Santa Monica Ca

It's not surprising that with eight arms and inquisitive nature, the two-spotted octopus is pretty handy around its tank at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium. Still, those reporting for work Thursday at the popular beachfront attraction were caught by surprise when they were greeted by water lapping around the kelp forest display, the shark and ray tank and the rocky reef exhibit.

Just about every tourist-related business in Santa Monica sees dollar signs in Cirque du Soleil's return to a beachfront parking lot near the pier this fall. Everyone, that is, except the company that runs the Pacific Park amusement center. The 2-acre park, with a freshly renovated Ferris wheel and a roller coaster, has emerged as a major draw for the pier, city officials acknowledge. But now, it's squaring off against an even more powerful draw: Cirque du Soleil.

They show up with lunch sacks and stuffed bears, an occasional doll. On Wednesday morning, most simply walked up the sidewalk with their parents in tow to the green, wrought-iron gate. One arrived in a shiny, black Audi SUV whose driver popped out to open the huge door for his charge. After a moment, a pair of tiny feet clad in hot-pink Crocs sandals dangled out and another youngster headed into the First Presbyterian Nursery School in Santa Monica. They are preschoolers.

Under a large shade umbrella in a Santa Monica courtyard, Lucie and Estella nibbled on cherry tomatoes and greeted moviegoers at a film festival screening Sunday morning. As film festival guests go, they were unusual -- they're chickens. Even for chickens, they are exotic -- Belgian bearded d'Uccles. Lucie is a deep orange hue speckled with black and white. Estella is black and white. And as befits a turn in the spotlight at a film festival, their feathered feet gave the appearance that they were shod in elaborate pairs of Christian Louboutin shoes.

Two Santa Monica police officers approached a woman as she knelt under a bush one sunny morning near City Hall, "looking for my dead son." Within minutes, Officers Jacob Holloway and Dan Smith had learned her name and age (Gloria Breslin, 55) and phoned her 17-year-old son (alive and well in Venice), who said his mother was a longtime methamphetamine addict.

The ficus crisis in Santa Monica appears to be headed to court. For the last several months, local activists and city officials have sparred over the planned removal of 54 ficus trees along 2nd and 4th streets, part of an $8-million beautification project. On Monday, Santa Monica's Landmarks Commission voted 6 to 1 to deny landmark status to those trees -- and 99 others -- in the downtown area near Third Street Promenade.

With its storefront tributes to Southern California's surfing culture and L.A.'s hipster elite, the leafy dinosaur topiary and gleaming signs that promise multiple movies, Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade is a popular destination for tens of thousands each week. In the middle of the night, it is a destination of another sort for a smattering of the city's chronically homeless. It is those inhabitants whom social workers hoped to encounter early Monday.

Fans and friends of folk-rocker John Stewart gathered at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica on Saturday night for a moving tribute to a musician whose career spanned nearly five decades and left an enduring imprint on the American music scene. Stewart, 68, was to have performed Saturday at McCabe's -- at least his 47th appearance there, store managers said. When he died Jan.

The fight over the fate of the 54 ficus trees in Santa Monica isn't exactly over, but a judge's decision Thursday will probably lead to their removal within a few weeks. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ann I. Jones dismissed a lawsuit that sought a trial to determine whether the city could remove the ficus trees along 2nd and 4th streets in downtown Santa Monica as part of an $8-million beautification project.

Santa Monica officials on Thursday suspended a ban on high-speed jets at the city's airport until a federal court decides whether the controversial restrictions are legal. The city had planned to begin enforcing the ban Thursday morning for jets that have approach speeds of between 139 and 191 mph. They include aircraft popular with executives, such as the Gulfstream IV, Bombardier Challenger 604 and Cessna Citation X.