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Calling for rain

Dear EarthTalk: Could it really be true that we are in the midst of the worst drought in the United States since the 1930s? — Deborah Lynn, Needham, Mass. Indeed we are embroiled in what many consider the worst drought in the U.S. since the “Dust Bowl” days of the 1930s that rendered some 50 million acres of farmland barely usable. Back then, drought conditions combined with poor soil management practices to force some 2.5 million Americans away from [...]
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Columns Earth Talk Opinion
Curtains for the Civic

The future of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium was debated at a community meeting held at the Main Library last Monday. The late 1950s era, multi-purpose facility has been operating in the red for years. City officials plan to mothball it on June 30 then decide whether to renovate or demolish it The auditorium was a major show place when it opened in 1958. It hosted the Academy Awards from 1961 through 1968 and was a major regional concert and [...]
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Columns Featured My Write Opinion
Road advisories

Expo Light Rail Line Project Note the following activities: 1. Colorado Avenue between Fifth and 17th streets: Expect westbound and eastbound lane closures during day time hours. Expect reduction of travel lanes during the non-peak day at Ninth Street at Colorado and 10th Street at Colorado. 2. Colorado Avenue between Fifth and Sixth streets: Night time (9 p.m.-6 a.m.) Colorado Avenue closure, through Thursday. 3. Olympic Boulevard between 20th Street and Cloverfield Boulevard: Westbound and eastbound lane closures during non-peak [...]
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Featured News Transportation
Letter: Why so large?

Editor: I’m a 34-year Santa Monica resident. Does the Miramar really need to expand its size to over 500,000 square feet to make a profit or achieve its goals as a business? To put that into context for everyone, that’s about the size of Santa Monica Place, on a much smaller land parcel. We haven’t seen a plan that proposes a lower density that’s in keeping with the LUCE and the current version of the Downtown Specific Plan — without [...]
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Letters Opinion
Q-Line: Cash from overseas

The Santa Monica Convention & Visitors Bureau held its fourth annual Travel and Tourism Summit last week during which they released figures that showed tourists and the hotels they stay in pumped $1.5 billion into the local economy in 2012. Of that, $48.4 million went directly into City Hall’s General Fund, which supports basic city services. This week, Q-Line asked: A handful of hotels are being planned for Downtown, but some residents are working to put a stop [...]
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Opinion Qline
PCH safety study finds 90 areas of concern

MALIBU — There are over 90 existing conditions targeted as potential safety concerns along Pacific Coast Highway that the city of Malibu should address, according to a months-long, $375,000 engineering study of Malibu’s 27 miles of PCH. While some of the possible safety issues were “pervasive,” meaning they occur along the entire corridor of PCH in Malibu, other problems were location-specific. Areas of particular concern included the intersections of Las Flores Canyon Road, the Malibu Pier and Paradise Cove Road, [...]
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Featured News Transportation
Congressman can’t stomach 405 delay

DOWNTOWN Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Santa Monica) fired off a letter Friday to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood asking him to investigate delays in the construction of the Interstate-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project. The project, which had previously been scheduled to be completed by spring 2013, won’t be finished until fall 2014, according to reports. “I am asking Secretary LaHood to investigate the delays and do everything in his power to speed completion of the project,” Waxman said. The $317 million [...]
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Briefs Featured News
8-year term for Bulger girlfriend upheld

BOSTON — The longtime girlfriend of reputed gangster James “Whitey” Bulger lost her bid to reduce the eight-year prison sentence she received for helping Bulger during his 16 years as a fugitive. A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday that it found no basis to change the sentence that Catherine Greig received after she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to harbor a fugitive, identity fraud and conspiracy to commit identity fraud. The panel included retired [...]
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Crime Featured News
Tinga offers bold flavors in a familiar place

It probably came as a surprise to many locals when Renee’s Courtyard Cafe closed its doors for good a couple of months back. But then again Santa Monica’s landscape is undergoing some serious transformations. With the exception of Chez Jay, it seems like no place is safe from new development or trendier competition. Renee’s did sadly seem antiquated when pitted against some of the hot new bars and restaurants hitting the Santa Monica scene. And one eatery that exemplifies this [...]
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Featured Food Life Tour de Feast
Treating processed food like Big Tobacco

Are food companies to blame for the rise in obesity in America by creating specially formulated junk food that is addictive? According to the Feb. 20 article in the New York Times, food companies are being compared to tobacco companies. They are advertising and marketing to children, they hire food scientists and psychologists to formulate a more physically and psychologically addictive food and they target the poor and uneducated. The last statement I have a moral issue with; food companies [...]
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Featured Food The Better Option
Head in the sand

Editor: The Torrance, Calif. man’s rebuke (“Obama gets a free pass,” Letters to the Editor, May 15) to Jack Neworth’s column “Bush painted U.S. into corner,” May 3, Laughing Matters, is an example of someone whose head has been stuck in the sand and can’t — or won’t — see the obvious. Mr. Neworth’s column simply pointed out the deficiencies in the Bush administration. I should think it would be obvious to everyone. It is appalling that the barrages of [...]
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Letters Opinion
Dancing to the beat of a different drum

If you don’t have any young kids, you better go out and borrow a couple for Sunday. If they’re younger than 2, even better because you might feel a little conspicuous going by yourself to McCabe’s at the far east end of Pico Boulevard, from 11 a.m. to noon, to catch the kids’ matinee show with the Masanga Marimba Ensemble. But if you don’t, you’ll be missing something good. I caught this colorfully costumed “waka waka” large band enlivening the [...]
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A Curious City Columns Curious City Opinion
Baseball: Samohi eliminated from playoffs, 8-3

SAMOHI — Santa Monica baseball hasn’t won in the postseason since the 2008-09 season, where they defeated Knight to advance to the second round. For the past three years, the Vikings have been sent packing in the first round, a fact they hoped to fix Thursday in round one of the CIF-Southern Section Division 3 playoffs at home. But, unfortunately, Samohi’s championship dreams were dashed in an 8-3 loss to that same Knight team. Samohi starting pitcher Alex Gironda displayed [...]
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High School Sports
Cops nab 29 cell phone users in sting

FOURTH STREET — They’re everywhere, they’re dangerous and the Santa Monica Police Department is making it a priority to take them off the road. SMPD officers ran a sting operation Thursday morning targeting distracted drivers, specifically those caught talking or texting on cell phones. The operation is part of a three-month push by the Traffic Division to crack down on drivers using their cell phones without hands-free devices, conduct that became illegal in the state in 2008. Officers netted 46 [...]
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Crime Featured News Transportation
Colorado Esplanade moves forward

CITY HALL — The City Council unanimously gave the green light Tuesday to a scaled-down version of a project that aims to convert the westernmost section of Colorado Avenue into the southern gateway to the Downtown and Santa Monica Pier. The Colorado Esplanade, as it’s called, is first and foremost a street project that will make Colorado Avenue one-way between Fourth Street and Ocean Avenue to provide more space for pedestrians and bicyclists disembarking from the Exposition Light Rail line, [...]
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City Council Featured News Transportation
Crime Watch: Aggressive panhandler beats man, police say

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, May 10, at 10:40 p.m., Santa Monica police officers responded to the 100 block of Colorado Avenue regarding a report of a man who was beaten by a homeless beggar after he refused to give the man any money. Police said the alleged victim had just [...]
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Crime Featured News