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More sports, more city hall coverage: Prebys invests $2M in San Diego nonprofit news

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More sports, more city hall coverage: Prebys invests M in San Diego nonprofit news


Podcasts. Investigative news. Reporting about soccer, sewage, city hall and San Diego County.

These are some of the ways San Diegans will benefit from a $2 million investment in four local nonprofit news outlets and one California-wide outlet.

The newsrooms — inewsource, KPBS, NEWSWELL/Times of San Diego and Voice of San Diego — are each getting $300,000. CalMatters, which covers the state, is getting $800,000 to share data and resources with media partners in this region. The grants are split over two years.

The money comes from the Prebys Foundation, San Diego County’s largest independent private foundation, which recently announced investments in downtown real estate and arts education. The foundation also funds medical research, leadership development, and mental and physical health care access.

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Why journalism? Because it matters, and it is increasingly vulnerable, said Grant Oliphant, the foundation’s CEO.

“Journalism is important for absolutely everything we fund. You know, you can’t really understand what’s happening in America today if you’re not getting this information. You can’t understand what’s happening with cuts in medical research in San Diego if you’re not getting this information,” Oliphant said.

The foundation had identified nonprofit newsrooms as a good target for investment, given that traditional newsrooms have shrunk or consolidated. The current climate made the need even more clear, he said. The grant announcement comes at a time when attacks on journalists and independent news outlets have heightened, and as public funding for PBS and NPR are expected to face steep cuts under the Trump administration.

“If we don’t have good, independent news organizations, then there really is no one holding the government or the powerful to account, or playing the role of translating very complicated, difficult information for the rest of us to learn about and understand,” Oliphant said.

Local recipients

Instead of pouring more money into one outlet, the foundation decided it was more effective to spread it among the four local newsrooms.

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Scott Lewis, the editor and CEO of Voice of San Diego, founded in 2005 and an early innovator in nonprofit news space, said the money will help his outlet hire an investigative reporter to cover city hall, hire journalists to cover the arts and sports in a “conversational” way and to develop podcasts.

This investment shows that the foundation “realizes how important it is to make sure that journalists are able to continue to be able to tell stories about everything that’s happening, and reveal things that are sometimes uncomfortable, and explain how things work, so that people can be a part of the discussion about how we’re going to handle some of our biggest problems and challenges,” Lewis said.

Chris Jennewein, the editor and founder of Times of San Diego, which launched in 2014, said the money will help support expanded newsroom operations and fund coverage of key regional problems and topics readers are excited about, such as professional soccer. His newsroom recently added two full-time editors and five freelancers, and it has four paid interns every semester. Its content is free for readers and supported by a mix of advertisements and donations like this one, he added.

“With this extra funding we can double down on the in-depth reporting on major issues — accountability reporting. Things like the homeless issue, things like city government, what’s happening at the border, the sewage crisis. We’re going to be able to devote more coverage to all those things.”

Lorie Hearn, the editor and CEO of inewsource, which she founded in 2009, said the grant will help “amplify the importance of local news” at a time when public trust in the media has eroded.

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“Nonprofit news, like inewsource and our fellow grantees, provide a vital service to the public, especially in these times when many people can’t agree on a set of facts, let alone trust the media. We exist not for profits, but to serve the public,” she said.

“Many people these days have conditioned themselves into thinking news is free because it’s just there, on their phones. But if you have news sources that you regularly check because you can believe and rely on them, there are real journalists behind those posts that are working hard to gather and verify facts so you can believe what you read and are not misled. And those journalists deserve to be paid for that work.”

The foundation’s investment will be used to keep building inewsource’s Documenters program, which is “a unique program that trains — and pays — everyday people to report on what happens at hundreds of public meetings that aren’t covered by the media because of lack of resources. In its first year, we’ve trained more than 300 people.”

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San Diego, CA

Padres roster review: Luis Campusano

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Padres roster review: Luis Campusano





Padres roster review: Luis Campusano – San Diego Union-Tribune


















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LUIS CAMPUSANO

  • Position(s): Catcher
  • Bats / Throws: Right / Right
  • 2026 opening day age: 27
  • Height / Weight: 5-foot-10 / 232 pounds
  • How acquired: Second round of the draft in 2017 (Cross Creek HS, Ga.)
  • Contract status: Will make $900,000 after agreeing to a one-year deal to avoid arbitration; Will not be a free agent until 2029.
  • fWAR in 2025: Minus-0.4
  • Key 2025 stats: .000 AVG, .222 OBP, .000 SLG, 0 HRs, 0 RBIs, 0 runs, 6 walks, 11 strikeouts, 0 steals (10 games, 27 plate appearances)

 

STAT TO NOTE

  • 1 — The number of plate appearances for Campusano while in the majors between June 1 and June 13 and the one at-bat resulted in a weak, pinch-hit groundout against a position player (Kike Hernandez) on the mound in mop-up duty. Campusano was recalled to the majors four times in 2025 but did not get a real opportunity get settled after he went 0-for-6 with four walks and a strikeout in three straight starts as a DH in early May. Of course, hitting .227/.281/.361 with eight homers over 299 plate appearances after getting the first real chance to start in 2024 likely informed how the Padres viewed his opportunity in 2025.

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San Diego, CA

2 San Diego Eateries Named Among ‘Most Beautiful New Restaurants’ In America

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2 San Diego Eateries Named Among ‘Most Beautiful New Restaurants’ In America


SAN DIEGO, CA — Two San Diego County eateries were named among the most beautiful restaurants that opened last year in the country.

Carlsbad-based Lilo was ranked No. 4 and La Jolla-based Lucien was ranked No. 9 on Robb Report’s list of the most beautiful new restaurants in the U.S. for 2025.

Lilo, which opened in April, features a multi-course tasting menu served around a 24-seat chef’s counter.

The restaurant, co-owned by Chef Eric Bost and John Resnick, earned a Michelin star just months after opening its doors. The eatery was also the only one in San Diego to land on The New York Times list of the 50 best restaurants in America.

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Lucien, which opened in July, also offers a chef’s tasting menu, with more than a dozen courses. The 30-seat restaurant, is owned and helmed by Northern California native Chef Elijah Arizmendi, along with partners Brian Hung and Melissa Lang.

“I’m very grateful for the recognition from Robb Report,” Arizmendi told Patch. “Lucien is deeply personal to me, and the space was designed as an extension of my philosophy — one centered on intention, hospitality and the joy of sharing something meaningful to others.”

The list spotlights 21 restaurants in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and other cities across the country. View the full report here.



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Proposed fuel pipeline draws interest from investors. Can it give San Diego drivers a break?

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Proposed fuel pipeline draws interest from investors. Can it give San Diego drivers a break?


Plenty of financial and regulatory hurdles still need to be cleared, but a fuels pipeline project that may lead to lower gas prices in San Diego and Southern California has received a healthy amount of interest from other companies.

Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan have proposed building what they’ve dubbed the Western Gateway Pipeline that would use a combination of existing infrastructure plus new construction to establish a corridor for refined products that would stretch 1,300 miles from St. Louis to California.

If completed, one leg of the pipeline would be the first to deliver motor fuels into California, a state often described as a fuel island that is disconnected from refining hubs in the U.S.

The two companies recently announced the project “has received significant interest” from shippers and investors from what’s called an “open season” that wrapped up on Dec. 19 — so much so that a second round will be held this month for remaining capacity.

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“That’s a strong indicator that people would be willing to commit to put volume on that pipeline to bring it west long enough for them to be able to pay off their investment and provide a return for their investors,” said David Hackett, president of Stillwater Associates, a transportation energy consulting company in Irvine. “They won’t build this thing on spec. They’ll need commitments from shippers to do this.”

The plans for the Western Gateway Pipeline include constructing a new line from the Texas Panhandle town of Borger to Phoenix. Meanwhile, the flow on an existing pipeline that currently runs from the San Bernardino County community of Colton to Arizona would be reversed, allowing more fuel to remain in California.

The entire pipeline system would link refinery supply from the Midwest to Phoenix and California, while also providing a connection into Las Vegas.

The proposed route for the Western Gateway Pipeline, a project announced by Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan designed to bring refined products like gasoline to states such as Arizona and keep more supplies within California. (Phillips 66)

A spokesperson for Kinder Morgan told the Union-Tribune in October that there are no plans for the project to construct any new pipelines in California and the proposal “should put downward pressure” on prices at the pump.

“With no new builds in California and using pipelines currently in place, it’s an all-around win-win — good for the state and consumers,” Kinder Morgan’s director of corporate communications, Melissa D. Ruiz, said in an email.

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The second round of “open season” will include offerings of new destinations west of Colton that would allow Western Gateway shippers access to markets in Los Angeles.

Even with sufficient investor support, the project would still have to go through an extensive regulatory and permitting process that would undoubtedly receive pushback from environmental groups.

Should the pipeline get built, Hackett said it’s hard to predict what it would mean at the pump for Southern California drivers. But he said the project could ensure more fuel inventory remains inside California, thus reducing reliance on foreign imports, especially given potential political tensions in the South China Sea.



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