Only one iris grows wild naturally in San Diego County. Called the Rocky Mountain Iris or Western Blue Flag, these simple wildflowers exist in small clusters here only in the chilly Cuyamaca Mountains

As for the AIDS/TJ/dentist question, she says, “That’s not true. I know of no cases.” Naturally, she’ll say that, but if something of that nature came to light, you can bet the Union-Tribune would be all over it.

John Stevens is a driven man. Back in the late '80s in Portland, Oregon, he taught David Stevens the ways of private investigation. Now, 12 years later, his pupil is dead. Last December 23 on …

Lance Cottrell, the CEO of Anonymizer.com, a La Mesa-based Internet service that masks the identities of its users while they are on the World Wide Web, wasn't always obsessed with online privacy. In fact, the …

A city-subsidized plan to build executive jets at Montgomery Field may end up costing local taxpayers a bundle in lost revenue. Century Aerospace, a tiny Albuquerque-based outfit that has yet to build an airplane, is …

Two hundred twenty-seven years ago, a small party led by the Spanish Colonel Pedro Fages chased after army deserters from the Presidio of San Diego, trekking through a narrow declivity known as Oriflamme Canyon on …

Dad was a great sports dad, in part because he paid attention. I was a decent athlete in a town of 20,000, which meant I got occasional mentions in the paper, especially when reporters searched …

Dear Matthew Alice: A friend of mine has pointed out that at the shooting range of the San Diego Police Department all of the silhouettes the police practice shooting at are black. She maintains that …

Dearest Matt: Why can you flip over an audio cassette and use the other side, but you can't do that with a videotape? -- Reese, San Diego Reese, my friend, you can't flip over an …

Hey, Matt: Why, why, WHY is there an expiration date on sour cream? It's already sour. -- JBee, Encinitas It's already a little sour. After three weeks or so, it gets reeeeeeely sour. Then the …

"He was memorizing The Preppy Handbook. And telling people to have cracked crab for their eighth-grade birthday parties. And trying to be Sebastian White from Brideshead Revisited. Just insane kind of grandiosity at such a young age."

You don’t go to a pub to meet new people: you go to a pub to meet people you already know — in a sense, to avoid people. The pub allows us to be sociable without taking risks;

You'd think that after three decades of Bill and Hillary Clinton, the people of Arkansas would be pretty tuckered in the outrage department. But Winona Martin, the owner of two San Diego tattoo parlors, recently …

'I have a dream for Tijuana," says ex-mayor José Guadalupe Osuna Millán. We're sitting in Osuna's office on the fifth floor of a glass complex in the Rio zone of Tijuana. With its trees, plazas, …

It had to come someday: the cancellation of Silk Stalkings, the trashy sexy-girls-and-hunky-detectives series that was the pride of San Diego's taxpayer-funded motion picture bureau and ran for eight years on the USA cable network. …

The San Diego Community College District pays entry-level full-timers $3500 a month, while it pays adjuncts $35 an hour. And it pays adjuncts only for the hours they spend teaching in the classroom.

Pinyon Ridge stands just high enough on the Anza-Borrego desert rim -- and therefore gets just enough rain -- to support a sparse growth of pinyon-pine trees. Hiking along this ridge, you get expansive views …

“Right where I went, there was Old Toby lying there, fresh-eaten. When I saw what that lion had done to him, an 850- to 1000-pound animal, I felt threatened. It made me scared to death.”

Matthew Alice: I'm new to San Diego, having just moved here from England. There seems to be a fascination with pickup trucks here, but I've yet to see one carrying a load. What is the …

Matt: My son is four. He loves to earn quarters. While sorting through his cache of coins, I was trying to put together a sentimental set of one quarter from each year since my birth …

I was buying milk at the grocery the other day when I realized a habit of mine. There's always "newer" milk mixed in with the older milk, y'know? There's milk that's due to spoil a …

In the 1940s, says Patrick Keane, Aherne’s successor, St. Augustine High School “was a rinky-dink operation out there on the edge of town, and [yet] for him [Aherne], it was Cambridge and Harvard.”

Bill Cheek has been fiddling around with radio equipment and monitoring the airwaves in one way or another since the 1950s, when, as a kid, he pried open a brand-new transistor receiver, tinkered with the …

'I would hate to be the president of Tijuana tourism board." So says Andres Oppenheimer, 48, Pulitzer prize-winning Argentinian-born Latin American correspondent for the Miami Herald. He was in town recently to speak at San …

Noted Point Loma artist Robert Irwin, 70, suffered a minor catastrophe last week when one of his famed acrylic sculptures was shattered after it mysteriously fell from a wall at the Denver Art Museum. "We're …

Already, architects are experimenting with “Row House Revival," narrow unattached homes harkening Victorian urban dwellings, and “Courtyard Clusters," tiny cottages in circular 'covered wagon” formation as options for first-time buyers short on cash.

San Diego County's 135-mile portion of the 2600-mile-long Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) starts at the Mexican border near Campo, zigs and zags from one rounded ridge to another, and passes into Riverside County near the …

Matt: Would you do a favor for all us bike riders and make a list of the steepest streets in San Diego? -- A. Rider, San Diego Dear Matthew Alice: What are the steepest street …

Matt: Who was the original April Fool? Where did the day come from? -- The Weaver Family, La Mesa Nobody's positive, but best evidence says it was a Frenchman. It's 1564, and the French king …

Why is there no keg beer in Mexico? -- S.B. in Clairemont Ah but there is, my friend. Not much, but some. In a few big Mexican clubs, mostly. Especially those run by Americans. Both …

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The mesquite bushes are thick and sharp. Agent Gabriel Arias weaves up through them, climbing the steep trail ahead of me. He pulls the black pistol out of his back left jeans pocket. Click-clack! He …

'But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." -- Matthew 6:6 The …

Stoorza, Ziegaus & Metzger, that politically well-wired downtown public relations and lobbying shop, is expanding its empire once again. This time, the Republican-based firm that has handled clients such as the Union-Tribune, Susan Golding, Pete …

Have you ever driven down Interstate 8 east of Jacumba and, eyeing the immense boulder piles that rise on both sides, wondered what it would be like to clamber over them? Here's your chance. Follow …

Why go to heaven? When you consider the popular “Family Circus” image — sitting on clouds, playing harps, singing hymns, and watching the doings on earth as if they were some reality-based TV show — …

It's not getting much ink in San Diego, but last week's "Inside the Beltway" column of the Washington Times had this spicy local tidbit: "A stork tells Inside the Beltway that Shelia Lawrence, the petite, …

State investigators are looking into "irregularities" in the sale of hunting and fishing licenses in the California Department of Fish and Game's South Coast Region, which is run out of headquarters here in San Diego. …

A real estate agent had warned me, “The residents of Saint Malo are very classy people,” so I had packed a bottle of light, fruity Domaine Les Grands Groux Sancerre (1996) and a loaf of fresh bread.

You trudge ever upward with steady footfalls, steering clear of barely seen rocks and roots. Night vision rules, monochromatic and flat, supplied by the light from a three-quarter moon sinking in the west. As you …

It is the world’s busiest border crossing; I have just weaved through the gauntlet of Indian trinket vendors on the right and a phalanx of cab drivers on the left. For the hundredth time I …

'Slow down! You're not carrying animals back here!" It was the last thing Roberto Alvarado Galindo remembered yelling. The accident happened just before midnight on September 4, 1995. It bore a haunting similarity to last …

They come out of the chilly night. When they arrive in the pool of light at the top of the stairs, their dark eyes appear more startled and startling because that's all you see. Masks …

Under mysterious circumstances, Tijuana kidnap victim Georgina Romero de Crespo was released last week, a day after the Reader wrote about her monthlong disappearance, and is safe at her home in the Coronado Cays. No …

Matthew: I was lying awake the other night wondering where tails went. Almost all of the dinosaurs had tails -- tails aplenty, tails to write home about, even the fast and agile dinosaurs, for whom …

Dear Mr. Alice: I am a barista at a local coffeehouse. Among the common items one finds on our menu are flavored syrups used to enhance the various coffee drinks: vanilla, hazelnut, and so forth. …

Dear Matt: This question has puzzled me ever since I moved to Southern California. I am in my car waiting for the light to change to green. I am about 10 to 15 cars away …