Fire, as in the monstrous mega fires we’re seeing in Australia, has been front page news for weeks. But it is also something the Kumeyaay people have been speaking out about for years. Michael Connolly …

Mafia in San Diego before World War II (first in series of six stories) “The raids, all made with search warrants, started soon after noon and were not completed until early evening. All of the …

“How’s that cliff that fell away? I ask this train employee. I’m at the Santa Fe Depot, about to board the Coaster for Solana Beach. Feeling a touch queasy after reading about the piece of …

The results are in: San Diego is a remote work city. How do I know? Kate Lister told me so. She’s a renowned tracker of how we work, and how many of us work without …

A little bit east of Eden When I was living in Los Angeles years ago, a door-to-door solicitor pitching San Diego vacations and tours showed me a brochure of local attractions. Included on the list …

This is for you, Michael It’s Saturday night at the Comedy Palace, Kearny Mesa. “You’ve got it easy.” “Oh. Do you mean the wheelchair, or the diaper?” The audience laughs. They’re tuned in to what’s …

Aggressive stingrays The morning beach looks pristine and empty, except for the white teeth of the waves, like David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash. But something has changed. Ah, yes. At the lifeguard tower, the purple …

“Whew,” says Dan Laster. He flops into a chair at the Cafe Madrid in Coronado. “Been walking?” I ask. “Riding. Bike riding.” “Around the island?” “From Canada.” “Riding a bike from...Canada? How long did that …

You could call John Drehner a Luddite, a technophobe, or just a grumpy old man. Except he’s not grumpy. Ask him to imitate anyone from Bogart to Reagan to Trump. The guy has them nailed. …

It is 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon. Sun’s rays climb slowly up the beautiful urban forest of downtown El Cajon’s 30-foot pine trees. I meander down East Main, really because I like to see the …

Mary C. was in a bit of a hurry. She parked curbside and hurried in. Next morning she came out and found a used Social Security envelope under her driver’s side windshield wiper. Somebody had …

You might say Cayla Croft comes from an accident-prone family. “My uncle broke every bone in his body, some several times over,” she says. “His name was Evel Knievel.” Knievel was the most famous stunt …

From Toro Peak to Fonts Point, barely Their plan was to start at Toro Peak, in the Santa Rosa Mountains just north of Borrego Springs, hike along the mountainous spine over Rabbit Peak and Villager …

“It’s coming! It’s coming!” The guys by the recording equipment hunch over on the platform. “You ready? Take off your hats, everybody!” “Don’t stand too close!” You can see the twin headlights blinking oddly as …

Alexander Dafnis is up a tree. “This way?” he shouts down. “No. Now it’s tilting more,” says Alejandra, the gal looking up from the wood-decked courtyard. The camphor tree, originally from China, provides dappled shade, …

Thursday night. Latin jazz jam. Border X. He’s doing flights of fancy on his alto sax. Variations on “La Malanga.” “That’s the guy running for president,” says my friend. “Another sax-playing president!” Oh yes. Bill …

“Gotta be nice now,” says Rooster. “This guy’s about to donate $5 to the cause. Me.” He’s kidding, of course. Can’t gamble on games in bars like this. We’re in the Sportsman’s Pub, Lemon Grove, …

Butt out, Clairemont, says Linda Vista "I have a lot of respect for the Clairemont planning group and the other planning groups — they're citizens like us who are investing in their community," said Howard …

This happens at the Adams Avenue Street Fair. I’m walking past a storefront with its door and windows wide open. And twanging from inside, the sounds of a guy torturously plucking out the notes of …

It’s a Friday night at Nate’s Garden Grill. The Drought Tolerant Bluegrass Band is singing their down home version of “The House of the Rising Sun.” Bill Tall comes across from the City Farmers Nursery …

“What was that?” says my friend Mary. She’s looking up. A golden bird with huge wings cruises over us. It finally settles in a Jeffrey Pine tree down in the gully. “Chicken Hawk? Red Tail?” …

Getting aboard is an act of recklessness in itself. The bouncy gangplank is not attached to anything. You edge your way over like a tightrope walker. Men and women crisscross with paint brushes, drills, mysterious …

It’s the night before La Vuelta, on Logan Avenue. Jesse Amaro is up a ladder finishing a mural, a kind of permanent poster for the Barrio Logan festival built around low rider culture. Amaro has …

I spot two shining rivulets coursing down my friend Mary’s cheeks. Tears? She’s listening intently to the lanky Episcopalian pastor, Colin Mathewson. “Today,” the reverend says, “we welcome Constantin among us.” There’s a silence. I …

Phuoc Nguyen, a guy I was standing next to on Fifth Avenue watching the street’s Comic-Con crowds last month, might turn out to be a caped hero himself. He’s a cyber crime-fighter. “You could say …

“I worked out that in Europe we would need $300 a day for 126 days,” says Gabi Robledo. She was 16 at the time, the planner of the family. “That meant we had to save …

Where was the heart of Comic-Con 2019? Out on Fifth Avenue, where the glorious amateurs play. “I am Colonel Richard Ferrel of Her Majesty’s Coldstream Guards at your service, suh!” says this guy dressed in …

“I don’t know who I am,” says Gene Miller. “I feel like that saying: red on the outside, white on the inside.” Right now, it’s 100 degrees on the outside. We have just come from …

Roberts Ranch Opens its Gates to Hikers Thanks to the crusading efforts of Descanso cabinet-maker Duncan McFetridge, affectionately known by some as the "Robin Hood of Cleveland Forest," two inholdings (islands of private property inside …

“I was there,” says James Rowles. He’s just seen the teaser for this week’s movie release, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, called “Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to 1960s LA.” “It shows the address, the …

Friar Donaldo Rosete Garcia stands by the old brick arch that frames California’s first pepper tree. “I shall miss this place,” he says, “I came here to learn English. Now I must return to Jalisco.” …

Okay, I was eavesdropping. I could hear this prominent realtor, Aileen Oya, complaining to a friend about State Senate Bill 329, which would stop landlords rejecting prospective tenants solely because they are Section 8 or …

“‘It was a Thursday morning in January of 1911, I was 13 at the time, and that particular morning I was floating around in my rowboat looking for ghost shrimp in the Spanish Bight.’” This …

Kristin Beck saw them coming. Twenty of them. “Navy SEALs. Leather jackets. Motorcycles. I knew what this was going to be about. ‘If you don’t leave, we’re going to beat the shit out of you.’” …

Azam Ahmed, the New York Times bureau chief for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, was in town recently, after traveling the entire US-Mexico border, from Brownsville/Matamoros to San Diego/Tijuana. He talked about how it …

“I want to start my own network.” Melvin Parker reckons it was these words that won him a scholarship to study broadcasting. But that turned out to be just the beginning of a two-decade struggle …

It seems like a set-piece charity event. Wounded veterans playing wheelchair basketball against a team of Coronado City employees, and another crew from Loews’ Coronado Hotel staff. The mayor has turned up, the ex-mayor has …

You can hear him long before you see him, the low honking sounds, a block away. This is Sunday night, Avenida Revolución, TJ, crowded. Jonathan Antonio Martínez Machain sits cross-legged on the sidewalk with a …

It’s an odd feeling, driving along State Route 76, to come across this ghost settlement, a few miles west of the Pala Mission. “Be careful of snakes,” my friend Kim shouts, “and people!” I’ve persuaded …

The little boy was hanging in a pear tree, with a rope around his chest, crying. The rest of his family had ropes around their necks. They were dead. The rebel Gani Beg came down …

Right next to the harpists’ colony, you spot an odd sight. At first, among the trees, it looks like an RV park. But then you realize: there’s no RV in here. It’s all houses. Lilliputian …

I’m halfway up Mount Laguna, walking off the Sunrise Highway into a little house on the edge of the forest. Through the gate, up redwood steps, through another gate. An elderly lady appears at the …

Pablo Cantua picks up the phone. “Hey man: Want to play Antarctica? I can get you the gig.” “Antarctica? Haven’t heard of that bar.” “No man. Not a bar, the continent.” And so began the …

My friend Joe and I are standing at the edge of the water on Coronado’s Central Beach. He’s a surfer. I’m a body surfer. “So do waves come in batches?” I ask him. “Can you …

Dave Franta lives your California dream. He surfs pretty-much full time. He can, because after 29 years as a firefighter, he has retired. He’s 59, looks 39, and doesn’t seem to have a worry in …

It’s a shivery night here in Barrio Logan. I’ve just come across these kids huddling with Anishka Lee-Skorepa in an empty lot often used for markets and performances. A small crowd waits on the sidewalk. …

Steve Wampler became famous when he somehow scaled El Capitan in Yosemite even though he uses a wheelchair. On Friday September 17, 2010, with help from a support team, he became the first person with …

As much as we’d like to think so, sometimes you hear things you’d rather not. Got a bit of a shock at the Campo Santo the other day. I was walking through San Diego’s second …

Jamie Sorenson knows suicides. She’s written a book on it, Why You Tried to Kill Yourself. And in the Navy, she’s counseled thousands. But when it comes to advising Coronado bridge suicide-prevention groups, she’s surprisingly …

This is my friend Ronda’s idea. “Come on down! Sneaky Tiki Ukulele night! Fast Times! Clairemont Drive. Bring your uke!” Except in the end, flu hits her and she isn’t going to be plucking no …