Nearly four years ago in this space we urged voters to elect Mike Aguirre as city attorney, while acknowledging our recommendation was “a gamble that he is wiser and more mature than in the past.” We also pointed to his potential to help solve San Diego's problems, “provided he remains focused constructively on the proper role of the city attorney and does not try to exploit the office for political self-aggrandizement.”

The failure of millions of ailing Americans to take their full regimen of prescribed drugs is a genuine public health problem. But a bill adopted by the state Senate last week to address this problem is more properly seen as a ruse for pharmaceutical companies to increase their sales. It is also one of the most direct assaults on Californians' privacy rights that we have seen in years.

So an administrator at a community college is in a dating relationship with a member of the college's board of trustees, who continued to vote on the administrator's duties and salary, and it takes a San Diego County grand jury to raise concern about conflicts of interest?

Critics of sobriety checkpoints argue that the number of drunken-driving arrests made in these operations aren't worth the cost and effort that goes into them.

• Checkpoints target responsible, social drinkers

MERCED – A commencement address should be uplifting and enlightening. Leave it to me to deliver one that was also inadvertently controversial because it touched upon a subject that some people don't feel comfortable discussing: gay marriage.