Featured Articles from the Glendale News-Press

Qualifying to Saturday's CIF Southern Section Track and Field Divisional Championships at Mt. San Antonio College required the local entrants who earned such advancement to turn in very good results at last weekend's divisional prelims all over Southern California. This weekend, however, the bar will be raised from very good to exceptional. Of course, that's to be expected as divisional championships and CIF-Southern Section Masters Meet berths are on the line with the trip to Cerritos College available for the top 12 finishers in the 800-meter, 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter runs and top nine in every other event.

A 28-year-old Van Nuys man has been charged with the kidnapping and murder of a Glendale man who was run over with a vehicle and shot to death in Sun Valley, authorities said. Hachik Maskovian faces four felony murder-related charges in the death of 33-year-old Joshua West, including that the incident was premeditated and that he was kidnapped during the April 24 incident, according to a Los Angeles County Superior Court criminal complaint. West died of multiple gunshot wounds, but was also cut and suffered blunt force trauma, said Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman Ed Winter.

Those tending the flame of those who perished in the Armenian Genocide had a bit of a mixed bag this week. In happy news, Glendale Unified and its teachers' union agreed to make April 24 - the day that commemorates the horror - an official day off. This agreement makes a lot of sense for all involved. Students of Armenian descent have skipped going to class on that day for years, and as public school funding is significantly based on attendance, making the day a holiday of sorts is an elegant end-around of this problem.

A 19-year-old Los Angeles man was stabbed twice in his arm, possibly by his brother, on Saturday near the Glendale Galleria, police said. The man, whose name wasn't released, told police he was jumped at about 8:32 p.m. and stabbed twice in the left arm by two men, but declined to talk about the incident, according to Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz. A witness, however, reported seeing something different. The witness told police the man was arguing and fighting with his brother inside a van just before officers arrived to the scene.

At least 15 vehicles and motorcycles have been stolen off Glendale streets in the past two weeks, although police say the figure doesn't necessarily represent a trend. Police officials say they haven't established any leads, or made any arrests in connection with the thefts, which have been occurring at rate of about one a day since Aug. 29. Few details about the thefts and the types of vehicles were released because the cases were under investigation. “As for the methods, number of suspects…it really varies,” Glendale Police Sgt. Dave Higgins said in an email.

Before heading off to Brigham Young University in the summer to prepare for college football, Mike Davis will have a few items of business to tackle during the next several months. As the linchpin to the Glendale High boys' track and field team once again, Davis will look to successfully defend his Pacific League championships in the 100- and 200-meter races with the ultimate goal of returning to the CIF-State Meet in June. The standout sprinter posted All-Area best times in the 100- (10.67)

Two sisters who were fighting with each other on Saturday allegedly decided to take their rage out on a police officer by punching and kicking him, officials said. The sisters - Delmi Carranza, 21, and Patricia Carranza, 28 - were fighting and screaming at each other about 7:41 p.m. on the porch of a home in the 600 block of Arden Avenue, according to Glendale police. They were reportedly fighting because the father of Delmi Carranza's baby was allegedly having an affair with her sister.

A Hollywood woman was arrested Wednesday after allegedly selling bogus Disneyland tickets on Craigslist in Glendale to at least half a dozen families, some of whom didn't learn of the fakery until being turned away at the theme park's gates. The woman, Alisa Yenokyan, 22, was taken into custody about 6 p.m. after she agreed to meet officers who posed as potential Disneyland ticket purchasers at Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue in Los Angeles, Police Det. Jonathan Owen said. The officers responded to one of her Craigslist ads and offered to buy two adult and two child tickets for $50 each, he said.

A small notice in a 1916 edition of the Glendale Evening News informed readers, "Emil Kiefer, an employee at the White Store, is now working for Pulliam Undertaking Co. He intends to make this his life's work. He is a young man of great energy. He came here from Minnesota two years ago and has made many friends. " But shortly after this notice ran, Kiefer said good bye to his many friends - including a young lady we'll meet later in the story - and left town. He was in the first group of volunteers who responded to the call to fight in the Great War, as World War I was known in those days.

Sean Sauceda moved quickly through dry brush near a Pasadena freeway off ramp before dawn Tuesday morning, looking for the homeless people most at risk of dying on city streets. He stopped to peer inside a cluster of bushes. “People hollow them out by breaking the branches inside,” Sauceda said as he snapped a branch. “It's natural shelter. It's large enough where you can fit a dome tent inside of it. I've done it.” Sauceda, 41, a Fresno-area native, lived on the streets of Los Angeles for 13 years.

A recent revelation that Leslie Combs Brand, the so-called Father of Glendale, probably fathered two children with a secret mistress came as a shock to many, but local history enthusiasts are downright delighted. Longtime Los Angeles Times columnist Cecilia Rasmussen, who concluded her “L.A. Then and Now” history column with the piece on Brand on April 6, backed up her scoop with a DNA test that linked Brand to a descendant of his alleged mistress, Birdie Esther Carpenter Gordon.

I n 1974, Judy Weber's son, Tobin, was dealing with autism so severe that it would manifest itself as destructive behavior. "He faced state hospitalization," she said. At the time, Weber was serving on a committee serving autistic children within the Los Angeles Unified School District. Tobin was living at UCLA, where researchers were using him as a subject for early autism research. When UCLA was close to completing their research, Weber became frustrated when she found that no school would take Tobin due to the severity of his autism.

Billionaire Richard Branson may have been celebrating the next step in his quest to make commercial space flights viable this week, but students at Clark Magnet High School also have been busy at work analyzing their own near-space flight. The students launched a high-altitude balloon that reached 85,000 feet over the Angeles National Forest Sunday to collect photos and video from near-space. "Launching a high-altitude balloon is about 99% the same as going to space, and it's as close as you can get without a very expensive, massive rocket," said Clark teacher David Black, who oversaw the launch.