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Vigil held at mosque hit by hate arson (Video)

A Sunday night vigil attracted at least 100 Escondido residents to the downtown mosque that was hit by hate arson earlier that morning. For more on the attack, see story below. Benjamin Martinez posted video of the event held at Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque at 318 W. Sixth Ave. in downtown Escondido. The one-hour vigil featured support and prayers from the community on behalf of the mosque. ….


Escondido mosque scorched in ‘hate crime’

A ticking time bomb of hate went off around 3:15 a.m. Sunday as Escondido’s only mosque was torched by a suspect who left a note referring to the New Zealand mosque killings earlier this month. “During the early morning hours of March 24, 2019, the Escondido Police and Fire Communication Center received a 911 phone call from the Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque on (318 W. Sixth Ave)…


North County Congressional Town Hall killed

Much-ballyhooed and sold out within hours of announcement, the All North County Congressional Town Hall scheduled for March 19 at MiraCosta College Concert Hall, Oceanside was cancelled abruptly Friday afternoon. Rep. Duncan Hunter, (R-50th Congressional District) and Rep. Mike Levin (D-49th Congressional District) were scheduled to attend the 2-hour evening event primarily arranged by the San Diego North Economic  Development Council. Additional sponsors included the…


California Pacific Airlines says it will rise again

Like the Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” who kept on fighting despite being torn apart limb by limb, California Pacific Airlines chief Ted Vallas said Tuesday his troubled 10-year airline project would fly again “within three months.” California Pacific Airlines flew for one month last year, incurred large debts, grounded its airplane, left employees without payments, got kicked out of the…


Meet the new San Diego border barrier, just behind the old San Diego border barrier

It’s kind of like a bait-and-switch along 14 miles of San Diego border barrier, or maybe similar to the new and improved status sometimes awarded to reconstituted cereal brands. Or call it peaches, as President Trump said for all he cared in early January. You know how some people double wrap leftover food. Using previously allocated border funds, the Trump Administration was double-wrapping the border…


California Pacific Airlines takes a nose dive

It’s all over except the shouting, and lawsuits, for North County’s only airlines, or at least the 2-month version of one, as California Pacific Airlines blew up this week in the darkened skies of a reported debt of at least $6 million and apparent mismanagement. California Pacific Airlines, launched flights on Nov. 1 last year from Carlsbad’s McClellan-Palomar Airport to San Jose, only to halt service in…


Water, water everywhere; it’s a good thing

John Van Doorn, former business editor of the North County Times, managing editor of the New York Post and a New York Times editor, among other avocations, had this thing about rain. “Wet stuff,” Van Doorn would say. “If anybody around here uses the cliche of ‘wet stuff,’ for any reason, under any circumstances, they’re fired.” With that in mind, Escondido, North County and the…


Wham, bam, thank you ma’am at SM Council

It took 23 San Marcos City Council candidates over 2 1/2 hours Tuesday night at City Hall to present credentials and answer a handful of questions. It took Mayor Rebecca Jones, Vice-Mayor Sharon Jenkins and council members Randy Walton and Maria Nunez the governmental equivalent of a New York second, or about five minutes, seemingly to rubber-stamp Escondido Assistant City Manager Jay Petrek as their…


Wall, stinking ridiculous wall: Fun Facts Sheet

Wall, stinking ridiculous wall. Thanks to Donald Trump’s government shutdown and faux emergency order centered around his infantile obsession with “The Wall,” we’ve been media- and Republican-bombarded with wall talk. As the case with any hot journalism story, it’s the pleasure of The Grapevine to join the fray. This is possible due to the great reporting from inewsource, the non-profit public investigations news site based…


Hunter poll watchers slow down vote count

Reports from the San Diego Registrar of Voters Saturday said Duncan Hunter poll watchers had begun challenging virtually every ballot with a Spanish-sounding surname being counted, slowing the vote count. Vote “observers” working on behalf of Hunter’s campaign were challenging ballots based on the contention they were not from US citizens and signatures didn’t match registration forms, according to reports. Many of the pro-Hunter “volunteer…