Loaded La Jollans boost a downtown museum.

When University of California president and San Diego favorite son Richard C. Atkinson announced his planned retirement last week at the age of 73, saying he was returning to La Jolla, his hometown Union-Tribune provided …

Once again, the first Tuesday of November turned out to be a dismal day for the Union-Tribune's high-profile editorial endorsements. The paper's choice for district attorney, Paul Pfingst, was beaten in an upset by Judge …

A member of the Spanish Village art colony in Balboa Park is making New York tabloid headlines. Thirty-six-year-old ceramic artist Lisa Karmazin -- who produces "colorful and whimsical cups, saucers, trays, and wall sculptures," according …

In the final weeks before next Tuesday's election, downtown real estate mogul Malin Burnham has been pumping big money into the Lincoln Club of San Diego County, a Republican campaign committee that, according to its …

It was the biggest mystery of the most controversial and expensive schoolboard election in San Diego history. Why would two obscure East Coast liberal foundations unite with some of the most conservative and wealthiest of …

While Union-Tribune editorial page editor Robert Kittle is busy on KPBS radio and Cox Cable, boosting the downtown business establishment's candidates for San Diego school board and flaying their foes, reporters for the newspaper have …

As election time nears, campaign contributions continue to pour in from the rich and locally famous. In the race for district attorney, Joseph Wambaugh -- the ex-cop and crime novelist from Point Loma who, along …

The strange case of Kotaro Nakamura got a bit stranger last week with the latest denial by the San Diego Unified School District of a reporter's requests for records outlining Nakamura's company's financial dealings with …

By all accounts, Archie Moore was more or less an old-fashioned kind of guy. The "Old Mongoose," who died on December 9, 1998, just short of his 85th birthday, was the world's light heavyweight champion …

No matter how troubled or dysfunctional its educational policy may seem, the San Diego Unified School District is still big business. With an annual operating budget of just over a billion dollars and another $1.5 …

This hasn't been the best of years for San Diego State president Stephen Weber. Budget Group, the big Florida-based rental-car outfit on whose board he sits, was forced into bankruptcy, and the company's stock fell …

Are you a business fat cat who wants to get up close and personal with the military brass and hardware at the upcoming Miramar Marine air show? How about purchasing a "Corporate Hospitality Chalet" right …

Padres owner John Moores, who raised a stink when he held a January fundraiser at his posh Rancho Santa Fe estate on behalf of fellow UC regent Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action "Racial Privacy Initiative," has …

On January 18 of this year, Joanne Branch, a "contract specialist" with the San Diego Unified School District, sent architect Ralph Roesling a letter full of good news. His firm was being retained to do …

As school-board elections approach, San Diego Unified chief Alan Bersin continues to haul out the big guns to tell his side of the highly contentious story. Word has leaked from district headquarters on Normal Street …

Insiders say last week's carefully orchestrated release of test-score numbers by the San Diego Unified School District shows just how closely district superintendent Alan Bersin intends to work with Union-Tribune editors in the weeks leading …

A bill by San Diego assemblywoman Christine Kehoe to allow the San Diego Unified School District and the city to tear down hundreds of houses in City Heights is facing tougher than expected sledding in …

When then–Superior Court judge Dick Murphy was running for mayor in the fall of 2000, he made ethics his number-one campaign theme. It seemed like the perfect antidote to the Valerie Stallings influence-buying scandal and …

When it was announced last month that America's richest community, measured by average per capita income, was Rancho Santa Fe, a flurry of stories appeared in the national media, most of which spun the woodsy …

Around San Diego's city hall, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's been almost 17 years since Mike Turk, a Pacific Beach builder and business partner of then-mayor Roger Hedgecock, testified …

As the scandal on Wall Street spreads, both Democrats and Republicans are trying to make political hay. But, in San Diego at least, it seems that some prominent Democrats have been the biggest players in …

With San Diego City Council elections coming up in the fall, city officials continue in secret settlement negotiations with two billboard companies that have filed a federal lawsuit to void a municipal ordinance restricting liquor …

These days it's called Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center, in honor of a $20 million pledge that Padres owner and UC regent Moores made at the height of his power and influence in …

It was the biggest media event of the new year, and Elena Cristiano was in her element. A crowd of more than a hundred reporters, photographers, politicos, and sports fans, along with a bank of …

For years, uppity La Jollans have talked about divorcing themselves from the hoi polloi of San Diego by seceding from the city and creating their own. Now the Orange County Register has done it for …

Before 1995, when the City of San Diego decided to expand what was then called Jack Murphy Stadium and give the Chargers their infamous ticket guarantee, one of the most popular plums of local political …

The county's data-processing program has gotten a new chief executive who is just as controversial as the trouble-plagued operation he's been named to run. Denny Piper abruptly resigned his position as Houston's chief information officer …

San Diego and Florida have sunshine, cigars, con men, and drug runners in common. Now both can claim a couple of money-hungry politicos. Republican governor Jeb Bush and his probable Democratic rival Janet Reno are …

Just before the San Diego City Council narrowly voted to raise water rates during a bitter debate in April, Larry Gardner, the city's water utilities director, suffered a heart attack. He's now convalescing at home …

As Ronald Reagan might have said, there they go again. Seven years after then-San Diego mayor Susan Golding proclaimed on May 15, 1995, that she had engineered an ironclad contract to keep the Chargers in …

When Amr Ibrahim Elgindy, the financial advisor from Encinitas, was busted by the feds last week for allegedly conspiring with crooked FBI agents to fix stock prices and extort money from companies, District Attorney Paul …

Honchos on the so-called executive committee of the San Diego Unified School District have authorized use of dogs to sniff out drugs, weapons, and other contraband at inner-city Hoover High, and the practice may soon …

As the controversy over Peregrine Systems, the Del Mar Heights company closely tied to Padres owner John Moores, exploded last week, both the company and representatives of Moores were quick to deny that the software …

With Super Bowl XXXVII only about 40 weeks away, San Diego city officials are scrambling to figure out how to stage the game the way they said they would three years ago. As time runs …

San Diego's Kelsey-Jenney business college, the city's oldest institution of higher education, founded in 1887, has been placed on "warning" probation by its regional accreditor, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, reports the Chronicle …

The Reverend Dr. Ted McIlvenna settles his massive frame into a large, overstuffed couch and invites a visitor to join him for a discussion about nude dancing, morality, the First Amendment, and political corruption in …

In most big cities, word that a Major League Baseball team had missed the first $45.8 million payment to a "public-private" partnership with city hall to build a $450 million-plus downtown stadium would merit screaming …

Members of the San Diego Unified school board are looking forward to a big week of freebies. "Jack Webb at the Union-Tribune would like to invite you and a guest to the Maya Angelou performance …

That pricey new four-year contract awarded to San Diego Unified schools chief Alan Bersin last week turns out to be only the tip of the district's administrative-salary iceberg. At least 12 top-ranking bureaucrats at district …

San Diego city councilman George Stevens says he knows the reason for his loss to Vince Hall in March's Democratic state-assembly primary: satan did it. "I don't recall ever going through a campaign where the …

Around San Diego's city hall, it's hard to argue with an institution called the "Pro Kids Golf Academy and Learning Center." And it's even harder to argue with Ernie Wright, a former Charger who says …

Union-Tribune publisher David Copley, 50, who is also president and chief executive officer of the paper's holding company, his mother's Copley Press, has been arrested for driving under the influence and is set for arraignment …

The sponsor of that big billboard on State Highway 94 promoting the Fourth District city council candidacy of Charles Lewis still hasn't filed a legally required campaign-disclosure statement with the San Diego city clerk's office, …

The saga began last month, when the Orange County Register reported that Vice President Dick Cheney would arrive in San Diego County on the third week of February for "unspecified" fundraising events. Then on Monday, …

Word from inside the Union-Tribune is that the paper is planning a big push for a new city-financed stadium for the Chargers. Sports columnist Nick Canepa fired the first shot last month, warning that the …

The Union-Tribune was forced to halt its presses last week when editors discovered that a four-letter word had made its way past page-proofers and into the paper's weekly "Night & Day" entertainment section. According to …

A post-September 11 foreign-spy technology crackdown by federal authorities has netted yet another San Diego company with ties to South Korea. Neopoint, a Rancho Bernardo-based maker of so-called smart cell phones, has been slapped with …

The collapse of Enron is having an impact on San Diego's own TrizecHahn USA Corp. "Enron is our fourth largest tenant," according to a disclosure report filed by the office building owner last month, "occupying …

An ex-quarterback with the Chargers has gone to bat for an old friend in Kansas City. John Hadl, a former All-American at the University of Kansas, has written a letter to a federal court judge …