Pot and trash talking La Mesa Vice Mayor Colin Parent, CEO of self-styled pro-transit nonprofit Circulate San Diego, has of late been under the microscope for soliciting $700,000 over the past five years for Circulate …

Fire in the hold A report to Congress by the United States Government Accountability Office in the wake of the July 2020 fire that devastated the USS Bonhomme Richard has found that when it comes …

Preuss’s trolley travails UCSD’s PR honchos are well-known for frequently touting the university’s charter prep school. “The Preuss School is located on the UC San Diego campus and is led by an alumna of the …

Cookies and beer Controversial Budweiser-pitching transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney is deeply rooted in San Diego’s Republican old-boy network, reports Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post. “Her grandfather, James Mulvaney Sr., who died at age 87 …

Pradeep’s rise A shadowy network of unidentified fat cats has come up with $13 million to fund the $500,000-a-year raise awarded to UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla by the University of California’s regents on …

Sempra’s choice Now that Democrat Nathan Fletcher is resigning as a San Diego County supervisor due to the region’s latest elected official sex scandal, what will become of the million dollars or so amassed from …

Getting Gil’s goat A political committee run by the chair of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Gil Cabrera, which emailed a hit piece attacking ex-Assembly Democrat Lori Saldana last year during her bid …

Saving Sara House Democrat Sara Jacobs, facing a possibly tough reelection challenge from conservative Republican Mayor Bill Wells of El Cajon, has dispatched one of her assistants to a conference at United Nations Headquarters in …

Police profiling Just as San Diego cops have begun a public relations push to install video spy cams on more city streetlights, word comes that the building formerly known as the San Diego Sports Arena, …

University City massacre done by developer family donor They are the crème de crème of San Diego business and political society, giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to both Democrats and Republicans, and in turn …

Spy cams for free? San Diego cops installed a sweeping network of streetlight video spy cams with little public awareness until we initially broke the story here on February 20, 2019. The resultant political pushback, …

Voteless in Chula Vista Following his November 2022 victory over Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, Republican real estate investor, manager, and longtime Chula Vista city council veteran John McCann took over as mayor of that city in …

Media shipwreck Can Downtown’s homeless woes be linked to softball lighting in Clairemont? So argues the non-profit Lucky Duck Foundation, which has bestowed its latest “Shipwreck” anti-homelessness award on the City of San Diego for …

Undercover car tags missing The County of San Diego’s management of its fleet of government vehicles by the Department of General Services has been in dangerous disarray, per a recently posted audit dated September 29, …

Rent-a-pol Turo, Inc., a controversial peer-to-peer car-sharing company based in San Francisco, gave $7500 on January 31 to the ballot measure committee run by termed-out state Senator Toni Atkins, who is seeking to become the …

Old San Diego redux Competition for donor contributions between San Diego non-profit reporting outlets could be set to reach unprecedented levels, judging from a gauntlet-throwing January 31 pitch for money by the website of San …

The messy business of abortion A La Jolla biotech mogul who bankrolled RU-486, the lucrative day-after abortion drug, looms large in a new expose by Mother Jones. According to the piece, “In 1986, a North …

Sunbreak’s second chance It didn’t take long for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and the New York Post to pick up on a homeless opinion piece co-authored by ex-basketball pro Bill Walton, adding to growing suspicions …

Throwing Goldstones As city hall’s controversies continue to burgeon, Democratic mayor Todd Gloria has gotten his reelection paperwork in early, in the form of a January 4 candidate intention statement filed with the city clerk’s …

Rainmaker’s run-in Fresh from a $1.8 billion March 2021 buyout by Roche of his previous employer, San Diego-based GenMark Diagnostics, the company’s chief financial officer Johnny Ek signed on in with Specific Diagnostics of Mountain …

Lorena’s loot Given that traditional local news outlets suffer financial duress and the Union-Tribune is expected to go exclusively online most days of the week, the word that ex-Assembly Democrat Lorena Gonzalez has set up …

La Jolla ear boxing A torrent of hype from high-flying La Jolla biotech investment outfits like Avalon Ventures continues apace, despite a growing stream of bad news for public investors. A sad case in point: …

Wanted: homeless lobbyist As homeless people swamp the streets of San Diego, the city’s Housing Commission is preparing to spend big money for a Sacramento lobbyist, presumably to chase a windfall of homeless-related state taxpayer …

Spy cams among us San Diego, a city that for years seemed unaware of the spy cams in its midst, is again being reminded of its ever-present network of surveillance devices. The first exposure came …

VA’s shooting suicides San Diego’s Veterans Administration Health Care system has fallen short in its efforts to deal with the growing number of loaded guns in the hands of suicidal patients, according to a newly …

Buried in bureaucracy Unnamed UCSD professors have been improperly hoarding human remains and relics of Native American tribes for their personal use, says a new state audit of the University of California’s compliance with the …

How they fought 2004 Campo fire After it crested, the fire started "running pretty hard" east along the ridgeline. "We were coming along holding it with engines," Scully says, "and we were actually being very …

Tale of two papers News that the LA Times will be shuttering its Olympic Boulevard printing plant in a little over a year has triggered an avalanche of Angeleno angst, per a November 12 account …

Hueso’s Sempra home run San Diego-based power behemoth Sempra Energy spread around free tickets to local politicos this summer for the playoff-bound Padres, according to a mandated state disclosure filing. California state Senator Ben Hueso …

Though the future of the L.A. Times and its sister San Diego Union-Tribune remains clouded by the announced closing of its longtime printing plant, the Times and owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, along with his daughter Nika, …

Arterial Restraint A paper from Wake Forest University’s Medical School, employing data on so-called Vascular Neck Restraint application by the San Diego Police Department, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, and the Royal Canadian Mounted …

Confirming years of speculation and widespread dread over the fate of the Olympic Boulevard plant that prints the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune in L.A., the struggling California newspaper empire of billionaire Patrick …

Juan vs. Rashida Kyle Bligen, a staffer for South Bay Democratic Congressman Juan Vargas, took off September 3 on a free eight-day junket to Israel, thanks to the American Israel Education Foundation, according to a …

News that East County's Sycuan gambling tribe and an Egyptian billionaire are on the verge of bankrolling a major league soccer team in San Diego has set off a big round of huzzahs on the …

Jeff Silberman develops 87 apartments in East Village for La Jolla university A stiff price is being paid for the sprawling expansion of UCSD beyond its original boundaries; taxpayers remain largely in the dark, as …

What Twitches stays in San Diego It’s been said that San Diego media protects conventions here from getting bad ink, so it was the New York Post, the Manhattan tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, that …

The fate of traditional newspapers in San Diego appears to be on the line in more ways than one, as two North County colleges shutter their print editions and a chain of weekly county papers …

Will Cox’s Axios clobber the Union-Tribune? San Diego’s news and politics landscape may get a lot more interesting with the imminent arrival of an online outfit owned and bankrolled by Atlanta, Georgia-based Cox Enterprises, owner …

More unsettling news regarding hiring at Union-Tribune owner Patrick Soon-Shiong's array of business ventures, this time on the medical side. The Buffalo News is reporting that Soon-Shiong's ImmunityBio, Inc. will lay off 38 workers on …

Endowment of color The Reston, Virginia-based American Press Institute has jumped into the middle of November’s heated ballot battle over San Diego’s free trash pickup. The non-profit announced on September 28 that it is funding …

After getting badly burned by the 101 Street building scandal, San Diego's city council is looking to hire a real estate consultant to assist the city council's independent budget analyst to avoid such embarrassing financial …

Festival unseating The Journalism and Media Studies school at San Diego State University, widely criticized for stonewalling reporters’ questions about an alleged gang rape involving its football team, is cohosting a so-called Festival of Journalism …

A performance audit covering the period from August 2021, through last month has found that the U.S. Border Patrol, besieged by growing waves of immigration, has encountered big problems keeping track of more than a …

Influence greased On September 13, the same day the San Diego City Council rubber-stamped Democratic mayor Todd Gloria’s pick to redevelop the city-owned sports arena and environs, the chosen developer filed disclosure papers revealing it …

Championed by state Senate Democrat and drunk driver Ben Hueso, a legislative waiver signed September 13 by Governor Gavin Newsom will let alcoholic beverage makers pay to promote their wares to crowds at San Diego …

UCSD’s costly EXCITE tests It was supposed to be a genius move: take advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic by offering virus testing to well-heeled private schools by the region’s biggest name in medicine. But now …

San Diego has come up significantly short against the San Francisco Bay Area regarding state funding for so-called respite family services, an August 30 report by acting California State auditor Michael Tilden says. "In fiscal …

Idyllic Spanish Village shaken by mystery stabbing “Then I heard male voices outside on the patio. I didn’t look up because I didn’t want to be noticed. The voices moved left to right. I never …

SDSU bars student fee vote A hefty hike of a “student success” fee by San Diego State University at its Imperial Valley campus has drawn scrutiny from California State University auditors, who say the school …

A wonderful life in burlesque “She told me, ‘Go over to the theater, knock on the theater door, and ask them if they need any chorus girls.’ The chorus producer came and questioned me, ‘Can …