Cloaked in secrecy by Girard's claim of "attorney-client privilege," none of the specific terms of the concessions regarding the Padres' Qualcomm lease were made public by the council.

If you watched any local news in late February, then you saw footage of Billy Dean McCall twice shove police chief David Bejarano's daughter on a department-store surveillance tape. It was for that attack, and …

Confronted with the issue of music piracy on the Internet, the San Diego Union-Tribune took an unequivocal stance in a May 4 editorial. "Property rights must be protected," the newspaper declared. "Legitimate companies will have …

San Diegan John Moores, who stepped down last month as chairman of the board of Peregrine Systems, the Del Mar Heights-based software outfit he controls, will soon be departing many of the other corporate boards …

Dear Matt A.: There are these large cylinders on top of the first hill north of Mira Mesa along the I-15. I think that the same type of twin cylinders exist (because I've climbed up …

‘Little Debbie doesn’t like to give interviews,” said her father, Ellsworth McKee, board chairman and chief administrative officer of McKee Foods Corporation. When I reached Mr. McKee at his Chattanooga home, he was evasive about …

Just below one of San Diego County's few campgrounds dull enough to be insipid lies one of the more agreeably wild stretches of beach to be found in Southern California. Coastward of the 300 tent …

Time was when a tourist driving through Tijuana might have thought this a metropolis of auto-upholstery shops. To a visitor on foot, the ubiquity of curio stores suggested the city was about purses and blankets. …

Two of Mandella’s horses tested positive for scopolamine, Mandella successfully appealed to an administrative judge and claimed the drug was in the animals' systems because they had eaten jimson weed with their feed.

Hemet remains stuck in the ’50s where I grew up, Pleasantville ferried to the new millennium. Driving home from teaching at San Diego State, I am charmed into a nostalgic trance by the Everly Brothers.

Matmail: What is that UFO-looking thing behind the Design Center building at Fifth and Brookes in Hillcrest? -- Rachel, UCSD The green spaceship in the canyon was one man's dream of the mobile home of …

Heymatt: I can't help noticing, as I sit here in my cubicle, endlessly shuffling papers and marking up documents with my yellow, pink, and blue highlighters, that the new marks are much brighter than the …

Mattster: What would you see if you were inside a giant mirrored sphere? -- Dizzy, the net It depends on where you're standing, but if your eyes are dead center in the sphere, you'd see …

Eight thousand feet above the monotonous, flat grid of San Gabriel Valley streets, Mount Islip pokes its head above the sticky, warm marine layer and basks in cooler, drier, pine-scented air. The view from the …

Here’s the idea: You get a bunch of writers together and you take them someplace cool, someplace evocative — the Santa Fe Depot, say — and you tell them, “Go ahead, write something.” This could …

"People jump out of the cab to keep from paying. I had one Mexican guy jump out of my cab while it was still moving. Some day one of these people is going to get hurt.”

The lobby of the Central Jail on Front Street is like a ticket office. Clerks behind glass windows service visitors, bail bondsmen, and attorneys. The mood is low-key and lazy until the elevator doors open …

How much does it cost state taxpayers to lure administrators to UCSD's La Jolla hilltop campus by the sea? Plenty. Latest example is Edward W. Holmes, new vice-chancellor of health sciences and dean of the …

Bruschi invested in mines in Baja California, a ranch in Otay Mesa, and an interest in the Hotel L’Europe on Fifth Avenue and H Street. When the Ginocchio Company opened its store, in 1876, Bruschi managed it.

All winter I have struggled to hold the bees in the hive of my head. Because I had no time to write about them, they threatened to rise up as a single blonde body and …

Matt: In hotels and motels, why does the bottom sheet only extend to the end of the mattress? It isn't tucked in, and when you are tall and/or a restless sleeper, the bottom sheet gets …

Lord Matt of Knowledge: There are ongoing rumors suggesting that [British] Prince Harry has issues. Or, more precisely, he isn't Charles's issue. Does anyone concerned with the succession to the throne see anything in these …

Sycamore Canyon Open-Space Preserve sprawls across more than 2000 acres of granite-ribbed mountains southeast of Poway. About ten miles of old ranch roads, fire roads, and newer trails presently lace through the area. For a …

The tenor saxophone player is missing. While someone tries to call him on a cell phone, the horn players clear their throats and the other ensemble members make the familiar, cacophonous sounds of musical instruments …

In 1668 the Marquis de Montespan was seen approaching Versailles in a coach draped in black silk with a pair of stag’s horns wobbling on top. The Marquis no doubt chose stag’s horns because they …

Micael Jackson is in a good mood. It's a muggy Saturday afternoon downtown, and he's just been released from jail at Front and C Street after six months inside. "I was in for narcotics. My …

A team of San Diego artists are among 11 finalists to win one of four $300,000 public-art contracts in Denver. The site of the projects is the new downtown Denver football stadium slated to open …

SDG&E workers may be taking the brunt of local anger over utility-rate hikes, but executives of Sempra Energy, the outfit that owns SDG&E, are raking in big bucks. According to public disclosures, the Sempra chairman …

In an article for Mother Earth, Alexander Berkman said troopers reminded him of Russian Cossacks. The term “Cossack” became popular with Wobblies, “who used it frequently to describe the policemen they confronted.”

Upcoast from Malibu, in the serene western half of the Santa Monica Mountains, Leo Carrillo State Beach encompasses a bit more than a mile of ocean frontage plus 2000 acres of interior hillsides and canyons. …

“The Port Authority took away all the good anchorages and they put us out here because they knew we wouldn’t last, but it’s the furthest place from anything too. They couldn’t put it anyplace else.”

He rode his horse south, from San Diego around the southern shore of the bay. “The beach bordering the Pacific Ocean offered him a smooth path northward,” and he rode along a “crescent-shaped peninsula.”

When she walks along Pacific Beach in the warm evenings of summer, Renee Lowe turns heads. The 38-year-old has long brown hair and the good looks that once made her a teen model, but it …

Dear Matt: What's the real deal with divining rods? I've used a couple of wire coat hangers and straightened them out thus [clever illustration included], and I have found water pipes. But I'm puzzled as …

Hey, Matt: I commute to work by bike down Kearny Villa Road, and between the 163 overpass and the 52 overpass are two markers, one on each side of the road. The west side marker …

Mr. Alice: This puzzle has been driving me crazy. So there are three guys in a hotel and they order a pizza. It costs $30. Each guy chips in $10. But when the pizza delivery …

Tucked against a rocky, sunburnt hillside in the San Diego River valley outside Lakeside, El Monte Regional Park is a shock to the eye on a bright summer day. The park spreads across 98 flat …

“They call me Chicago Pete. I’ve been in town for about six, seven months.” The man speaking is standing on the corner of Fifth and Market on a Friday night. He is dressed like a …