The U.S. State Department continues to urge people who visit Mexico to exercise caution. The State Department's updated travel alert for Mexico says even though tens of thousands of students, business people and tourists cross the land border safely every day, violence in the country has increased.

San Diego City Council today agreed to a dozen guiding principals designed to eventually eliminate the city's ongoing structural deficit. The structural deficit is created because the city's revenues do not match its spending.

This past fall, an Afghan video journalist negotiated extraordinary access to a part of the country that has quietly reverted back to Taliban control. For close to two weeks, the journalist traveled a region that he found was now largely under control of the Taliban "shadow" government. He also tracked members of an insurgent cell working with members of Al Qaeda on a mission to sabotage a major U.S. /NATO supply route.

This episode examines issues of diversity, development and civic engagement as a single community struggles to rebuild a tattered and declining neighborhood. The story follows the long-term redevelopment of an older, deteriorating neighborhood called City Heights, often referred to as the Ellis Island of San Diego. The community has a rich mix of cultural values and people, including immigrants from Mexico and Latin America and refugees from Southeast Asia and East Africa.

San Diego County today introduced "Thrive San Diego," a program to sign up more people for food stamps.

In May 2008, a scientific team made worldwide headlines by announcing evidence of a previously unsuspected impact from space that had devastated prehistoric North America at the end of the last Ice Age. According to this controversial new claim, the extinction of more than 34 types of large prehistoric animals (or “megafauna”) was caused not by climate change or the arrival of the first human hunters, but by the massive breakup of a comet over the Great Lakes region. "NOVA" explores this provocative new theory about what killed off America’s mammoths and may have come close to extinguishing early human populations as well.

For three years, one Flickr user has been asking artists to craft would-be book covers for "Lolita." Inside, view some of the totally-safe-for-work (well, sort of) results.

A report released late last month by the Highway Loss Data Institute found California’s new hands-free law has not reduced the number of vehicular accidents.

President Obama on Monday made a last-ditch effort to salvage his administration's signature issue, unveiling a health care overhaul proposal that would extend insurance coverage to 31 million uninsured Americans and create a government body to monitor jaw-dropping rate increases.

The San Diego State men's basketball rides a four-game winning streak into Utah this week as they take on nationally-ranked Brigham Young University. Joining us on Morning Edition is North County Times sports columnist Jay Paris.

Actor and comedian John Leguizamo is workshopping his latest solo show at the La Jolla Playhouse. "Diary of a Madman" follows Leguizamo's adolescence in Queens, New York, his early acting career, including the 80's avant-garde theater scene and anecdotes from Hollywood movie sets. Leguizamo joins us to talk about his new stage work.

"Self (the remix)" is a spoken-word, hip-hop play that mixes together stories, movement and music to tell the tale of an American child of Iranian and Guatemalan immigrants growing up in California in the 1970s and 80s in the shadow of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Acclaimed playwright and performer Robert Farid Karimi, accompanied with a soundscape created by Filipino DJ D Double, tells a "remixed" autobiographical tale of a boy struggling to learn about manhood, nationhood, and neighborhood with the voices and music of his environment helping him along.

The Navy wants to increase training exercises at Naval Air Station North Island. Public hearings will be held on February 23 and 24 to review the Silver Strand Training Complex draft environmental impact study. We discuss what the new naval training complex would entail and the key findings of the environmental impact study.

It's Monday and it's raining and with all that, who couldn't use a little "chicken techno" to brighten their day?

The SD County District Attorney has issued what seems to be a threat of boycott against a sitting superior court judge, the third in five months. Why is this happening, and what is the DA's goal?

Credit cardholders, listen up: On Monday, new federal regulations will take effect, changing the relationship between you and your card issuer. The changes are part of the Credit Card Act of 2009, signed into law last May.

Chula Vista Police have begun collecting intelligence in the city related to violent crimes committed in Tijuana. Police say keeping tabs on these Tijuana ties will help them to better protect Chula Vista residents.

A San Diego State University linguist says spoken language and sign language use the brain in very much the same way.

San Diego city leaders don't yet have a plan for how they're going to fix the city's structural budget deficit. But they're starting to work toward one.