Quagga mussels on a boat propeller The county Board of Supervisors will consider appropriating $1.75 million on Tuesday to fund the state’s quagga and zebra mussel inspection and education program at Castaic and Pyramid lakes. Quagga and zebra (dreissenid) mussels are invasive, non-native species that...

Los Angeles County’s 15th rabid bat of the season turned up in late July – and sure ‘nuff, it turned up in Santa Clarita. Roughly  half of the county’s rabies cases of 2014 – seven of 15, all in bats – have been reported in the Santa Clarita Valley. The latest one was found outside of a...

The median single-family home price in the Santa Clarita Valley dipped slightly in June to $481,000 from $485,000 in May, but the figure was still well ahead of last June’s $430,000. Condominium prices, meanwhile, climbed to $290,000 in June from $281,000 in May and $263,000 in June 2013. “I expect...

What rhymes with “cat” and hisses like a cat when you approach it, but isn’t a cat? You’ve got it. It’s a rabid bat. Granted, most rabid bats don’t hiss at you; most stumble around like they’re drunk. But this one hissed. Los Angeles County’s fourteenth rabid bat of the season turned...

Santa Clarita’s year-over-year jobless rate keeps getting better. Just 5 percent of Santa Claritans were unemployed in June, an improvement of 1.2 points over the June 2013 rate of 6.2 percent – which was already a 0.6 percent improvement over June 2012 when 6.8 percent of Santa Claritans were standing...

In a repeat of the last four years, the Santa Clarita Valley appears to be leading Los Angeles County in … rabid bats. The SCV’s fifth rabid bat of the season was verified earlier this month in Canyon Country, where it was found alive outside of a home. (It then died.) Those five bats represent just...

Homeowners in Castaic’s Hillcrest community “just said no” to a fee increase the county Parks Department said it needed to maintain landscaping in public rights-of-way at current levels. In May the Board of Supervisors set a Proposition 218 hearing for June 24. Under Proposition 218, property owners...

All that’s left of the historic schoolhouse is in some roll-off bins. What used to be the only remaining part of the 100-year-old, two-story wooden Newhall School building is gone, and Historical Society officers are none too happy. According to a source familiar with the property at 24514 Kansas...

MannKind Corp. announced Friday afternoon that it has received long-sought-after FDA approval for its candidate diabetes treatment, Afrezza. The third time was the charm for the Valencia-based company and its revolutionary insulin powder. Delivered with a whistle-sized inhaler, it acts more rapidly than...

Previously owned single-family homes in the Santa Clarita Valley are commanding the highest prices we’ve seen since the start of the 2008 recession, according to data this week from the Southland Regional Association of Realtors. The typical house in Santa Clarita changed hands for $485,000 in May...