City Lights
There was a moment, or at least it seems like a moment now, when you could roll into the filling station as the gauge fell to a quarter, plop a $20 on the counter, and …
Marco Mitrowke, loss prevention manager for the local retail clothing chain Everything 5.99, was not what I expected. The job title “loss prevention manager” conjured images of a strapping, muscular young man wearing a T-shirt …
The stunning 50 percent plunge in Phoenix’s home prices has attracted national attention. By contrast, San Diego’s condominium market, which has seen values fall by 55 percent, has suffered in relative silence. That may be …
In January, I began teaching two philosophy classes, one in the classroom and the other online. “The thing I don’t like about online classes,” says one of my classroom students, “is that you can’t see …
It’s not even Memorial Day and people are arguing over sand on the beach. But this isn’t just any sand. The argument is over new sand, or what its supporters prefer to call “beach renourishment.” …
Many of the more than 100 vendors at Rock Paper Scissors, a consignment store on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach, have been clamoring for their money after the business stiffed them when it closed in …
Call it a riptide in the ranks of city lifeguards. A dissident group is roiling the city’s beachfront guardians with an effort to split from the San Diego Municipal Employees Association, which represents them and …
Border Patrol agent Richard Gonzales pushes a button in the shiny white Chevy Tahoe he’s driving. In response, a gate rolls open to allow entry to the no-man’s-land between the secondary fence and the old …
Should it appear in California, there might be no stopping it: citrus greening, or huanglongbing. The fearsome citrus-killing bacterium, first seen in China in the early 1900s, has spread steadily across the continents. It recently …
In 2006, Arthur Levitt Jr., former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, came under intense criticism in San Diego. At the time, Levitt was raking in $900 an hour as titular head of an …
Mike Hogan walks toward a small pile of treated sewage sludge, a moist, black, lumpy, faintly malodorous substance inside a newly expanded processing plant at Encina wastewater treatment facility in Carlsbad. “That’s what biosolids look …
On March 23, stocks were headed for a fabulous 7 percent gain. The Obama administration had just come out with a program in which private investors could buy toxic bank assets by putting up almost …
On New Year’s Eve, Howard Jackson was in court with Ellen Falcone, his ex-girlfriend and mother of his child. For more than nine years, the last three in Oceanside, the two had shared custody of …
"For us, business is good,” says Barry Lander, clerk of the bankruptcy court. “It’s a sad thing.” Indeed it is. The courts, judges, clerks, and the legal profession have been blown good business in San …
Late last year, local solar advocates were pleasantly surprised when San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders moved quickly to implement a new state law that allows cities to finance solar systems for homes and businesses. But …
All across the United States, and around the world, convention centers are vastly overbuilt. Supply exceeds demand. So municipalities that own the centers resort to price-slashing. They often lose money on their centers and have …