Despite pressure from neighbors and public officials, the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic continues to plague the surrounding area with terrible odors, prompting regulators to call for more to be done.

A three-day South Coast Air Quality Management District hearing earlier this month was full of criticism of the landfill operators’ inability to limit the smells reaching neighbors, noting that there has so far been “no meaningful improvement,” as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

In fact, efforts to combat a fire beneath the surface of the landfill — the second-largest in L.A. County — require “emergency measures that are exacerbating odors, such as excavating and relocating buried trash to prevent landslides,” the Times reports.

“Many of these actions actually have the adverse side effect of increasing odors in the immediate and short term even though they are considered necessary to curb the emergency situations occurring at the landfill,” said Kathryn Roberts, attorney for the South Coast AQMD.

In a news release, the AQMD board directed landfill operators to make changes, including meeting “more than two dozen conditions that will improve leachate collection, add preventative maintenance and inspections, mitigate odors associated with excavation activities, and require additional air monitoring.”

The issue is expected to be discussed again during another hearing in November.

The AQMD regulators join a chorus of critics targeting the landfill and its odors.

The landfill’s neighbors have filed a lawsuit alleging toxic fumes are harming them, and the Environmental Protection Agency and local elected officials have also raised concerns.

Police are searching for a suspect after a man was stabbed while walking on a Culver City street.

Late Tuesday night, the male victim was walking near the 2900 block of La Cienega Boulevard when the suspect suddenly pushed him from behind before stabbing him in the arm.

The victim was able to escape from the attacker and run to safety. A bystander called police after witnessing the bleeding man walking away from the scene.

“Police quickly found the victim and observed a significant wound to his forearm, an approximately four-inch-deep laceration,” authorities said.

He was transported to a local hospital for treatment.

The assailant fled the area and remains at large. He is described as a Hispanic man around 30-40 years old and is believed to frequent the area, officers said.

A motive behind the stabbing remains under investigation.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact the Culver City Police Department’s Public Information Officer, Jennifer Atenza, at 310-253- 6120 or email jennifer.atenza@culvercity.org. The public can also call the Watch Commander at 310-253-6202.

Opening statements began Thursday in the trial of Shawn Laval Smith, the man accused in the stabbing death a 24-year-old woman while she worked alone at a Hancock Park furniture store in Jan. 2022.  

The grisly killing unfolded on Jan. 13 while Brianna Kupfer, a UCLA graduate student, was working at Croft House on North La Brea Avenue.  

At 1:36 p.m. that day, Kupfer sent a text to a friend saying there was someone inside the store who was “giving her a bad vibe,” LAPD officials previously said. 

About 14 minutes later, a customer walked in and found her dead on the floor. 

Smith, who has an extensive criminal history in L.A. County, is accused of stabbing the 24-year-old, who he did not know, 46 times. He was arrested nearly a week after the killing in Pasadena.

During Thursday’s emotional opening statements, prosecutors presented body-worn camera footage from the officer who responded to the scene. The footage showed the officer entering the store and seeing Kupfer, unresponsive and covered in blood, lying on the ground.  

In the courtroom, Kupfer’s parents were visibly distraught, her father placing his head in his hands at the sight of the crime scene.  

“The defendant, pretending to be a customer, lured her into a sense of security and safety and vulnerability, even went outside, pretending to call his girlfriend,” the prosecutor told the court. “The evidence we’ll show you, they weren’t looking for a couch. It was all a lie.”  

Prosecutors say Smith, who was present in court, wearing a buttoned-down shirt, slacks and a medical face mask, killed the young woman before leaving through the back of the store.  

“Brianna Kupfer, lying on the floor in the Croft House covered in her own blood, smear marks of blood surrounding her,” the prosecutor added.  

Authorities say that audio of the murder was left behind at the scene.  

“Her last breathing words, she’s just telling him, ‘I can help you, I can help you, I can help you,’ and he’s telling her, ‘It’s over [expletive].’” 

Jessica Rogers, a resident of Pacific Palisades where Kupfer’s family also lives, told KTLA she doesn’t know the family personally, but attended the trial to show her support for them.  

“We heard a recording of him making these statements about how he hated women,” she told KTLA’s Kimberly Cheng, unable to hold back tears. “An innocent, kind woman begging for her life. She tried to get help. She did nothing wrong.” 

Prosecutors also told the courtroom that a knife used with such force it was bent was found at the scene and tested positive for Smith’s DNA.  

If convicted as charged in this case, the 34-year-old defendant could face life in prison without the possibility of parole.