Usually, before a big event, the nerves kick in. But the evening before the start of the Vans U.S. Open of Surfing last July, Kanoa Igarashi realized he was feeling a different emotion – excitement. “Years prior, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep because of the nerves,” said the 21-year-old surfer. “Having that change…

Victims of the wildfires that devastated parts of California last month will not have to add a government shutdown to their list of troubles, federal authorities said Friday. Even though lawmakers failed Friday to find a way to avert a partial shutdown before a midnight deadline, the Federal Emergency…

A shallow magnitude 3.1 earthquake was reported Saturday morning two miles from Genesee, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor occurred at 9:03 p.m. Pacific time at a depth of 0.6 miles. According to the USGS, the epicenter was 27 miles from Susanville, Calif., 43 miles from…

Santa Barbara County granted an emergency permit on Friday to a private group’s request to install 11 steel ring nets to hold back boulders in canyons above Montecito that led to January’s deadly debris flows. With the mountains still bare and a wet El Nino predicted for January, the group had…

One man died after a crash involving a motorcycle and two other vehicles in Garden Grove on Thursday night. The Garden Grove Police Department said the accident happened at approximately 8:10 p.m., near the intersection of Euclid Street and Westminster Avenue. Officials said the 20-year-old motorcyclist was pronounced dead at the scene, and one of…

At least three people were secretly recorded in a Cal State Long Beach restroom on the cellphone of a preschool teacher arrested earlier this month after one of the victims, a 15-year-old boy, alerted police, according to court documents. The teen identified Ernesto Jason Higuera by his cellphone and shoes as the man who allegedly took…

How do you make another person disappear? For Edward Shin, faced with his friend and business partner lying in a pool of blood in their San Juan Capistrano office, it was a pressing question. For more than half a year, Shin found the answer: bold deceptions and brazen lies, taking over his dead friend’s emails…

CAMP PENDLETON — Sgt. Devon Espinoza describes how he and five other Camp Pendleton Marines saved the life of a Riverside man severely injured in a motorcycle accident as being in “Marine mode.” The rider, Floyd McGuirk, 58, was sprawled in the roadway, his right leg partially severed, on SR 330 near Big Bear on…

In its 69 pages of demands to the school district, the union representing Los Angeles teachers barely touches on charter schools. But as they prepare for an announced strike on Jan. 10, union leaders are making the growth of these schools a focus to rally members and raise public awareness of what…

LAGUNA HILLS– About 90 patrons at the Florence Sylvester Memorial Senior Center in Laguna Hills were treated to a luncheon performance on Thursday, Dec. 20, by The King himself – or at least his doppelganger. “Elvis” — aka Scott Robertson — has been making the women at the senior center swoon for several years, and…