expelled from the school. "I want everyone to be held accountable for the actions that wronged me and my daughter," said LaTrisha Majors. "I want to stand up and make sure this doesn't happen to other kids." On Friday, she joined a group of students and parents in a protest outside Knight High.

A scuffle involving three black students and a white security guard at Knight High School in Palmdale has provoked simmering racial tensions and forced local authorities to try and find ways to defuse them. The incident has generated such intense feelings that some residents and activists plan a protest today and a rally next month. For some parents and students, the Sept. 18 fracas marked a continuation of what they consider a pattern of unfair punishment of black students at Knight.

Los Angeles County prosecutors should not pursue charges against three black students at Knight High School in Palmdale who were involved in a scuffle with a white security guard or against a mother who also faces charges related to the incident, activists said Thursday. About 50 demonstrators, including local and national community activists, parents of area high school students, and nearby residents, gathered at the Michael D. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse.