Carson Ca

Rocking an infant nephew in her arms, Mary Poloai stood outside the main entrance of the imposing Samoan Congregational Christian Church in Carson on Wednesday staring up at the sky and fighting back tears. "I'm so sad that I can't think straight," said Poloai, 58, one of more than 100 people who gathered at a special prayer service for victims of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Samoa and American Samoa early Tuesday. "They still haven't found my mother's sisters," she said.

A longtime Carson activist, whose head-smack of a political opponent was captured on video and spread worldwide on YouTube, reached a settlement Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Compton to avoid criminal prosecution and the possibility of a six-month jail sentence.

The U.S. Tennis Assn. said Monday it essentially has taken its key summer tournaments in Carson and New Haven, Conn., off the table for now by not applying for slots on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour for 2009, a decision that raises questions about the future of those events. The USTA owns the New Haven tournament, and holds 25% of the event in Carson, which is held at the Home Depot Center. The Anschutz Entertainment Group owns the other 75%. Both hard-court events are part of the U.S.

One thing is certain: Carson Public Works Commissioner Jan Schaefer got bopped on the back of the head with a bunch of papers. That's on tape. She didn't get hit in the eye, as Mayor Jim Dear was quick to claim. But was the blow enough to send her reeling to the floor in apparent agony? Or was her fall spur-of-the-moment melodrama? Was it a heavy bop or a light bop? These questions have been circulating inside and outside of Carson all week.

The saga of the Carson slap is on its way to the courtroom. There may have been much guffawing about it all, but Vera Robles DeWitt is going to court for whacking Carson Commissioner Jan Schaefer at a City Council meeting Feb. 6. The charge is misdemeanor battery, which carries a not-so-funny maximum punishment of six months in jail. DeWitt bopped Schaefer on the back of the head with a sheaf of papers as she passed the commissioner in council chambers.

If Carson Treasurer Karen Avilla had had a nagging feeling she was being watched whenever she got on her laptop computer, she would have been right. Cyber-thieves were able to shift nearly $450,000 from the city's general fund last week by using a program that was able to mimic the computer strokes made by Carson's financial officer. Each time Avilla logged on to her city-provided laptop in the morning, someone was -- virtually -- looking over her shoulder, recording every single keystroke.

More than 100 Carson residents joined city leaders and sheriff's officials to speak out against gang violence Saturday, four days after a 16-year-old boy was killed two blocks from his home in a suspected gang-related attack. Reginald "Reggie" Hays was fatally shot in the chest while listening to an iPod in his car parked in the 17500 block of Harwick Court on Tuesday afternoon in the Stevenson Village area of Carson, according to sheriff's officials and family members.

A woman perished in a house fire late Tuesday in the 1800 block of East Kramer Drive, officials said. Firefighters arrived at the woman's two-story home about 11:30 p.m. to find the building engulfed in flames. Rescuers found the woman lying near the stairs on the first floor, Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Frank Garrido said.

They weren't quite screaming for ice cream, but the crowd did march vigorously outside of Ken's Ice Cream Parlor in Carson on Saturday, a last-ditch attempt to show support for a much-loved shop that will soon lose its lease. Carrying "Save Small Businesses" and other signs in one hand and ice cream cones in the other, about 20 Ken's aficionados lamented the latest predicament of owner Wanda Johnson-Pope, 68.

A fire and a series of explosions ripped through a paint manufacturing facility in Carson on Monday, critically injuring three people and forcing the evacuation of surrounding businesses. The fire erupted at Advanced Packaging and Products in the 16000 block of Maple Avenue shortly after noon, triggering blasts that shot flames, along with canisters and other debris, up to 70 feet in the air. A towering column of black smoke was visible for miles.