Rancho Palos Verdes Ca

Nearly 15 acres of brush burned in Rancho Palos Verdes on Monday, but no homes were damaged, a county Fire Department official said. About 100 firefighters and the crews of four helicopters and two Super Scooper aircraft were sent to the 30500 block of Rhone Drive at 11:07 a.m., said county fire spokesman Henry Rodriguez. Several homes were threatened, but the blaze was contained by noon. The cause of the fire was not known.

A woman leaped to her death Monday afternoon from cliffs in Rancho Palos Verdes, just 1/2 mile from the spot where two teenagers committed suicide last month, authorities said. Witnesses told sheriff's investigators they saw the woman, identified only as being in her 40s, on a ledge about 12:20 p.m. at Point Vicente Park and Interpretive Center before she fell 150 feet to the beach. "The park was full of people," said sheriff's Deputy Judy Gibson.

Despite homeowner protests, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday unanimously approved a plan to impose liens on about 200 properties in Rancho Palos Verdes to pay for landslide abatement work. The board's decision to form an improvement district in the Abalone Cove landslide area was the first step toward issuing $10 million in revenue bonds that will be guaranteed by the liens.

For nearly three years, Rancho Palos Verdes has been debating how to solve an eyesore problem that has neighbors squabbling with neighbors, people packing City Council meetings and residents passing out leaflets and newsletters. The eyesore? Horses. The equestrian life has been a part of Rancho Palos Verdes even before the city was incorporated in 1973. For decades, people have kept horses in their backyards.

Sheriff's deputies who spent most of Wednesday night combing the cliffs of Rancho Palos Verdes for a missing 15-year-old boy found him sitting on a curb the next morning in front of a friend's house, two blocks from where he was last seen. Rafael Ascencio Jr., who was with his father at a home construction site in the Portuguese Bend area, wandered off about 5 p.m. on Wednesday to take pictures near the cliffs, said sheriff's Lt. Todd Rogers.

It was Rancho Palos Verdes' version of the Big Spin, but the prizes were condominiums, not cash. In a city-sponsored drawing televised on the local cable system, 10 people won the right this week to buy "affordable" units at the luxury, ocean-view Villa Capri project near the spectacular Palos Verdes coastline. "Affordable" meant $140,000 for a one-bedroom condo with a loft. The price drew 3,900 applicants for the 10 units.

After receiving numerous complaints from residents about aircraft noise, the City Council has set up a 24-hour hotline to record them. Most of the complaints have been from residents who believe that commuter planes going south from Los Angeles International Airport are flying too low over Rancho Palos Verdes, said Gina Park of the city manager's office. The city will compile the complaints and send them to the FAA, she said. The number for complaints is (310) 660-6205.

A 10-acre brush fire that burned near homes in Rancho Palos Verdes was ignited by a cigarette, fire officials said Tuesday. Nearly 100 Los Angeles County firefighters needed almost five hours to extinguish the blaze, which began at 11:07 a.m. on Monday in the Portuguese Bend area. Two helicopters and a Super Scooper plane were used to douse the flames that threatened nearby homes, said county Fire Capt. Donald Divin.

As the nation inches closer to a war with Iraq, the city manager of Rancho Palos Verdes learned a valuable lesson Thursday morning: Don't say 'No' to the U.S. Marine Corps. Last week, City Manager Les Evans turned down a request by the Marines to conduct night exercises in June at the site of the old Marineland theme park. In the past, helicopters and explosions that are part of the exercises had awakened residents in the affluent community and prompted angry phone calls to police.

Wayfarers Chapel is scarcely more than a soap bubble, a delicate prism of sunlight and shadows set on the airy bluff tops of Rancho Palos Verdes. "In photos you see the panes of glass--very ethereal, very surreal," says wedding photographer John Borden, who has studied the light and lines of the historic glass sanctuary perhaps more carefully than anyone. "You have the whole illusion of being in the church, but the church is not really there."