City Council votes to ban smoking on Santa Monica Pier

The action comes after discarded cigarettes caused fire damage at the century-old landmark. The ban is expected to take effect this fall.

What went wrong in Mitrice Richardson case?

The Malibu sheriff's station that released the young woman needs a change in culture, a respect for humanity, not just procedures.

Long search for Mitrice Richardson comes to tragic end

Remains found in Malibu Canyon are identified as those of the woman missing for nearly a year. Sheriff's officials say there is no sign of foul play. Nor do they believe she fell to her death.

Remains found in Malibu Canyon may be those of a woman

Coroner's officials work to identify the skeletal remains and women's clothing found in a ravine. But officials won't speculate on whether they're those of Mitrice Richardson.

Wells Fargo sells Malibu home that exec allegedly used for parties

The two-story beach house fetches $14.95 million, about $6.5 million less than its original asking price. After the bank foreclosed on it, neighbors complained that a Wells Fargo executive was occupying it. She was later fired.

A private enclave in Malibu

Floor-to-ceiling sliding doors create an indoor-outdoor environment in this Michael Kovac-designed house.

Karen Pankow's Malibu estate goes for $3.5 million

The six-bedroom home includes an elevator, theater and enormous circular master bedroom.

Colorful elation and sullen disappointment follow Prop. 8 ruling

Revelers in San Francisco, West Hollywood and elsewhere hit the streets singing after a federal judge strikes down California's ban on same-sex marriage. Opponents are already working on an appeal.

Michael Jackson's Holmby Hills lease home is listed

The estate has a theater, wine cellar, tasting room and an elevator.

Festival of Chariots gets a new twist

Articulated floats are the new big thing at the 34th festival in Santa Monica and Venice celebrating a Hindu sect.

Thieves walk out of pub with prized Churchill portrait

The oil painting of Britain's venerated prime minister disappeared a few days ago from Ye Olde King's Head Pub in Santa Monica. Hazy memories make it hard for staff to pin down exactly when.

Julie Gardner buys home in Santa Monica Canyon area

The 1978 home, just three blocks from the beach, was owned by photographer Charles Brittin.

Malibu wants a safer PCH

The famous Pacific Coast Highway is the town's main street, and five fatalities so far this year have escalated local concerns.

Authorities focus on Las Vegas in search for Mitrice Richardson

L.A.-area investigators will be stationed in Nevada this weekend after receiving reports that the missing woman was seen there. She disappeared in September after being released by sheriff's deputies in Malibu. A $25,000 reward is offered.

L.A. panel votes Brentwood house is not a historic-cultural monument

Local conservancies had pushed to have the 1920 house, associated with architect John W. Byers, declared a city landmark. The decision relieves some pressure on the owners to preserve the home.

Santa Monica orders probe into police investigation of school board member

Officials call for an independent review after the police critic accuses the department of a politically motivated probe of his response to a fight between two teens at a youth center he operates.

Worker dies in cave-in at Pacific Palisades home

Dozens of firefighters and rescue crews work for three hours to try to save the victim buried under 11 feel of dirt after a trench collapses, but are unable to reach him in time.

Mitrice Richardson may have been spotted in Las Vegas

Her father and a friend report sightings. The woman, now 25, has been missing since Sept. 16, when she vanished after she was released from the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff's station late at night.

Expatriate Oaxacans find a home for their saints in Santa Monica

Groups from six villages in the southern Mexico state have been welcomed to celebrate their patron saints and house their statues at St. Anne's Church and Shrine.

L.A. to help homeless people find safe overnight parking in Venice area

The city hopes to recruit an agency to establish locations that offer security and some basic services.

Families' hopes are dashed as new Beverly Hills Unified policy ousts nonresident children from district schools

Removal of students who live outside the city can be appealed to the L.A. County Board of Education, but more than half the requests have been denied.

3 arrested in Beverly Hills stabbing

Police are investigating why the 21-year-old son of a Japanese filmmaker was killed in the upscale Trousdale Estates neighborhood Tuesday.

Lindsay Lohan is booked into jail

The actress was taken from the Beverly Hills courthouse to an L.A. County lockup in Lynwood, where she is expected to serve 13 days on a 90-day sentence for violating probation.

Santa Monica introduces 'sharrows' on 14th Street

'Sharrows,' or 'shared lane arrows,' are one of the elements of a larger bike plan that Santa Monica is developing, said a senior transportation planner.

How far east does the Westside go? Readers have plenty of answers to a knotty question

A quarter of the commenters nominate the 405 Freeway as the Westside's eastern border. But La Cienega Boulevard, L.A. history and fuzzier notions of class and way of life also get their due.

Further consideration of West L.A. project postponed to October

Despite the L.A. Planning Commission's approval of plans for Bundy Village & Medical Park, opposition from neighborhood groups and two councilmen led the developer, Westside Medical Park, to postpone the full council vote.

Culver City meeting on fatal police shooting leaves many disappointed

Despite invitations, no one from the Culver City Police Department attends. A spokesman says police officials didn't attend because of the ongoing sheriff's investigation into the April shooting.

Marilyn Monroe's former home on the market for $3.6 million

The actress lived in the Brentwood 'hacienda' — the first home she had ever owned independent of a husband — for only a brief time before she died of a sleeping pill overdose in 1962.

Judge freezes bank accounts of 3 people tied to suspect in model's killing

Prosecutors allege that weeks before Juliana Redding was slain in her Santa Monica condo, suspect Kelly Soo Park had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from one of the individuals.

Brentwood neighborhood transformed by L.A. billionaire's building project

Patrick Soon-Shiong, biotech entrepreneur and philanthropist, slowly bought up three acres in the former Westgate Acres neighborhood. Residents have mixed feelings about the ongoing construction.

Santa Monica Fourth of July Parade celebrates the national holiday and environmental advocacy.

Locals and nonresidents alike gather along Santa Monica's Main Street on Sunday to watch the parade. Heal the Bay, a nonprofit environmental organization, was the parade's grand marshal.

Former Groucho Marx home in Beverly Hills is for sale

Edward R. Murrow interviewed him in the home in the 1950s.

Home of the Week: A movie mogul palace in Beverly Hills

This 24-room Italian Mediterranean mansion was commissioned in 1929 by Harry Cohn, the cantankerous founder and president of Columbia Pictures.

Kathryn Grayson's home is for sale

The English Tudor in Santa Monica sits on a double lot and has views of the Riviera Country Club golf course.

John Edmond Jr. dies at 67; popular golf teacher at Rancho Park in West L.A.

'He had a huge following,' an observer says, and when Edmond's job was endangered in 2003, protesters helped save it. In 1962, he became the first African American pro to work at an L.A. city course.

Jean Simmons home in Santa Monica goes up for sale

The Southern Colonial-style house has four bedrooms and a guesthouse.

No joke: Barry Sobel puts his Venice condo on the market

The comedian's loft-style town house has floor-to-ceiling windows, vault ceilings and a deck with mountain and city views.

The truth is, Mark Snow wants to sell Venice home

'The X-Files' theme song composer puts his 3-bedroom Cape Cod-inspired house on the market.

Dale Rickards dies at 88; horse wrangler for movies and TV shows

The retired mounted officer for the LAPD also turned his Malibu ranch into a faux western town for location photography. He left the LAPD to work on 'Little House on the Prairie.'

PASSINGS: Evelyn Haas, Ernest Auerbach, Keith Crown, Rex Nettleford

Evelyn Haas, philanthropist, dies at 92; Ernest Auerbach, Santa Monica developer, dies at 93; Keith Crown, USC art professor, dies at 91; Rex Nettleford, Jamaican choreographer, dies at 76