Researchers found the worst offenders were the sheltered side of Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro, Mother's Beach in Marina del Rey, Santa Monica Beach near the pier and Topanga Beach in Malibu. Sheltered or enclosed beaches showed persistent elevated levels of bacteria...Health officials have long known that microbes, mainly E. coli and enterococci bacteria found in fecal material, can reach harmful levels in ocean water. Urban runoff from city streets, farms and industries carries a witches' brew of pollutants that are concentrated to unhealthful levels around storm drains and river mouths. The new study, to be published in the forthcoming issue of the journal Water Research, adds to a growing body of evidence that health risks extend to the shore. "People haven't looked at the sand until recently," said Alexis Strauss, director of the water division for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Our urban existence yields bacteria year-round."

But it is only now becoming clear that powerful businesspeople and stars are just collateral damage in a hunt for the real target: what government lawyers see as corruption in a legal system that is suddenly being policed after decades of neglect. "They're following one thread — Pellicano — and it turns out that thread is wound deeply and deeply, through and around this entertainment law community," said John C. Coffee Jr., a Columbia Law School expert on white-collar prosecutions. "I'm not interested in the stars and divorcees, I'm interested in the fact that reputable law firms, bigger than one person and one case, were behaving systematically in an unlawful fashion. I find that almost unimaginable."