Chris Amico: Journalist

PALMDALE — Teachers in the Palmdale School District will vote on a contract today and Thursday after nearly two years of negotiations, but one hated word threatens to derail the tenuous deal: Cap.

The Palmdale Elementary Teachers Association and district negotiators announced last week they had reached a tentative agreement at the end of their final negotiating session of the school year.

If approved, the contract would maintain no-cost benefits for teachers until the 2007-08 school year, when the new contract expires. Teachers again gave up a pay raise on the exchange, as they have since 2000. (more…)

LANCASTER — In a hearing to establish a restraining order, the former interim-principal of Vasquez High School and the man she accuses of shoving her against a wall in the school office met face to face Friday morning for the first time since the alleged incident occurred.

Sharon Millen, who resigned as principal days after the incident, appeared shaken for much of the hearing.

Her alleged assailant, Charlie Bang Sr., appeared without an attorney and said several times that he meant no harm to Millen or anyone else.

Bang faces a criminal charge of battery against a school official in the incident.

“I’m not a violent person,” Bang said. “There was no violence prior, the incident lasted only three or four seconds, and there was no violence after.” (more…)

ACTON — The interim principal of Vasquez High School, Sharon Millen, said she has resigned following a scuffle prompted by a parent’s attempt to seize records of his son’s suspension.

Millen, interviewed Thursday evening, said she is pressing charges in the May 4 incident, in which she said the parent shoved her and slammed her against a wall. She said a restraining order has also been filed.

“I am pressing it to the full extent of the law, for all the school’s benefit,” she said. (more…)

Luma Ateyah loves America, so much so that when the Army rolled through her hometown in Bradley fighting vehicles and Abrams tanks last year, she made a flag to wave as they passed.

But Ateyah is not from the United States. She is an Iraqi from Baghdad, and the flag she waved had 51 stars.

“I tried to welcome the troops in my own way,” she says. “I wanted Iraq to join the United States, you see.” (more…)