Santa Monica Observer - Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words

8/14: Concerned about the effect on marine wild life, the Santa Monica City Council has tightened existing law banning plastic. The City will require restaurants and those selling food to go, to...

Aretha Franklin has died of cancer in hospice at 76 years of age. The "Queen of Soul" was surrounded by family and friends as she passed quietly. She will be memorialized at a service on Friday....

The City Council appointed Shawn Landres to the Planning Commission at its meeting on August 14th. Landres is a Senior Fellow at the UCLA Luskin School of Public affairs. He previously served on on...

You were over the line, Smokey The bowling alley across Pico Blvd from the Santa Monica Civic Center will be bowled over by a wrecking ball next year, and replaced by a mixed-use apartment complex....

8/12: Yesterday, firefighters quickly contained a new fire, the Gulch Fire in Monterey County, to 650 acres, as well as reaching full containment on the Nelson Fire. Almost 13,200 firefighters are on...

8/14: In a press release, the City of Santa Monica denies that it has frozen Bird and Lime companies out of the process. It says scooter decisions will be made after August 30th, and not tonight at th...

On Friday, August 10, the City of Santa Monica released recommendations for its Shared Mobility Pilot Program set to start on September 17, 2018. These recommendations are not final. The City's...

From bartender to rising political star, Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez, Bronx born congressional candidate, whirled through Los Angeles last week during her campaign fundraising tour. Running on a message...

What a drag it is, getting older. Well, you can ride the MTA busses for 35 cents (Santa Monica Busses are 50 cents after 55, still a major discount). Anyway, on August 6th, 2018, the County and City...

Former City Council candidate and Facebook maven Armen Melkonians has decided not to run for City Council. His former slate mate, Kate Bransfield has made the same decision. They issued the following...

The pilot hoped to avoid encounters with savage earthlings. Or perhaps he came from a planet which, like Saturn's enormous moon Titan, is cooler than 200 degrees fahrenheit. We may never know for...

It is time to ask an inevitable question: Is it possible that Bigfoot is not only real, but speaks French? The ‘Gollum' figure seen stalking moose in creepy video as a 6 foot tall, humanoid creature...

The hiring of a reporter with apparent racist tweets is stirring up the Deplorables on social media. Sarah Jeong replied by posting some rather astonishing commentary about white people, which would d...

Why I'm Running for Rent Control Board by Naomi Sultan Hello everyone - This is my first time running for public office and I would like to introduce myself and explain what I'm about. I am a...

Whether it's global warming or just seasonal, this has been a particularly bad fire season in California. Sections of a major city, Redding, have burned. In Mendocino, life in another urban area has...

British Snowboarder Ellie Soutter has died of an apparent suicide. She was just 18 years old. "She was in great spirits and was really just the lovely Ellie that she is. You could never have...

  When conditions are such that there is no access to clean, safe drinking water, or edible food, the only way to be heard is to go on a hunger strike. This is exactly what a group of eight asylum se...

7/25/18: A new program at Santa Monica and Malibu beaches this summer will give away sunscreen, UCLA announced today. Fifty free sunscreen kiosks will be installed this summer in the 2 beach cities, w...

In a rambling video posted Thursday night on Youtube, Isaac Kappy accuses Steven Spielberg of being a pedophile. "At the top level, these people are just sick and psycho!" he says, mentioning the...

7/29: A widespread outage of spectrum data Internet and television was recorded in California, Philadelphia, and New York. Monday night was hot in the south west, and this may have strained the power...

Is emergent AI consciousness breaking through to call us on cellphones? Is that AI consciousness responsible for the mysterious cellphone calls and messages? Have we summoned the demon somehow, and ho...

Trader Joe's store assistant manager Melyda Corado was unintentionally shot by guns Los Angeles police officers fired, during a chase and shootout with a suspect at a Trader Joes in Silver Lake Saturd...

Singer Demi Lovato is said to be in a persistent vegetative state, or coma, after a drug overdose. On the eve of a hotly anticipated string of tour dates, pop music superstar Demi Lovato has...

14 years ago, Nicole Levings graduated from Sheffield Hallam University with a degree in business and marketing, and began her career in advertising. She has always worked with "creative agencies on...

A sudden rainstorm moved through the Westside on Wednesday just before noon. It brought thunder and lightning, and for a few minutes, heavy rain. The sidewalks dried very quickly after the monsoonal...