Tuesday was a busy—and a very sad—day. We reported extensively on two St. Monica Catholic Church parishioners who were killed by Somali pirates; go here for our full report on the incident, and here and here for reactions from the couple's family and friends.
In other unsettling news, police said a woman was in Santa Monica over the weekend.
Also on Santa Monica Patch, we published stories about U.S. Bank paying, as part of a settlement deal, to past and present tenants of a property in SM; the long-awaited trial date pertaining to a Santa Monica oil company filed against the City of Hermosa Beach in 1998; and of Tuesday's City Council meeting (more on that soon).
Finally, we wrote a report on earning the No. 3 seed in the Southern California playoffs.
As for news we didn't get to, SM-based company Demand Media announced that it's in the black after posting a million-dollar profit in the fourth quarter of last year; and the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Gov. Jerry Brown has named Sean Eskovitz, who lives here in town, to the state's five-member campaign-finance watchdog commission.
One more thing before we get started with today's SM AM Report: Many thanks to Santa Monica Patch reader Renee Rendler-Kaplan for contributing the photo you see above. If you have an early-morning pic you'd like to share, drop a note to Kurt.Orzeck@patch.com.
Now, on to today:
Weather Forecast
- mostly sunny
- high temperature: 60 degrees
- low temperature: 43 degrees
- chance of precipitation: 10 percent
- sunrise: 6:39 a.m.
- sunset: 5:45 p.m.
The Main Event
- student Carlee Jensen will compete in the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament this evening. Luckily, she won't be squaring away against Watson; rather, her competitors will be students from Rockville, Md., and Benton Harbor, Mich.
The Runner-Up
- The Samohi girls basketball team goes for its seventh straight win tonight when it plays a quarterfinals game in the . At 7 p.m., the team faces off against Long Beach Poly, which beat the Samohi squad during the regular season.
Other Happenings
- Retired armed forces officers, along with reps from the National Mutual UFO Network and UFO Magazine, will chat about an alleged flying-saucer-related incident that happened in SM in 1942. The talk, which will take place at at 9 a.m., is a promo event for the new sci-fi movie Battle: Los Angeles.
- Troubled by the recent events in Madison, Wis.? Commiserate with fellow progressives at Drinking Liberally; the political group's gathering tonight will have a Wisconsin beer-related theme. As usual, the meeting happens at 7 p.m. at Trip.
- Don Bustany—who was the co-creator of the radio show American Top 40 and, more recently, is the host of KPFK's Middle East in Focus—will speak about his advocacy for Palestinian rights at the Activist Support Circle's sixth-annual public gathering this evening. The event will be held at the at 7 p.m.
Last but Not Least
- From 6 to 8 p.m., SMC will stage the opening reception for Korean-American artist Debbie Han's new exhibit, "The Eye of Perception," at . Read more about the exhibit here.
(Go here for more events happening today.)
This Day in Santa Monica History
- On Feb. 23, 2007, the Independent Spirit Awards were held in Santa Monica. Rainn Wilson—a.k.a. Dwight from The Office—hosted the event, for which writers were allowed to contribute despite their ongoing strike. Juno, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Philip Seymour Hoffman were the big winners. On Saturday, the Independent Spirit Awards .
