Peek performance Reuters Big Brown, with jockey Kent Desormeaux checking on the rest of the field, cruised to victory yesterday at the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. Click for larger image

What's Inside Photo: Peek performance Myrmekiaphila Neilyoungi Bad hair days This day in history: 1980 Flood threat panics quake survivors in China Sen. Kennedy hospitalized in Mass. after seizure Bush pledges to forge deal for Israelis, Palestinians Mechanical failure cited in ride crash at fair More News

Since 2002, taxpayers have entrusted San Diego community college leaders with $1.5 billion to transform three campuses, modernize six adult education centers and expand academic programs.

• High-dollar projects put emphasis on future

Birgen Grueskin is barely 5 and already she can bowl a spare, play a game of tennis and send a golf ball flying. So can Zuzu, her 3-year-old sister. Even Race, their 18-month-old brother, gets into the act. No, they are not a family of sports prodigies.

Lionel Van Deerlin, the San Diego County icon who sandwiched nine terms in the House of Representatives between a long career in journalism and education, passed away early yesterday.

SACRAMENTO – As Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez reflected on his unlikely rise from a San Diego barrio to one of the state's most powerful offices, he recalled poignant, painful moments of a generation ago.

CHICAGO – In 40 years as a highly regarded cancer surgeon, Dr. Tapas K. Das Gupta had never made a mistake like this. As with any doctor, there had been occasional errors in diagnosis or judgment. But never, he said, had he opened up a patient and removed the wrong sliver of tissue, in this case a segment of the eighth rib instead of the ninth.