The West Ranch Beacon – News & Commentary for the Santa Clarita Valley

As far back as last October, John Hathaway believed gold’s breakaway performance from other commodities signaled rough times ahead for financial assets. That proved true — and that’s the kind of insight that has led (more…)

For celebrated bond fund manager Jeffrey Gundlach, the intensifying meltdown in the U.S. housing market has all the inevitability of a Sophoclean tragedy. The Chief Investment Officer of Santa Monica, Calif.-based TCW Group has been sounding warnings (more…)

I was in the midst of reading up on Alan Greenspan, whose new memoir, The Age of Turbulence, has just been published to wide publicity and boffo sales, when I saw in a local gossip column that he and his wife had been spotted (somehow!) spending yet another Sunday afternoon in the owner’s box at FedEx Field, watching the Washington Redskins writes Andrew Ferguson for the Weekly Standard. (more…)

Ron Paul doesn’t understand his own success. He didn’t know his calls for an end to the Federal Reserve and the Department of Education would draw cheers that his anti-income tax, anti-foreign intervention and libertarian message would resonate. He was reluctant to run for the (more…)

As they marched through the streets of Myanmar’s cities last week leading the biggest antigovernment protests in two decades, some barefoot monks held their begging bowls before them. But instead of asking (more…)

Safety experts for the Food and Drug Administration urged the agency on Friday to consider an outright ban on over-the-counter, multisymptom cough and cold medicines for children under (more…)

President George W. Bush hailed a “deciding moment” in the battle against climate change on Friday, urging rich and poor countries to build a new international approach to the problem (more…)

This has been a glorious fortnight for Hillary Clinton. On September 17th she unveiled her health-care plan—inevitably dubbed Hillarycare 2.0—to widespread applause. On September 23rd she appeared on (more…)

The dollar hit a record low against major currencies and gold reached a 27-year high on Friday as investors ignored data suggesting that inflation moderated last month .Analysts said the prospect of rate cuts by the (more…)

Americans made more purchases than expected in August and a crucial inflation indicator cooled, the Commerce Department said yesterday, two indications that the economy is still somewhat insulated from (more…)

It’s a coffee table book the size of a coffee table. That is one way of describing the 1,000-page history of Los Angeles, an ambitious chronicle of the city’s development that will make a little history of its own today (more…)

A deep and powerful earthquake Friday beneath the Pacific in the Northern Mariana Islands sent a seismic wave coursing more than 5,200 miles through the Earth, triggering an automated quake-detection (more…)

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich invites foster youth ages 16 and older and the community at large to join him at the Antelope Valley Community Career Fair (more…)

More than 60 colleges and universities will descend on College of the Canyons on Saturday, September 29, for Santa Clarita Valley College & Transfer Day 2007. Representatives will be on hand to provide information about their schools and programs to COC students interested in transferring, college-bound (more…)

The US economy faces a 40 to 45 per cent risk of recession induced by the housing market downturn, the chief executive of Freddie Mac warned on Thursday as data showed sales of new homes hit a seven-year (more…)

A policy idea first proposed by Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe last year, that would increase the electronic monitoring of convicted felons, has now been signed into statewide law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. (more…)

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works has teamed up with Corporate Sponsors Jiffy Lube, Kragen Auto Parts, and KFWB News Radio to educate Do–It-Yourself auto mechanics about the importance of recycling Used Motor oil and oil filters. (more…)

Santa Clarita Councilman Tim Ben Boydston responds to the Beacon article by denying he behaved poorly. In an exclusive article published by the Beacon (more…)

The California Air Resources Board on Thursday banned popular in-home ozone air purifiers, saying studies have found that they can worsen conditions such as asthma that marketers claim they help to (more…)

The White House convened a two-day conference of the world’s major greenhouse-gas-emitting nations here on Thursday that served to highlight how isolated the Bush administration is on the issue of (more…)