AB 1647, a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi  (D-Torrance) and signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017, will require by 2020 fence-line and community air quality monitoring around oil refineries along with reporting of the readings from those devices in real-time.

The South Coast Air Quality Management Agency in 2017 directed $2.77 million to enhance the monitoring and alert systems at the Torrance Refinery. But there is still a lot the public is not aware of.

A sea of pink traveled down Catalina Avenue in Redondo Beach on Saturday morning as the third annual Women’s March brought out hundreds of demonstrators.

Many marchers brought their children, saying they were using the event as a lesson in social activism.

“Democracy is in all of our hands,” said Audrey Judson of Manhattan Beach. “We choose our government.”

Two years after millions of women flooded streets around the world to decry the election of President Donald Trump, a smaller but determined contingency shared messages of empowerment and equality during Women’s March events held Saturday from Santa Ana to London.

“Our coming together today is a resistance,” actress and activist Laverne Cox told the estimated 200,000-plus demonstrators gathered in downtown Los Angeles.

“We come with demands for justice, for equity. We come today peaceably, but we also come to fight.”

PARADISE — Over a dozen state legislators came to see the Camp Fire burn areas for themselves Thursday, at the request of Assemblyman James Gallagher and State Sen. Jim Nielsen.

Gallagher, R-Yuba City, and Nielsen, R-Red Bluff, took the visiting bipartisan group on a tour of Paradise, then they all met with local representatives who explained current critical needs such as housing. Over 18,000 structures were burned in the Camp Fire and at least 86 people were killed.

Facing a $36 million deficit and a possible state takeover, the top budget officer at the Sacramento City Unified School District has a sober message for his counterparts around California.

Sacramento is “just one of the first dominoes,” said John Quinto, the district’s chief business officer.

By any measure, Sacramento City’s distress is worse than the vast majority of California school districts.

This is the Cash skate team – which stands for "cause all skaters hustle."

And that’s exactly what this group of young men and women did – hustled for years to get a skate park built in Harbor City.

“We don’t want to build cemeteries no more, we don’t want to build jails, we want to build skate parks, I really wanted to make a change, a difference in this community,” said Emilio Otero, one of the skaters on the team.

“Rebel with a Cause,” a documentary about the late researcher and community activist Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga, was screened last Saturday at the Katy Geissert Civic Center Library in Torrance.

Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) hosted a luncheon on Nov. 15 at Madre! restaurant in Torrance to honor the 66th Assembly District’s Veteran of the Year, Gardena Nisei VFW Post 1961 Commander Steve Moriyama. “Moriyama has done a great job leading VFW Post 1961 and also is active with the American Legion in Redondo Beach,” Muratsuchi said. “I appreciate all of the VFW and American Legion officers in attendance to honor Commander Moriyama.”

The hotel industry is betting that a simple device can help solve the complex problem of guests sexually assaulting and harassing workers.

It’s known as a panic button, a small gadget that housekeepers can use to swiftly call for help. The technology takes different forms, including GPS devices that track employees as they walk through the building, buttons that emit an audible alarm and smartphone apps.