Past Stories
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30
Maybe you think that holding a groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate the construction of a freeway overpass on Cypress Avenue across the I-10 in Fontana sounds . . . I don’t know . . . kinda ridiculous?...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22
As wildfires roar across drought-parched landscape from Malibu to the Mexican border, former FEMA director Michael “You’re doin’ a heckuva job, Brownie” Brown pops up to remind us tha...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16
Today’s moment of spiritual reflection is brought to you by Andy Ma, the feng shui devotee who three years ago convinced the Moreno Valley City Council to change the street plan of a proposed ho...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
Every day being an opportunity to learn something new, I am grateful for the change of pace today when a story in the San Bernardino Sun teaches me something old—that the city once boasted a ma...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9
This week’s subpoena of a House of Representatives aide who worked closely with Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) probably has nothing to do with the recent resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales ...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12
The sexiest member of the Jurupa Unified school board? It allegedly resides in the pants of Michael Rodriguez—and, really, wouldn’t we all like to? Well, all of us except Tamara Elzig, the ass...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19
Letters to Santa Claus are published on the feature page of the Hi-Desert Star in Yucca Valley, and this admission from Joshua Tree Elementary School second-grader Tyler Johnson rings truest as we sol...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26
Gerald Ford dies in Rancho Mirage, and somehow overlooked in everybody else’s eulogies is the fact that he was the only U.S. president I ever met. That happened in September of 1991 while I was ...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, JANUARY 9
The Big Bear Airport Board finally gets back to full, five-man strength, nearly two months after one of its members died . . . in a plane crash. No, that’s not funny, even though the guy’s n...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23
Not to be snooty or anything, but Michelle Fleming has become accustomed to certain standards of living while growing up in Hesperia—she’s Miss Teen Hesperia, after all. It’s therefor...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6
Archana Ganta, a sweet and indefatigable—did I spell that right?—sixth-grader at Dartmouth Middle School, wins the Hemet Unified School District’s 30th annual spelling bee. After 40 rounds ...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20
Just when you can’t think of another way the Salton Sea could get any cooler, thousands upon thousands of fish that suddenly died last week—floating lifelessly to the surface, washing mass...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27
Everybody still assumes Eastvale smells that way because of the cows, but that’s not fair because the dairies have been moving out. What we’ve been smelling lately is the reek of elitism. ...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, MARCH 6
“Before 2003, density was a four-letter word in Fontana,” reports Colin Drukker in the most-recent online edition of the Inland Empire Business Journal (www.busjournal.com). I gotta admit, tha...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, APRIL 3
Berdoo Bear, a four-foot-tall animatronic ursine that speaks in the voice of a pre-pubescent child, is about to become the ambassador for San Bernardino tourism-and I can’t decide if it’s an insidio...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, APRIL 10
The mayor of Adelanto is arrested and charged with stealing more than $20,000 from the city’s Little League, which sounds pathetic at first, but after you think about it for awhile, sounds . . . yeah, st...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, APRIL 24
Donald Trump says “You’re hired!” to 1996 UC Riverside graduate Stefani Schaeffer, who beats out 18 other contestants and maybe a million other applicants to win Season Six of The Apprentice....
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, JULY 3
After battling pneumonia for several months, 81-year-old Nell Soto of Pomona is back at her job in Sacramento again, which means that her hometown has its representative in the California State Assembly again. I...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, MAY 8
Turns out the drink Cocaine doesn’t actually have any cocaine in it—or didn’t, to be precise, now that the Murrieta-based producers of the buzzy beverage have stopped selling it. The U.S. Food a...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, MAY 15
The famous welcome sign that stood at the entrance to Palm Springs for nearly 40 years is gone. It was removed yesterday, and I’m certain we all feel as though we’ve lost another piece of a bygone&he...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, MAY 22
Now that the Ramona Pageant is over, the people of Hemet turn to their other great romantic tragedy—Sam’s Club, the story of one town’s quest to bring a big-box, membership-only, virulently ant...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, MAY 29
We’re back in the office after our family-traditional Memorial Day Weekend backpacking trip—this year to the top of Mt. Baldy—where I think we thought a little about the military sacrifi...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, JUNE 19
The San Bernardino City Unified School Board meets in closed session to haggle over how much to pay Superintendent Arturo Delgado. Obviously, this was a touchy situation. Delgado has been superintendent since 1...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, JUNE 26
As the United States Senate debates a weird and complicated immigration reform bill—so weird that Ted Kennedy and George W. Bush are on the same side—long-ago Cuban immigrant Zoila Meyer of Apple Va...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, JULY 3
After battling pneumonia for several months, 81-year-old Nell Soto of Pomona is back at her job in Sacramento again, which means that her hometown has its representative in the California State Assembly again. I...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, JULY 31
The controversy continues over the safety procedures–or lack of them–that were used in the battle against last October’s tragic Esperanza wildfire, which claimed the lives of five firefighters...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
Certain there’s got to be a better way, we head for the mountains, vowing not to stop until we’ve topped the smog line.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8
Up on the rim of the world, the mountain people—we...
THE RUNDOWN
TUESDAY, AUGUST 14
Citing an increase in a life-threatening allergy to peanuts that may now afflict two percent of Americans, officials of the Claremont Unified School District announce that they are banning the peanut from all...
