The first of two days of public hearings in the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry into President Donald J. Trump will begin this Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. ET, after more than a month of closed-door depositions on the subject.

As California settles into the autumn, the State has once again found itself in a fight against a growing wildfire hazard. Coming off of a record setting year of fires in 2018, California has adjusted its models and projections, and has found success in 2019. By early November in 2018, it is estimated that over 600,000 acres had burned across California, damaging and destroying infrastructure and homes without prejudice, prompting the state to increase its preparedness for the 2019 fire season.

On Oct. 4, the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] released a statement advising the public to stop consuming all Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) vaping products, due to an ongoing investigation regarding medical cases related to lung illnesses.

As of Oct. 22, 34 people have died from the mysterious, ongoing epidemic. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] has had over 1,600 cases related to severe respiratory problems reported to the nation’s health protection agency.

Campus safety speaks to more than campus-wide emergency situations or petty crimes like theft. It also includes issues like stalking, assault, and sexual battery. Among undergraduate students, 23.1 percent of females and 5.4 percent of males experience rape or sexual assault, according to the report by the American Association for Universities (AAU) “Report on Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct”, published in 2015. “Campus Sexual Violence Statistics”, a study done by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in 2016 shows that students are at the highest risk of sexual assault in the first few months of their first and second semesters in college. 

According to the American Lung Association's (ALA) 2019 State of the Air report, seven of the 10 most ozone-polluted cities are in California, with Los Angeles being the worst. However, while poor air quality has long been a staple of life in California, frequent wildfires have further degraded the air quality.

Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish global activist, took to the streets together with the Youth Climate Strike on Friday in Los Angeles City Hall. She is the prominent figure of the international movement known as Fridays For the Future, which organizes the Climate Strikes.

Despite setbacks due to the Getty Fire, SMC clubs collaborated during Sustainability Week to educate students and promote sustainable living.

House Democrats have officially opened an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump over the potential withholding of congressionally approved U.S. tax dollars for military aid to the Ukrainian government in exchange for their investigating his U.S. political opponent.

Green Party candidate and ecosocialist — ecologist and socialist — Howie Hawkins visited Santa Monica College (SMC) on Thursday, Oct. 10. He spoke to an avid audience about what his plans for the country would be if he were elected president. The facts and figures he presented substantiated his plans.

This semester, Santa Monica College (SMC) opened its brand new Student Services Center (SSC) on main campus. Modern in architecture and covered in pristine blue glass, hundreds of students walk through its sliding glass doors every day to take advantage of its multiple services. The new building is host to multiple on-campus programs, including Black Collegians, Financial Aid, and Admissions.

To end Homecoming weekend and to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Santa Monica College (SMC) being established, SMC held an official ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new Student Service Center (SSC) on Tuesday, Oct. 22.

Motes of ash from the nearby Getty fire peppered Santa Monica College (SMC) students flooding towards main campus exits on the morning of Oct. 28. Shouts of “California snow day!” circulated through the crowd, while the surrounding air grew hazy. Traffic backed up inside campus parking structures as students, faculty, and staff heeded evacuation announcements from the college.

Ernesto Rocha is an activist, organizer, motivational speaker, and UCLA graduate. Rocha is also known as “Undocubae,” which stands for Undocumented Before and After the Election. He adopted this name after the 2016 elections to state that he still had the same status, regardless of the political change. Merely three days after the election, tweets streamed in from Trump-supporters, saying, “Come and get him ICE. Obama can’t help him now.”  In spite of opposition and threats, Rocha did not keep quiet, choosing instead to give a TEDx Talk titled “I am NOT My Status: An Undocumented Immigrant’s Perspective.” 

From Oct. 14-18, Santa Monica College's (SMC) Dream Program hosted its “Undocumented Student Week of Action” for the second year, with support from a number of organizations, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). 

SMC Dream Program Counselor Sergio Belloso explained that SMC participated “in [the] Undocumented Student Week of Action to provide support, encouragement, empowerment, and resources to undocumented students and strengthen allyship for students on campus.” 

As soon as the Great ShakeOut alarm rang, students evacuated the buildings and headed out toward the main quad and parking lot of the PAC campus. This went against the direction of the announcement, which informed students and faculty to “duck, cover, and hold” before moving outside. One of the first students to exit their classroom, SMC freshman Frances Tollman said she was not given any specific instructions to follow along with the loudspeaker’s direction, and her and her fellow classmates all “walked straight out.”

On the evening of Oct. 22, SMC celebrated its 90th Anniversary signaling that it is now less than a decade until the centennial. The guests ranged from students, faculty, administration, alumni and friends of the school.

Parking officer Jonathan Rosas patrols Santa Monica College’s (SMC) parking structures every day, checking to see if each vehicle has the required valid permit to park within the designated spaces marked by white lines. Hundreds of student and staff vehicles stream in and out of the four major parking structures on campus each school day and night. Rosas's job is to identify which vehicles are in compliance with SMC's regulations and which are not.

“PARKING FOR CONFEDERATES ONLY, ALL OTHERS GO BACK NORTH,” read a placard found on the desk of Inter-Club Council (ICC) Vice Chair Gabriella Montgomery.

Santa Monica College (SMC) celebrated its first ever Indigenous People's Day event on main campus with live music and interactive dancing. Rather than observe Columbus Day, many students opted to observe Indigenous People's Day in remembrance of the cultures negatively affected by Europe's conquest of the Americas.

Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued in the Pacific Palisades after a brush fire blazed up a Palisades hillside beginning at around 11 a.m. this morning. The fire, destroying trees and affecting approximately 200 homes near the 500 block of North Palisades Drive, has burned more than 30 acres.