When leaders of the National Trust for Historic Preservation met in San Diego in March, they were heartened by the city’s efforts to revitalize North Pork via the trust’s Main Street Center program. They also …

Eastbound in the right lane of Highway 52, the San Clemente Canyon Freeway, you can look down upon a long, slender, almost unbroken swath of natural vegetation: massive sycamores, stately live oaks, climbing vines, and …

It was March 10, 1998. A Tuesday. Early afternoon. Jim Schield and some colleagues pulled up quietly outside a block of condos in the tongue of land that hangs down into Mission Bay with Ingraham …

Can Palermo, Sicily, help save Tijuana from its crime wave? The surprising answer is maybe, even though Palermo is known as the headquarters of the Sicilian Mafia. Tijuana teachers are learning that, as in Sicily, …

With the downtown baseball stadium all tied up in knots, what's the next big municipal controversy to hit San Diego? Insiders say its charter reform. According to several reports, a group of self-appointed civic leaders, …

Dear Matt: What would happen if two Y chromosomes were fused together? If XX is female, and XY is male, what would YY be? -- SB at college You'd think that a YY baby would …

Mattaboy! My wife and I found out recently that she is pregnant, which brought to mind that old phrase, "The rabbit done died." This got me thinking about that wacky scientific/medical practice of using rabbits …

"Most of the maps in America are not readable. The writing is so small. Thomas Brothers is on the better side, but Rand McNally, for example, the printing is just too small.”

I am looking at a job application for Jack In The Box and trying to talk myself out of turning the thing in. I have enough Prozac to see me through this — it is …

February 16, 1999: Fat Tuesday. This afternoon, downtown in the Gaslamp, aren’t letting on that they spent the workday at work. They hustle across Fourth Avenue and yell excitedly at friends as police construct roadblocks …

Summer is finally arriving in upper-elevation San Diego County. At mile-high elevations you can still find lingering bursts of wildflower color amid the somber pines and bright-green black oaks. For a wide-ranging introduction to the …

Kheder "Barney" Attisha gently refuses to sell a customer a pint of vodka. "You can't buy no alcohol. You drink it and sleep in the street," he explains. "I'm so cold. I'm so tired," the …

Last week, a big marijuana bust in Chula Vista led to the arrest of ten suspects and the seizure of two tons of marijuana, estimated street value, $45 million. It made all the TV newscasts. …

I finally read Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities. I know I am a decade too late, but things don’t seem terribly different ten years later. I liked the men. I have enjoyed Wolfe’s men, …

It has an extravagant name, and it turns out it carries a very big price tag. It's the "North Embarcadero Visionary Plan." Approved by the San Diego City Council last December, the plan has been …

Dear Matt: When I took my guests from Chicago to a Padres game, they were amazed at the "honor system" in the parking lot at Qualcomm Stadium. Just hand your money to someone who crams …

Dear Matt: Here's a question I'd like to know. What's the fastest time on foot to the top of Cowles Mountain? I started hiking up this mountain a few months ago, and one man, aged …

Matt: I've been watching a lot of kids play baseball this summer, and I've been wondering why most girls throw like girls, while very few boys do. Are girls' arm muscles different? Does it have …

The crest of the Brass Rail rises into the sky, an insistent purple and flesh-pink-deco-kitsch rectangle, colors mounting colors. It might be the prow of a ship — a purple, flesh-pink, and terracotta ship, with …

Crest Canyon, an open-space park within the city limits of San Diego, helps insulate woodsy Del Mar from the upscale, bustling sprawl of Carmel Valley to the east. The canyon, rather like a shallow bowl …

Birds chirrup in the canyon where Ernesto Dominguez's car exploded in flames. a month after someone shot the 21-year-old and rolled his Oldsmobile Cutlass over a 30-foot cliff on Otay Valley Road, a new meadow …

I thought they were a myth. I didn't know wild horses, or mustangs, even existed. Turns out, 38,000 of them roam the open ranges of the 11 western states. What's more, you can buy a …

Next Monday is the date set by a state appeals court for oral arguments on activist Jerry Mailhot's lawsuit to set aside last November's vote on the downtown Padre baseball stadium and John Moores's mega …

Dear Matthew Alice: A friend from Scotland told me of the coal tits that frequented her back yard. The bird book reveals that Europe abounds in tits: blue tits, marsh tits, great tits, willow tits, …

DMA: How is it possible that I can pick up my phone and feed into someone's living room/office? This has happened several times, sometimes without even dialing, sometimes after dialing only the prefix, sometimes after …

The boy has the ball in the air, right where he wants it, just high enough so he can drop his left foot and lift his right to keep it in the air (though he …

North and east of Ramona lie several back roads offering splendid late-spring bicycle riding for those who care to venture off the car-clogged two-lane ribbon of Highway 78. Black Canyon Road is perhaps the best …

Like many merchants in downtown San Diego's East Village, former city councilman Tom Hom didn't know he was skating on such thin ice by doing business there. Hom thought he might benefit from the construction …

'Yes, we have it," says Victor Ramírez of the Botica Sherr pharmacy at Third and Constitución. "It costs $10.09 per pill." He's talking about what some say will be Viagra's first real competition, a new-generation …

San Diego City Attorney Casey Gwinn has blown a huge loophole in the city's new lobbyist reporting law, allowing the legion of influence peddlers, who often ply their trade by buying food, booze, and gifts …