Crime Watch is a weekly series culled from reports provided by the Santa Monica Police Department. These are arrests only. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Friday, Feb. 26, at 12:15 p.m., Santa Monica police officers responded to the 1400 block of Ocean Avenue — Santa Monica Senior Center —... Read more →

BROADWAY — City Hall dedicated a new affordable housing complex here last week, adding 20 units for low income senior citizens to Santa Monica’s housing stock. The project, located at 1458 14th St. and completed in December, is the first affordable housing complex to open in the city in about a year, said Jim Kemper, City... Read more →

CITY HALL — Embracing public transit doesn’t necessarily mean renouncing driving — it may just mean learning how to share. Such is the hope at City Hall, where officials are aiming to reduce traffic congestion in Santa Monica by striking a deal with a so-called “carsharing” company that rents out vehicles by the... Read more →

HOUSTON — The history of one Santa Monica family spans both time and space. Albert Louis Bresnik served as the personal photographer for Amelia Earhart from 1932 to 1937, the year she disappeared. His grandson, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Randy Bresnik (“Komrade”), flew aboard space shuttle Atlantis during STS-129 last November. As the... Read more →

CIVIC CENTER — It’s expected to become the cornerstone of City Hall’s ambitious plan to remake Santa Monica’s Civic Center. The seven-acre site that today is a makeshift parking lot will one day become a pedestrian friendly juncture between the city’s two main business districts, the future Expo Light Rail stop... Read more →

SM PLACE — Macerich Co. this week announced it has leased space at Santa Monica Place to three new shops that will help round out a diverse mix of restaurants and food purveyors the company hopes will make its top-story “dining deck” a major attraction at the new mall. With a view of the ocean and the Third Street Promenade,... Read more →

SUNSET PARK — Santa Monica consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, in conjunction with Blue Cross policyholders, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Anthem Blue Cross, the California branch of WellPoint Inc. The class action lawsuit accuses the health insurer of forcing customers into coverage offering less benefits and higher... Read more →

SM BLVD — You know a business is on the cutting edge when it hangs a sign in the front window that reads, “What is this place?” As the first “co-working” space geared toward creative professionals in Santa Monica, the owners of CoLoft, which opened its doors Feb. 15, felt they had some explaining to do. Located... Read more →

DOWNTOWN — As part of their global study on ocean plastic pollution, the Santa Monica scientist couple of Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins recently returned from the Sargasso Sea with some startling news -- plastic pollutants may be working their way up the food chain to humans. The voyage, which began in St. Thomas and set sail... Read more →

WESTWOOD — When he would ride his bike from his Westwood home to the beach in Santa Monica, David Eisenberg, a professor of biological chemistry at UCLA, used to avoid some traffic-congested stretches by taking a shortcut that led him through the Los Angeles National Cemetery. But since shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, the cemetery has... Read more →

DOWNTOWN — Parking for three hours in Downtown Santa Monica and not paying a dime for the privilege is soon to be a thing of the past. Parking Structure 8, one of the two parking structures attached to Santa Monica Place, was one of the last two City Hall-owned structures where you could pull off the feat. But the lot closed for... Read more →

Dear EarthTalk: When the plug-in Prius is released, how much electricity will it use? Will my electric bill double if my Prius is plugged in each night? Or will the increase be minimal? Also, will all this recharging put a strain on the existing electricity grid? — G.C. Marx, Colorado Springs, Colo. It is difficult to pinpoint the... Read more →

SMC — Santa Monica High School’s boys basketball team better know how to dance. Eighth-seeded Samohi secured a spot in the CIF-SS Division 1A Championship by defeating fourth-seeded Colony, 70-51, in front of a capacity crowd at Santa Monica College on Friday. Samohi raced out to an early double-digit lead, but Colony was able... Read more →

VIRGINIA AVENUE PARK — Despite objections from the Pico Neighborhood Association, the City Council is moving ahead with plans to construct a nearly $13 million library here. The council on Tuesday voted to award the $882,000 contract to design the facility to Koning Eizenberg Architecture. The decision came the same day the PNA sent... Read more →

BORDERLINE NEIGHBORHOOD — Surrounded by piles of boxed mac ‘n’ cheese, toothpaste, granola bars and Sweethearts candies, a group of women opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gathered at a home here earlier this month, putting their feelings aside in order to support the troops overseas. These women, and a few men,... Read more →