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 …

I've got Perry Mason on board! In early 1960, the man who created Perry Mason was introduced to an Imperial Beach resident named Francisco Muñoz. Erle Stanley Gardner had many friends, and he particularly liked …

Orrick, one of founding members of the Baltimore City Paper, visited San Diego in the latter 1990s to write feature stories. Excerpts from stories Orrick wrote for the Reader: San Diego's least-remembered great man – …

Buck Grant was a man of substantial means in 1893 (thanks, in large part, to that $1 million dowry from his senator father-in-law). He bought a 25-room mansion at Eighth Avenue and Ash Street.

'September 12 of 1993, when I collapsed at the bowling alley, the Vista Entertainment Center, that was the starting point," Jeff Olsen says. What started on that day was a new life for Olsen, who …

The Navy's massive nuclear homeport project on North Island has come down to two state hazardous-waste permits that are pending before the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. One permit was set to go into …

When Marguerite Henry died last month at the age of 95, a relationship that began for me more than 35 years ago came to a premature end. Henry and I met for the first and …

Rosalie Martin knows the vicissitudes of raising black boys, having seen two sons through college and graduate school and into corporate careers and now with a grandson in her care. So when her old friend …

When Diversa Corporation, a biotech company based in La Jolla, signed the first commercial prospecting agreement in a national park four months ago, Vice President Al Gore applauded it as a landmark alliance between the …

Like most politicians, Eighth District City Councilman Juan Vargas hungers for publicity, but Vargas may regret one occasion when the press gave him the attention he asked for. A little over a year ago, Vargas …

In a curious way, Stan Humphries is among the luckier victims of concussion, Schrock says. The hit he took was so hard that it knocked him out, leaving no question that he had been injured.

It takes a lot of work to drop out of the rat race if the escape route entails crossing 3000-plus miles of Pacific Ocean. Justask Ellie Goolkasian and David Hudson, most recently of Oceanside. Three …

The English-Speaking Union, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Planned Parenthood are among other groups that Rita has helped out. “I even had a big Clinton party here. I think he let us all down, don’t you?”

Roy offered to authenticate some people’s holdings, but “this way, they don’t know, and they can turn around and sell it and in all good conscience say it’s an original Wieghorst as far as they know.”

Aller traced Kate’s early palms (including those on Horton Plaza, Sixth Avenue, and Orange Avenue in Coronado) to seeds acquired by a nurseryman from a South African conservatory 40 years earlier. That would have dated them to 1892.