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Police arrested a man suspected of using a sledgehammer to kill a woman in her 60s at El Camino College in Torrance on Christmas Eve, authorities said. The attack was reported just after 7 a.m. Sunday in the 16000 block of Crenshaw Boulevard, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Authorities said the victim was collecting recyclables at the campus when she was assaulted. The woman was taken to a hospital, where she died the next day. She was described as an Asian woman between the ages of 60 and 65. Her name has not been released. An investigation...

New Mexico State Police are on scene of a train derailment on U.S. Highway 60 between the communities of Vaughn and Willard. State police say a 1 car of a 26 car train derailed near mile marker 231 on the tracks. There were no injuries reported and hazmat is not involved in the investigation. .....

Two suspects are in custody after an smash-and-grab robbery at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, after Marine recruiters at nearby military recruitment center at the mall jumped into action. The robbery happened Tuesday, at a jewelry store in the mall. According to Torrance police, four people wearing hoodies and covering their faces used hammers to smash the glass of the display cases and grab as much jewelry as they could. Two of the suspects were able to escape, but the other two were taken to the ground by Marine recruiters and bystanders who heard the robbery unfold, and...

Eight dollars for a gallon of gas. Once, it seemed like an impossibility; now, it seems to happen in California every time there is a price spike. Last week, a Chevron station in Los Angeles recorded prices of $8.35 and above; similar prices were reported at multiple stations around Southern California

Torrance police are investigating the discovery of hundreds of recall election ballots in a vehicle where a felon was found passed out with drugs, a loaded firearm and multiple driver’s licenses one week ago, authorities said Monday. Approximately 300 ballots were recovered from the vehicle, which was parked in the lot of a 7-Eleven convenience store on the night of Aug. 16, according to the Torrance Police Department. Officers also discovered a loaded firearm, methamphetamine, thousands of pieces of mail, a scale, and multiple California drivers licenses and credit cards that were in other people’s names, a police news release...

Edelbrock Group, a Southern California-based manufacturer and distributor of aftermarket auto parts, will soon be shuttering its Torrance headquarters which employs 270 workers. In a recent notice sent to the state Employment Development Department, the company said employee layoffs would begin Jan. 15 and end March 31. The closure will affect 217 hourly workers and 53 salaried employees. The Torrance facility includes executive offices as well as sales, advertising and marketing departments. The facility also has a state-of-the-art research and development department, testing facilities and manufacturing operations. Neva Burke, Edelbrock’s vice president of human resources, didn’t give a reason for...

Torrance police on Friday identified the woman they believe unleashed racist tirades against three people at a local park, saying she is also suspected of physically assaulting two people months earlier. The woman was captured on camera throwing insults and racist remarks in two separate incidents at Charles H. Wilson Park in Torrance — telling a woman to “Go back to whatever (expletive) Asian country you belong in” and targeting a man and his 11-year-old son during a separate instance on the same day. With a fake accent, the woman said to the man repeatedly: “You understand me, China man?”...

TORRANCE, Calif. — Police swarmed the Del Amo Fashion Center shopping mall in Torrance Monday amid reports of an active shooter. Multiple agencies were responding. Witnesses report hearing multiple gunshots — At least one person was injured.

A 47-year-old parolee has been arrested in connection with the weekend shooting at a crowded bowling alley that left three men dead and four others wounded, Torrance police announced Monday, Jan. 7. Police Chief Eve Irvine said Reginald Wallace was quickly identified with video footage and by witnesses as the gunman who opened fire on more than a dozen people fighting late Friday night at Gable House Bowl on Hawthorne Boulevard, a popular hangout and South Bay institution. Wallace was taken into custody after 4 a.m. Sunday by Torrance police and SWAT officers at 4th Street and Western Avenue in...

Police were searching for a gunman early Saturday after three people died in a shooting at a bowling alley near Los Angeles. The shooting was reported just before midnight local time (3 a.m. ET), Torrance police said in a statement. The city is part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Officers and fire officials arrived at Gable House Bowl to find multiple people wounded. Two men were taken to hospital for treatment while two other men sought medical attention on their own. None of the injured were employees of the venue. The three men killed were pronounced dead at the...

So scary! Terror train hero Alek Skarlatos was forced to bolt out of his ‘DWTS’ rehearsals on Oct. 1 when he received a call about the tragic shooting at Umpqua Community College — his hometown school! This is just so terrifying. Dancing With The Stars contestant Alek Skarlatos, 22, was in the middle of rehearsals with his partner Lindsay Arnold when he reportedly received a phone call informing him of the tragic shooting that took place at Umpqua Community College — the school he is currently enrolled in. How devastating! The massacre at the Oregon community college was a tragic...

Chris Harper-Mercer, the man accused of opening fire at a rural Oregon community college Thursday, formerly lived in the South Bay and attended a school for teens with emotional disabilities. Records show Harper-Mercer, 20, lived in a ground-floor apartment on Arlington Avenue at 230th Street in Torrance with his mother, Laurel Harper, from 2011 to 2013. The owner of the building said he did not know them and neighbors did not recall them. But current residents, greeted by reporters knocking at their doors late Thursday, were shocked to learn that the man suspected of committing the nation’s latest mass shooting...

In his latest column, Washington Post commentator EJ Dionne advises National Republicans to learn from California's mistakes, or face declining voter support in election cycles to come.His first point of contact on this matter? The current Chairman of the California GOP, Jim Brulte:“California is the leading edge of the country’s demographic changes,” Brulte said in an interview. “Frankly, Republicans in California did not react quickly enough to them, and we have paid a horrible price.”That is true. Up to the early 1980s and the 1990s, California was a majority white state, Republicans did very well working the entire state. Other...

Cherished family heirlooms were among the 21 firearms Michael Roberts surrendered to the Torrance Police Department in 2010, after his doctor filed a restraining order against him. The court order was the result of a dispute Roberts had with a member of the doctor’s staff and, after Roberts pleaded no contest, the matter was resolved. Yet, even though he filed the proper Law Enforcement Gun Release paperwork on four separate occasions, obtained clearance from the California Department of Justice and had two court orders commanding the return of his guns, police refused to hand them over. With the backing of...

California, especially California cities, have had a bad reputation for decades, of legally stealing firearms.  This was primarily done with police officers confiscating firearms that they came across, without any crime being committed.  Department policy was then to refuse to return the firearm unless a court ordered them to do so.  As the process of obtaining a court order would ordinarily be much more costly than the price of a firearm, most people who had their firearms stolen by police simply did not bother in attempting to obtain a court order. The situation became so notorious that a law...

Expected post-Lunar New Year cargo growth will accelerate equipment, cargo handling and other costs going forward, maintain ocean carrier executives. While the full impact on ocean carrier deployments to U.S. West Coat ports has yet to be measured, major players comprising the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement (TSA) are standing firm on raising rates. According to TSA spokesman, Niels Erich, container shipping lines have begun the slow work of repairing their networks as U.S. West Coast congestion difficulties ease. “At the same time, forward bookings suggest that post-Lunar New Year cargo demand will resume after the week-long Asia holidays and continue to...

Union Calls on Industry to Negotiate Solutions to Protect Workers and Communities(PITTSBURGH) -- An explosion and fire today at a refinery in Southern California underscores the United Steelworkers’ demand for improved safety conditions to protect both workers and communities.The explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, Calif., occurred as 5,200 members of the United Steelworkers (USW) are conducting unfair labor practice strikes at 11 refineries across the country with safety as a major concern.“Our members work in dangerous and too often deadly conditions,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard. “While employers have reaped billions of dollars in profits over...

A three-alarm fire was reported around 8:50 a.m. at a processing unit at 3700 West 190th St. in Torrance, according to officials. When crews arrived on scene they found evidence of an explosion and a small ground fire, which firefighters quickly extinguished. ... Residents and approximately 30 schools in the Torrance School District were instructed to shelter in place. That advisory was lifted by police around 11:45 a.m.

The ongoing shale oil renaissance and the United States’ abundant natural resources has transformed our energy landscape, allowing American consumers access to affordable fuel supplies and spurring significant investment and job growth across our economy.But in order for this renaissance to continue, it is critical that lawmakers ensure that U.S. policy keeps pace so that our energy resources are being leveraged to provide the maximum benefit to the nation’s economy and international geopolitical interests. ADVERTISEMENT This point was made clear at a recent House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing, where witnesses emphasized the enormous value that the changing dynamics in...

On February 18, an explosion and fire occurred at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, California. The Torrance refinery, the third-largest refinery in southern California, has about 20% of the region's fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) capacity and is an important source of gasoline and distillate supply. Based on publicly available information, it can be estimated that Torrance produces about 117,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) of gasoline (about 15-20% of southern California's supply) and about 50,000 bbl/d of distillate and jet fuel (about 10% of southern California supply). Unplanned refinery outages can have noticeable impacts on liquid fuel markets, disrupting supplies of...