Juan Vargas, holy man Yet another member of San Diego’s delegation to the House of Representatives has reemerged on the free international travel circuit in the wake of waning covid-19 worries. A freshly filed disclosure …

It's not quite Cupertino South, but San Diego and its environs have been invaded by a raft of Apple Inc. employees in aid of the iPhone giant's ongoing efforts to wean itself from powerful homegrown …

How secret and conflicted is San Diego government? Two fresh revelations about life at the top show just how much of a black box city hall has become since voters threw out the longtime city …

Million-dollar miss An October 20 report from San Diego city auditor Andy Hanau argues some unspecified user fees at municipal parks and other public recreational facilities are too low, and should be hiked. “Parks & …

Democrat Sara Jacobs isn't the only rich House member from San Diego County taking free trips courtesy of foreign business groups. According to an October 27 disclosure filing with the Clerk of the House, Republican …

When Dick Nixon Came to Town San Diego entrepreneur Arnholt Smith, one of Nixon’s earliest supporters, remembered a melancholy evening in the early ’60s when Nixon was holding a meeting and asked him to get …

Notes from Underground Most of the paper's staff lived in the Door commune in a Victorian House on Albatross Street that rented for $295 a month. In late 1973 they were asked to move by …

Sidewalk vids It may seem an audacious request for a mayor and council having difficulty finding their way through the trials and travails of running a big city, but according to a document posted online …

I’m Morgan, He’s Cronkite Scholars, particularly Vjaceslav Vsevolodovic Ivanov, director of the Section on Structural Typology of the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Walter Leland Cronkite Studies at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in St. …

Border body snooping Mexican border crossers afoot at inspection gates in San Ysidro, Tecate, and Nogales, Arizona, will soon be the first guinea pigs in a test of the federal government’s latest high-tech snooping technology. …

An aide to San Diego House Democratic Sara Jacobs took off on a free trip to Cyprus courtesy of the United Nations Foundation, as the controversial non-profit faced new questions regarding corporate sponsorship of its …

Talking Todd’s debacle Democratic San Diego mayor Todd Gloria’s first comic video turn on behalf of the Downtown San Diego Partnership, an economic development association that sometimes dabbles in partisan politics, went viral for all …

An ex-state Assembly Democrat who last year kicked in $1150 to help onetime colleague Todd Gloria get elected mayor is the latest player in the University of Southern California's long-running admission bribery scandals. Plagued by …

Dear Dick: The San Diego Union, Evening Tribune, and Nixon: A Romance in Letters Nixon to Copley: “The ride down and back in your spic-and-span new plane, the superb dinner which you hosted jointly with …

Faulconer’s leavings Mike Pompeo, who served as Secretary of State under President Donald Trump, is bringing his proto-presidential fundraising campaign to San Diego. “We invite you to an incredibly unique opportunity to join Secretary Mike …

Barbara Bry, who lost out to fellow Democrat Todd Gloria in her bid to become San Diego mayor last year, has filed a campaign statement with the county Registrar of Voters to run for County …

Soon-Shiong’s hat-passing scheme San Diego Union-Tribune en Español, a free weekly broadsheet, has long struggled to gain traction after its predecessors, Hoy, and for years before that Enlace, were shot down by corporate economizers. The …

A controversial House Republican from Oklahoma has toured San Diego with Democratic colleague Sara Jacobs, courtesy of a Washington-based think tank criticized by a Harvard University ethics fellow for its ties to Big Oil. According …

Hueso’s big officeholder binge With his tenure as a California state senator winding down, Democrat Ben Hueso has gone on a luxury dining spree with the dwindling cash in his Officeholder Account 2018. State filings …

The 3,786 or so inmates at California’s Donovan Correctional Facility on Otay Mesa, a half mile from the Mexico–United States border, are getting generally so-so medical care, says a new audit by the state’s Office …

Kevin’s big cash crash After a third-place finish as Gavin Newsom’s would-be replacement in last week’s recall contest, uncertain money-raising prospects loom ahead for ex-San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer. Up to now, the Point Loma …

Auditors from the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General say their snap visit to the Otay Mesa Detention Center - run by private prison contractor CoreCivic for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency …

Incompetence, not hackers, to blame? It’s been a tough year for San Diego city clerk Elizabeth Maland on the computer front. As revealed here on June 14, a legal disagreement between the clerk’s office and …

San Diego Navy labs and bases that employ so-called 3D printing technology – used to churn out everything from aircraft parts to teeth – are at high risk of hacker attacks, says a heavily redacted …

The Ed and Peter show Though it went unmentioned in last week’s coverage of his passing by the latest incarnation of the Union-Tribune, Ed Asner played various roles in San Diego politics. The Los Angeles …

San Diegans at the Renegade explain country music The Renegade does not hide behind that generic tyranny of the latest urban middle-class version of good taste. The tavern is in-your-face like Willie Nelson with his …

Gloria’s Colma casino cash When he was mayor of San Diego, Republican Kevin Faulconer was slapped with a $4000 fine by the city’s ethics commission (ultimately paid by his campaign committee) for failing to disclose …

Depending on whose ox is vaxxed It’s Democrat versus Democrat in Sacramento’s latest battle over whether to mandate vaccinations for employees, at least in the state capitol. After state Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon ordered lower …

UCSD’s moonlighting abuse It’s an open secret that some already richly paid UCSD academic staffers have been taking advantage of lax enforcement of the school’s limits on overtime, moonlighting, and other off-the-job activity to make …

The year of the big Covid-19 shutdown was San Diego city hall's most lucrative year for behind-the-scenes influence peddling. "In 2020, a total of 57 lobbying firms and 61 organization lobbyists registered a total of …

Adela’s changing of the guard When San Diego State president Adela de la Torre took charge back in August of 2018, some questioned her $441,504 salary, while others wondered how much change the campus’s first …

Allen Glick, a key figure in San Diego's bloodiest and arguably most famous Mafia hit, has died, his passing marked by a paid Union-Tribune obituary making no reference to its subject's colorful and deadly past …

Seven-figure overrun San Diego city officials have gotten a splash of cold water over their handling of last year’s showers-for-the-homeless program, called Operation Shelter to Home, in a July 21 report by City Auditor Andy …

Huell Howser, the folksy host of public television's California's Gold, who died in 2014, may be spinning in his grave, but a top North County politico wants to emulate him on YouTube, courtesy of a …

God’s Dirt “It’s not for the faint-hearted. It’s pretty high-risk because they’re very, very, very, very perishable. When the flowers are bloomed, you have to pick ’em. And you have to sell ’em. Otherwise you …

Papa Doug’s benefactor Tom Barrack, a top Donald Trump’s presidential money-raiser indicted last week for failing to register as a foreign agent, has many ties to San Diego, not the least of which is his …

Political roller coaster The San Diego Coaster Company, which runs the city-owned Giant Dipper roller coaster and related Belmont Park amusements, paid $12,000 to Sacramento-based Axiom Advisors in the first three months of 2021. The …

A Last Hurrah of sorts comes tomorrow morning, July 20, at St. Rita's Catholic Church with a funeral Mass to be presided over by San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy. Father Joe Carroll, long a key …

Jason Cabel Roe, the onetime political eyes, ears, and, some say, brain of GOP San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, is out as executive director of Michigan's Republican Party. "I resigned my position as executive director …

Faulconer’s China connection Some well-heeled members of the made-in-China clothing crowd are coming out for Republican ex-San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer’s bid to become governor. Among them is Gerard Guez, chairman of the board at …

Raised Not to Hope Too Hard Sherley Anne Williams built her career celebrating the ways black folks talked and acted. School-wise, street-smart, and quick-tongued, she reserved her deepest antipathy for those outside the African-American experience …

Tale of two mayors In the tainted annals of the Jason Hughes city hall real estate scandal, before Kevin Faulconer there was Bob Filner. Hughes, a wealthy Rancho Santa Fe resident, spread his campaign cash …

As the stock market reaches near record highs, wealthy House Democrat Sara Jacobs of San Diego unloaded a raft of personal shareholdings, some potentially controversial, per a May 28 Periodic Transaction Report filed with the …

Kemp and the Fugitive Fotomat also gave Graham a political base. One of the first beneficiaries was Jack Kemp. On May 23, 1968, the San Diego Union reported that Kemp had “joined Fotomat Corp., La …

As San Diego survivors of the pandemic head back to the beach this June, their elected representatives in Sacramento rush to hit up political donors for campaign cash, some of it controversial. Take Assembly Democrat …

Bettering and rebuilding Ex-San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer already relies on three statewide political committees to fund his hopes of becoming governor, either through this year’s recall of incumbent Gavin Newsom or 2022’s regular race …

The frenzy of electric scooters filling the streets of San Diego has begun to grow anew as the state lifts its last anti-pandemic strictures. Burgeoning too are local lobbyists lining up downtown to grease political …

Lonnie, not Ronnie, from Simi The city attorney of Simi Valley, home to the Ronald Reagan presidential library, is making a shift to distinctly more left-leaning terrain via his appointment by the San Diego County …

The intrigue surrounding the City of San Diego's abrupt switch to a new campaign finance disclosure website has deepened with the partial rejection by city officials of a request for public records that might shed …

Naval housing crunch Hours-long commutes, a painful childcare backlog, and an ever-growing lack of housing are some of the problems bedeviling San Diego-based Navy families these days, says a new report to Congress by the …