Mojave Desert

A Newport Beach pot dealer who gained fame by staging a daring escape from the Orange County jail while awaiting trial is scheduled to be sentenced Friday for kidnapping and torturing a marijuana dispensary owner who was mutilated in the Mojave Desert.

In an Orange County courtroom Friday, Hossein Nayeri was given several life sentences for horrific acts of torture. Vikki Vargas reports for the NBC4 News on Friday, Oct. 30, 2020.

Virgin Galactic has received nearly 8,000 online reservations of interest since its first successful test flight into space 14 months ago, the company said Tuesday as it nears commercial operation and prepares to reopen ticket sales. Virgin Galactic already had more than 600 firm reservations that were taken from customers in 60 countries until the December 2018 flight, when it…

A California dam could fail during an extreme storm and send water flooding into Mojave Desert communities that are home to about 300,000 people.

Some residents were allowed to return home Friday afternoon after a destructive wildfire north of Los Angeles jumped a major freeway, as strong winds fanned embers and pushed flames into neighborhoods in the Santa Clarita area.

Seventeen states sued the Trump administration Wednesday to block rules weakening the Endangered Species Act, saying the changes would make it tougher to protect wildlife even in the midst of a global extinction crisis. The lawsuit, in federal court in San Francisco, follows a similar challenge filed last month by several environmental groups, including the Humane Society and the Sierra...

A tourist has died while visiting Death Valley National Park amid blazing summer heat.

An anonymous donor has given more than $30,000 to fund a reward for information that leads to whoever has killed more than 40 protected wild burros in the Southern California desert.

A man was convicted Friday in a grisly case of kidnapping and torture that came to light after a deputy’s mysterious encounter seven years ago with a frightened woman pleading for help in the Mojave Desert northeast of Los Angeles.

A pot dealer was convicted for abduction and torture of a Newport Beach dispensary owner. Vikki Vargas reports for the NBC4 News on Friday, Aug. 16, 2019.

Earthquakes that struck California last month caused more than $5 billion in damage to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, a sprawling desert facility where some of the military’s most advanced weapons are tested, according to an estimate made public Wednesday.

Testimony continued in the trial of Hossein Nayeri, who is charged in the abduction of a marijuana dispensary owner and a woman from Newport Beach who were later found in the Mojave Desert. This report appeared on the NBC4 News on Monday, July 29, 2019.

Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson said Thursday his spaceship has just a few more test flights before he jumps on board for the first tourist trip. The British billionaire celebrated his 69th birthday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center during 50th anniversary festivities for humanity’s first moon landing. His guests were 100 other aspiring astronauts who have put down deposits to launch...

A former pot grower and two of his high school friends kidnapped and tortured the owner of a flourishing medical marijuana dispensary before cutting off his penis after demanding he tell them where he buried $1 million in the Mojave Desert, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Small earthquakes rattled already shaken residents overnight in the Mojave Desert community of Ridgecrest, where the cleanup continues from two major quakes.

Small earthquakes rattled already shaken residents overnight in the Mojave Desert community of Ridgecrest, where the cleanup continues from two major quakes.

A 69-year-old Arizona woman last seen wearing a black bikini and hiking boots has disappeared during a hike with her husband in Southern California’s Mojave Desert during one of its warmest stretches of the year.

With recent quakes rattling Southern California, thousands of buildings are still being retrofitted to improve how they will withstand the next “Big One.” But some say more needs to be done as we look at future construction.