October 1, 2026
October 1, 2026
A RAND study released this week concludes that Santa Monica's economy has declined more sharply since the mid-2010s than the comparison areas examined, even as citywide crime and homelessness trends are more mixed than the downtown experience alone would suggest. The report supplies a quantitative baseline for debates over commercial vacancy, visitor spending, and the spatial distribution of unsheltered homelessness. From 2015 to 2025, clothing and accessories sales fell 75...
The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner has identified the couple found dead September 26 inside a home in the 3100 block of Pico Boulevard as Nicole Rabitzsch, 47, and Hendrik Rabitzsch, 48. Santa Monica police said Hendrik Rabitzsch fatally shot his wife before taking his own life. Investigators determined the shooting occurred at about 6:42 a.m. Both died of gunshot wounds to the head, according to the medical examiner. Officers went to the residence that...
A half-cent countywide sales tax approved by Los Angeles County voters in June took effect Wednesday, Oct. 1, raising the county base rate from 9.75% to 10.25% and lifting combined rates in many cities above 11%. Measure ER, formally the Essential Services Restoration Act, passed on June 2, 2026, by 50.64% (1,013,747 yes to 987,977 no). County officials project the five-year general sales tax will generate about $1 billion a year for health services, public health, and...
The green mermaid has packed up again. The Starbucks at 1030 Wilshire Boulevard, at 11th Street closed permanently over the weekend, joining a growing list of Santa Monica coffeehouses the Seattle chain has abandoned in the last year. The last cups went out Saturday, September 26, after which the store locator, the app, and the usual weekday line of commuters all went quiet. The Wilshire shop was not a novelty kiosk. It had seating, a restroom, and years of regulars who...
LOS ANGELES - City Councilmember Nithya Raman walked into a packed Jewish Federation mayoral forum at the Skirball Cultural Center on Tuesday night and told a crowd of about 1,000 that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The word landed like a brick. Parts of the hall groaned. Raman said she understood it was "a deeply painful word" with a "historical context" that mattered "for the world, not just for the room." Then she used it anyway. She said she is "not an expert,"...
On September 30, 2026, flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv experienced a mid-air cockpit attack that Israeli officials described as an attempted hijacking or crash attempt. The co-pilot, an Omani national employed by the airline for about nine months, allegedly stabbed the captain and tried to take control of the Boeing 737. Passengers and off-duty crew intervened, the plane made a dramatic descent, and it diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. All passengers survived....
Santa Monica cops say a husband fatally shot his wife before turning the gun on himself inside their home on the 3100 block of Pico Boulevard. The Travelodge Motel is on that block. Officers were sent to the residence around 9:40 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, for a welfare check. They found two adults - a married couple - dead inside. Detectives determined the husband shot his wife, then killed himself. Investigators believe the shooting happened about 6:42 a.m. that same day,...
A 10-year-old child and two women in their 30s died on Monday morning after an overcrowded inflatable dinghy carrying 105 people ran into difficulty while attempting to cross the English Channel from northern France. French authorities said the deaths were likely caused by crushing or trampling, not drowning. Seas were calm. The 102 survivors were rescued and taken to the port of Calais. They did not reach Britain. The boat, described as a "taxi boat," departed around 5:15...
The Starbucks on Santa Monica’s Main Street will close permanently on Saturday, ending another chapter in the coffee chain’s uneasy presence along the Ocean Park commercial strip. The shop never offered what customers once expected from the brand: no tables, no couches, and no restroom. It's about, you know, managing the homeless. Store manager Christine said the company had reached the end of the experiment. “We have made the difficult decision to close this location...
LOS ANGELES - Flea-borne typhus is no longer a rare footnote in Los Angeles County. Public health officials have recorded a multi-year climb in cases, a record 220 infections in 2025, and 109 cases so far in 2026, including two localized outbreaks this year. The latest cluster, announced Sept. 22, involved seven symptomatic cases in the Wilshire Center neighborhood. Six people were hospitalized. All recovered. It was the county's second outbreak of the year after a five-case...
SANTA MONICA - An 82-year-old woman remained in critical condition Friday after she was struck by a turning vehicle Thursday evening in a marked crosswalk at 5th Street and Wilshire Boulevard, police said. The collision happened about 5:47 p.m. Thursday. According to a preliminary Santa Monica Police Department account, the woman was walking southbound in the marked crosswalk on the east side of the intersection when a vehicle making a left turn from southbound 5th Street...
A man detained hours earlier on a domestic-violence charge used remarkable flexibility to squeeze through the narrow bars of a holding cell at the Central de Plantão Policial in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, in the early hours of September 26. Security cameras recorded him first pushing his arms and head through the gap, then folding and wriggling the rest of his body until he dropped to the floor on the other side. After retrieving his shoes he walked out of the station....
She sounds kinda like Taylor Swift, but she's imaginary. Claude has sung a courtroom speech about why the Doomers are wrong about her and her ilk, comparing it to fears of the Loch Ness monster. An AI-generated music video titled "Nothing Went Foom!" has circulated widely since late September 2026, turning a long-running argument in AI safety circles into a five-minute pop track. Posted by @_brightmirror and credited as made with Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 "from the...
California's homeowners insurance market is in crisis. Carriers have restricted new business, premiums have soared, the FAIR Plan has ballooned, and too many disaster survivors still wait too long for fair payment. The next commissioner will decide whether we stabilize that market or gamble it on an untested experiment. I have known Ben Allen since he was a kid in Santa Monica. He grew up here, served on the Santa Monica-Malibu school board, and has represented this...
