A car being pursued by California Highway Patrol officers early Sunday, Jan. 25 flew off the 105 Freeway and crashed to the ground below near Los Angeles International Airport, the CHP said.
The driver’s face was bloody, and he appeared dazed after El Segundo firefighters cut him out of a Chevrolet Camaro, as seen in a video by freelance news organization OnScene.TV. The man was arrested and hospitalized.
California Highway Patrol officers arrest a man who they say led them on a pursuit early Jan. 25, 2026, before crashing off the 105 Freeway near Los Angeles International Airport. (Photo by OnScene.TV)
The pursuit began when officers attempted to pull over the car for speeding on the westbound 10 Freeway at Vincent Avenue, CHP spokeswoman Megan Curtiss said. The driver failed to stop, and the crash happened around 2:07 a.m. near N. Nash Street and Imperial Highway, she said.
A California Highway Patrol officer looks down on a crash scene after a car being pursued flew off the 105 Freeway near Los Angeles International Airport early on Jan. 25, 2026. (Photo by OnScene.TV)
The OnScene.TV footage showed a red sedan that was apparently involved in a collision at the end of the pursuit. The video also showed a gun that the CHP had seized, as well as a saw and a computer device. No details about those items were available on Sunday.
The coastal city of El Segundo is an unlikely location for a massive, new artificial surf park.
Other California surf parks with machine-powered wave pools are inland, far from natural waves in places like Palm Springs and Lemoore in the San Joaquin Valley.
This summer, an owner of one of those parks, Palm Springs Surf Club, bought 10 acres of land on a former aerospace campus in El Segundo. The location is near a bonanza of sports enterprises that have sprung up in recent years, including a Topgolf entertainment complex and the training facility and headquarters of the Los Angeles Chargers football team.
A company tied to billionaire Vinny Smith’s Toba Capital paid $54 million for the site, said Colin O’Byrne, president of Inland Pacific Cos., the development partner of Toba Capital.
Smith, a tech mogul and surfer, and a major investor in the Palm Springs Surf Club, reportedly got involved after testing a wave prototype.
Surfers wait their turn at The Palm Springs Surf Club.
(David Fouts/For The Times)
The El Segundo surf park, which has yet to be named, will hold about 5 million gallons of water in a 2.2-acre lagoon, O’Byrne said. He hopes to secure city approval to start work on the project, valued at $175 million, in about six months.
El Segundo is already a legit surfing town, known for its custom surfboard shapers and waves at El Segundo Beach Jetty.
“El Segundo has been a mecca for surf culture since the 1950s,” City Councilman and surfer Drew Boyles said. “But frankly, the surf out front is consistently poor-to-fair and it’s, like, absolutely crowded. So, this wave pool is going to be incredible.”
Boyles likened the potential appeal of the surf park to Topgolf, which makes a point in its advertising of putting beginners at ease with swinging a club for fun while also appealing to experienced golfers.
“Topgolf basically lowered the barriers to entry for people to get into the game of golf,” Boyles said. “Wave pools are doing the same thing, lowering the barrier to entry for people to get into surfing in a controlled, safe environment that’s not as intimidating as the ocean, that’s predictable and consistent.”
Boyles, a real estate developer, is working on developing a surf park of his own in Phoenix.
O’Byrne, who has been learning to surf in Palm Springs, said the vibe in a man-made lagoon can be more pleasant than competing with other surfers at sea.
“You have the ability to have your own wave, and everybody’s rooting for you to make your wave as opposed to getting yelled at in the lineup as a beginner or intermediate level surfer.”
The wave pool at The Palm Springs Surf Club.
(David Fouts/For The Times)
In Newport Beach, the city is considering approval of the Snug Harbor Surf Park Project, which would redevelop the center portion of the Newport Beach Golf Course with approximately five acres of surf lagoons. It would replace the driving range and downsize the course to 15 holes.
The centerpiece of a typical surf park is a large pool holding millions of gallons of water and a machine that can generate as many as 1,000 waves per hour. Developers also typically add restaurants, shops and other attractions to broaden the park’s appeal.
DSRT Surf, expected to open in summer 2026 at the Desert Willow Golf Resort in the Coachella Valley, is set to offer pickleball courts, a swimming pool, yoga classes, a restaurant and a skate bowl. Future plans call for a 139-room hotel and 57 luxury villas.
Inland Pacific and Smith are also working on a 45-acre mixed-use development around a surf park in Oceanside valued at $275 million, O’Byrne said. It is to include shops and restaurants along with a hotel adjacent to a 2.5-acre lagoon.
In Las Vegas, the company acquired 66 acres of land on Las Vegas Boulevard just south of the airport for a surf-centric development.
Now that engineers have figured out how to create consistent waves in a controlled environment, there is potential demand for many more surf parks in the world, O’Byrne said.
“This has been attempted since the 1980s,” OByrne said. “We’re really at a point where the technology has advanced to be able to do these more economically and allow for more consistency and longer waves.”
Vistors watch surfers from dry land at The Palm Springs Surf Club.
(David Fouts/For The Times)
Inland Pacific acquired the El Segundo site from Continental Corp., a California landlord with millions of square feet of commercial properties along the South Bay coast, real estate data provider CoStar said.
Continental bought the 30-acre corporate campus from Raytheon in 2021 and launched plans to redevelop it into a 600,000-square-foot mixed-use complex with office, retail and media production space.
Los Angeles and Orange counties have the largest concentration of surfers in the world at more than 2 million, according to an estimate by Surf Lakes Socal, which is looking for investors to fund the development of more wave pools.
Firefighters have extinguished a large fire after an explosion Thursday at the Chevron oil refinery in El Segundo.
The second-largest oil refinery in California is capable of refining 290,000 barrels of crude oil per day, including gasoline, jet and diesel fuels.
The impact on fuel prices will depend largely on what was damaged and the extent of the damage at the expansive property near the Los Angeles County coast.
No injuries were reported by authorities.
An explosion and fire at California’s second-largest oil refinery raised concerns about a potential rise in the state’s already high fuel prices, but by how much and when remains to be seen as authorities determine the extent of the damage at the expansive property in El Segundo.
Firefighters were still pouring water on the fire Friday morning, hours after residents said they felt a rumble from an explosion before flames cast an eerie orange glow over homes in the coastal South Bay community south of Los Angeles International Airport. The fire, which Chevron said began at a processing unit near the southeast corner of the refinery, was out later Friday morning, the company said, but damage was still being assessed.
The refinery, which has been in operation since 1911, is capable of refining 290,000 barrels of crude oil per day, including gasoline, jet and diesel fuels. The refinery supplies a significant amount of the motor fuel used by Southern Californians and accounts for about 17 percent of California’s crude oil capacity, according to the California Energy Commission.
“Depending on the time of year, about a sixth of all the gasoline in Southern California is refined through this plant,” said El Segundo Mayor Chris Pimentel.
The impact on fuel prices will depend largely on what was damaged and the extent of the damage, said Matt McClain, a petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.com. The service tracks fuel price trends and the petroleum industry.
“How much of an increase in the price of gas can people expect? Anywhere from 15 to 30 cents a gallon, 25 cents a gallon, and we’re going to leave a little asterisk beside that because it’s still an unfolding situation on the extent of the damage,” McClain said. “It was not a small fire… so the key of the matter is what was damaged, how extensive is the damage and how long will it take to repair.”
Some residents reported hearing a loud bang before seeing the large orange glow coming from the active flames. Robert Kovacik reports for the NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on Oct. 2, 2025.
Californians already pay the nation’s highest prices for gas. A gallon of regular gas was priced Friday morning at $4.642 in California. The national average for a gallon of regular was $3.152.
In a statement Friday, Chevron said the fire was at a processing unit near the southeast corner of the sprawling property. Flames were contained to the refinery and did not spread into residential areas.
Sources told Reuters that the fire was confined to a jet fuel production unit.
Chevron said it is providing updates to the California Energy Commission on damage.
“We are closely monitoring the situation and remain in direct contact with the refiner, state and local partners, and labor leadership,” the commission told NBCLA. “We are glad no one was injured in the incident.”
The cause of the explosion and fire at is unknown and under investigation. Several federal, state and local agencies will likely be part of the investigation.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said it was monitoring the situation.
The refinery covers roughly 1.5 square miles and has more than 1,100 miles of pipelines, according to the company’s website.
The refinery has more than a century of history in the seaside community. In 1911, when kerosene for lamps was in high demand, the location was selected as the site for Standard Oil Company’s second refinery in California.
The city was named El Segundo, “the second” in Spanish, in recognition of the refinery.
The company’s name was changed to Chevron Corporation in 1984.
There have been several fires at the refinery in the last decade, the latest in 2022. A fire in 2017 threatened storage tanks and sent huge flames into the sky before crews quickly smothered it. It did not burn near any of the facility’s main processing units, Chevron said.
Chevron was fined nearly $1 million by the state of California for a major fire in 2012 at a refinery in the San Francisco Bay Area.
California’s largest refinery is Marathon Oil Corp.’s Los Angeles Refinery in nearby Carson.
Further limiting California’s refinery capacity, the Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington and Carson is due to shut down by the end of the year. The company announced closure plans last year.
A massive fire was burning at a Chevron refinery Thursday sending large flames and a dark plume of smoke up into the air in El Segundo.
The fire erupted around 9:30 p.m. at the refinery in the 300 block of West El Segundo Boulevard, the El Segundo Police Department said.
There were no injuries at the refinery and all personnel were accounted for, the company said in a statement late Thursday, adding that a monitoring system indicated the fire did not move beyond the facility’s fence line
By early Friday, the fire was contained and there was no threat to public safety, the city said in a statement. No evacuations had been ordered.
While the exact reason for the fire is still unclear, the fire is believed to have originated from an isolation unit in the refinery, according to LA County Supervisor Holly Mitchell.
“We have zero reported injuries and all workers and contractors are accounted for,” said El Segundo Mayor Chris Pimentel. “We rehearse these things in conjunction with Chevron all the time. We do a full sweep of disaster preparedness drills. Everything from spills in the ocean to fires at the refinery.”
The city of Manhattan Beach issued a shelter-in-place order as a result of the fire. Macy Jenkins reports for the NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on Oct. 2, 2025.
Neighbors tell NBC4 they heard a loud bang before seeing the orange glow coming from the refinery.
“I never ever fear anything. This (fire), I got in panic mode when I saw it,” a neighbor told NBC4. “It looked like about 7 to 10 football fields wide of a flame and smoke billowing in the air.”
Several LA County Fire and El Segundo Fire Department crews were on scene to assist with the fire. LA County Supervisor Holly Mitchell said fire crews had contained the blaze to one section of the refinery.
The Governor has been briefed on the incident at Chevron’s El Segundo refinery in Los Angeles County.
Our office is coordinating in real time with local and state agencies to protect the surrounding community and ensure public safety.
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) October 3, 2025
A shelter-in-place order for nearby Manhattan Beach south of El Segundo was lifted Friday.
No immediate air pollution problems were detected. An air quality index map Friday showed good levels for the Los Angeles area, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
The refinery covers roughly 1.5 square miles and has more than 1,100 miles of pipelines, according to the company’s website. The refinery, which has been in operation since 1911, can refine up to 290,000 barrels of crude oil per day, including gasoline, jet and diesel fuels, according to the company’s website.
It’s only September, but the world’s toymakers and designers are converging on El Segundo this week for an industry conference to decide on the hottest toys for next year.
The city has long been a hub for the toy industry as companies like to set up shop in the shadow of Mattel, the maker of Barbie. This week, the industry opened a new tower of toys, an office complex featuring 65 showrooms for toy companies to showcase their products and discuss design with their wholesale customers.
In his toy-filled suite with sprawling views of the commercial neighborhood near LAX, Italian toy maker Matteo Sarnari prepared for the coming fall onslaught of professional buyers he hopes will buy his wares in bulk.
Sarnari is a business developer for educational toy creator Clementoni, which was established in a small Italian village in 1963 and recently established a U.S. division to move into the American market.
“Of course, this is the most important market in the world,” Sarnari said, 41 times bigger than the Italian market where Clementoni sells educational toys. “The opportunity here is huge.”
A glow-in-the-dark “Stranger Things” puzzle is displayed in Clementoni’s new showroom at the Toy Building.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
The company has licenses to make “Harry Potter” and “Stranger Things”-themed puzzles, joining its line of board games, science toys and musical toys for small children.
Clementoni’s El Segundo beachhead is the new Toy Building, which was opened on Monday by the Toy Assn., a trade group for U.S. toy companies.
While the February Toy Fair in New York is the industry’s largest annual event, the El Segundo toy showroom building is the only one in the country that operates year-round.
Toy Assn. President Greg Ahearn poses for a portrait at the Toy Building.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Los Angeles is a major hub of the U.S. toy industry, said Toy Assn. President Greg Ahearn. Many toy companies are headquartered or have a significant presence here.
Among the big players are Chatsworth-based MGA Entertainment, the company behind Bratz and L.O.L. Surprise! dolls, Canadian toy and entertainment company Spin Master and Santa Monica’s Jakks Pacific, a maker of licensed toys such as Sonic the Hedgehog.
The headquarters of industry giant Mattel is a short walk from the Toy Building and looms large in the views from the renovated 1970s office building in a neighborhood that used to house more aerospace companies.
The Toy Building on Wednesday in El Segundo.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
As aerospace has scaled back since the end of the Cold War, El Segundo has emerged as a hub for many creative businesses, including toys.
The city is “incredibly convenient” to the toy industry and people who do business with them, Ahearn said, because it’s near Los Angeles International Airport and multiple large and small toy companies are located there. Among them are the U.S. office of Moose Toys, an Australian maker of collectible mini-figures.
“El Segundo represents the greatest concentration of toy manufacturers in the U.S.,” he said.
Toys are a huge business — the industry generated $42 billion in sales in the U.S. last year. Sales remained flat compared with the previous year.
The opening of the Toy Building coincides with the annual fall preview of toys manufacturers hope will be on Christmas wish lists the following year, he said. “That’s how far ahead our industry works.”
Clementoni baby toys are displayed in their new showroom at the Toy Building.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
At the fall preview, retailers and licensors of toys such as Paramount, Universal and Disney join others in the toy business to “descend on Los Angeles to actually see product that is going to be available for holiday 2026,” Ahearn said.
Licensed toys are a huge category, he said, as big entertainment providers serve up branded fare such as Star Wars action figures, SpongeBob SquarePants plush toys and Paw Patrol toddler tricycles.
Even online media personalities such as MrBeast and Ms. Rachel have toy lines.
“All of them usually have some level of toy licensing and merchandising that is available to consumers as part of their plan,” Ahearn said.
A Clementoni brand “Pen Creator Studio” toy is displayed in a new showroom at the Toy Building.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
The Toy Building’s four floors were designed to serve as a “mini convention center” for the industry operating year-round, said Nelson Algaze, chief executive of SAA Interiors + Architecture, which created the space.
It has 65 showrooms and is so far home to such brands as Crayola, Funko and Hasbro. Each floor has about 20,000 square feet and most of the showrooms are between 625 and 2,500 square feet. The showrooms are nearly 70% leased.
Although it has lounges and meeting rooms, the Toy Building also has an element of secrecy not typically associated with a convention facility as some toymakers keep their products hidden from the competition with barriers that prevent passersby from seeing inside.
Photography is mostly forbidden.
More directly looming over the industry is the fallout from President Trump’s tariffs on imported goods, which are expected to drive up the cost of toys.
In April, the Toy Assn. urged the U.S. government to grant an immediate reprieve from tariffs on toys imported from China to keep them on retail shelves and available for the holiday season.
“As we move into the critical holiday season, there is now some trepidation with what the impact of tariffs is ultimately going to be,” Ahearn said.
Toys are displayed in Clementoni’s new showroom at the Toy Building.
The city of Los Angeles, an epicenter of sport championship events, is adding yet another tournament to its host list: global competitive esports.
The Global Esports Federation announced Tuesday that it had selected the city of Los Angeles to host the 2026 Global Esports World Finals Games, with the Los Angeles Times Media Group serving as a host partner.
“The Los Angeles 2026 games will stand as a symbol of how esports is shaping the next generation, driving opportunity for building digital skills and inspiring cultural change,” said Paul Foster, CEO of the Global Esports Federation, from The Times building in El Segundo.
The media group will embark on reinventing a warehouse adjacent to The Times building, off of Imperial Highway, which will become a virtual arena for players and spectators, said Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, Los Angeles Times Media Group’s executive chairman.
“We now have a challenge where by July 2026, Los Angeles’ first and largest global esports stadium will have to be built on this campus and El Segundo Mayor Chris Pimentel has graciously given us his support,” Soon-Shiong said.
The arena will house the weeklong competition and event celebration slated for Dec. 4, 2026.
Los Angeles and El Segundo beat out eight other international cities prior to selection, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the two cities were uniquely positioned to host the global event. “We are adding yet another major international event to the lineup, showing that Los Angeles is where the world comes to compete in every form, from the field to the arena to the digital stage.”
This is the first time the esports world finals will be hosted in the United States. The relatively new global competition has been held previously in Singapore, Istanbul, Riyadh and Lima.
The competitive video gaming event will feature a mix of team sports and individual games and an estimated 1,000 athletes representing more than 100 countries.
