<i>Editor’s note: This story is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures appearing on upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agendas. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the City Council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public. However, many of the items have been... Read more →

SM MOUNTAINS — Two small earthquakes shook the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu Saturday night, according to the Caltech Seismological Laboratory. The first, a magnitude 2.8, hit about six miles northwest of Malibu at 8:39 p.m. Just 45 seconds later, a second quake of magnitude 2.6 hit about one mile west of the first. The quakes... Read more →

MARINA DEL REY — A stray gray whale has headed north after spending weeks lingering in the waters here. Marine biologist Peter Wallerstein said Sunday that he and a county Baywatch crew watched the young California gray accompanied by about 50 bottlenose dolphins head northwest past Venice and Santa Monica. Wallerstein says the group... Read more →

SAMOHI — When most seniors were leaving Grad Nite after a full night of fun, incoming seniors Megan Kilroy, Celina Stilphen and three other Samohi students came to school at 5 a.m. last Friday in search of plastic bottles, aluminum cans and other recyclable plastics. “We basically just went through all the recycling bins and... Read more →

SUNSET PARK — Husband-and-wife team Andrew MacDonald and Irene Coray decided to take a risk — pack up their highly successful 17-year-old bookstore in the middle of bustling Dupont Circle and take their chances in Santa Monica where the people are well-read but the weather is more inviting. They figured that even at a 50... Read more →

CITYWIDE — Starting today, Santa Monica kids can trash can relay, putt for points and bottle bowl their way to saving the environment. The Clean Air Olympics — which includes these tasks and many more — is just one activity available to kids at Camp Santa Monica through the O24U curriculum. O24U activities like making smog... Read more →

Dear EarthTalk: Don’t some scientists point to sunspots and solar wind as having more impact on climate change than human industrial activity? — David Noss, California, MD Sunspots are storms on the sun’s surface that are marked by intense magnetic activity and play host to solar flares and hot gassy ejections from the... Read more →

SMC — Teachers on the first day of summer school classes today may find far more students in their rooms than they bargained for, and more that never signed up. Many high school students enrolled at SMC to take classes over the summer to get credits out of the way, fulfill graduation requirements or simply to boost grade point... Read more →

WEST L.A. — For eight long days, Santa Monican John McInally Jr. and his family combed area streets looking for their Alzheimer’s disease stricken father who had wandered away from his Venice home on June 10. Calls to area hospitals yielded nothing. The Los Angeles Police Department and even the FBI got involved and still nothing.... Read more →

SAMOHI — Far away from the Los Angeles Coliseum and the confetti, there was a dimly lit classroom in Santa Monica that played home to a very different kind of Lakers celebration on Wednesday. This one involved meditation and a pair of scissors. Victoria Rosner, a volunteer yoga instructor at Santa Monica High School, followed... Read more →