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A woman waits to board a bus along Long Beach Boulevard . Photo: Michael Lozano Story by Stephanie Perez. Speaking with the riders of the Long Beach Transit system , you will find common stories . John Muller, 23-year-old bus rider, saw a rider across from him masturbating on the bus. Tyler Joscelyn, 22, confronted two men who were harassing a girl “because she was pretty” to only end up in a physical fight. And then there’s the downright weird. Rebecca Macareno, for instance, felt unsafe during a recent afternoon bus ride from her apartment to Cerritos Mall when a man chose to sit directly next to her. “He stared at me the entire bus ride even when I looked away,” she said. “He never spoke to me or touched me, but his eyes were red, and it felt like he never blinked. He could have sat anywhere on the bus, but he sat by me.” City locals, including high school and college students, rely heavily on public transportation to get around each year but many also feel uneasy and unsafe, es...

Living in San Diego is not cheap, and the never-ending search for Craigslist roommates who won’t murder you in your sleep is part of the price some of us must pay to be renters in paradise. Anyone who has lived here long enough has at least one nightmare Craigslist roommate story to tell. Here are 11 common San Diego Craigslist roommates you can expect to find rummaging through your personal things, or perhaps beating the crap out of a piñata in your yard with their co-workers at 4am on a Tuesday (true story).   The Impossibly Good-Looking Surfer He never shows up anywhere on time, but somehow manages to get out of bed at dawn every single morning to ride some waves. He doesn’t own any close-toed shoes, and when he bothers to wear a shirt at all (rare!) it’s never buttoned higher than his nipples. Thanks to him, the floors are gritty with sand and the apartment smells distinctly of wetsuit. When he’s not in the water, he’s shaping a new board at his bro’s shop or watc...

What inspired you to go abroad? I was inspired to go abroad after attending a study abroad fair at my university. I always knew studying abroad was an option, but I had always kind of looked past it, thinking it was too expensive or just not possible for me. But in my second year of college I walked through the study abroad fair and after talking to some of the representatives of different programs, I realized I needed to be a part of the experience. I had never left the United States and I knew I wanted to change that. The view while walking uphill to Acropolis in Athens, Greece Why did you choose CIEE? I chose the CIEE Global Institute Rome Open Campus because of my love for Roman history and art and my past experiences with CIEE. I was lucky enough to go abroad in January 2016 for three weeks with CIEE in Seville, Spain and after such a successful experience with the program, I chose to go abroad for four months in Rome. What was your favorite part about Rome? Where does one beg...

There comes a time for most San Diego couples when they get sick of renting and, for the Whites, it came around the 40th birthday mark . Shawna White, 40, spent countless hours researching a place she and her husband Nathan, 39, could afford that wouldn’t break the bank. In addition to getting away from the region’s explosive rent hikes , they saw a home as an investment. Eventually, the Navy couple landed in Otay Ranch on the eastern fringes of the county near the border with Mexico. They bought a new 1,504-square-foot townhouse for $378,000, around $200,000 less than what something similar would have cost them closer to downtown. “We were able to buy something new instead of an older home with issues,” she said. “This was a good buy.” More and more new homeowners are being drawn to Otay Ranch, the largest residential development in San Diego County history at 25,000 acres. After being hit hard in the housing crisis , it has reemerged as a viable option for homeownership in a cou...

Fans of best-selling crime novelist  Laura Lippman  will want to be sitting down for this announcement. Lippman’s next book, Sunburn ( William Morrow ), may come out in February 2018, but you can start reading it now. That’s right—Lippman, author of the acclaimed Tess Monaghan series , has exclusively shared the jaw-dropping cover of Sunburn for the very first time with  Parade , and she’s also giving us a sneak peek at the first few chapters. (Spoiler alert: We’re already hooked on Lippman’s newest characters, and you will be too.) When you’re done staring at the gorgeous cover, read on for an excerpt from  Sunburn . OneJune 11, 1995Belleville, Delaware It’s the sunburned shoulders that get him. Pink, peeling. The burn is two days old, he gauges. Earned on Friday, painful to the touch yesterday, today an itchy soreness that’s hard not to keep fingering, probing, as she’s doing right now in an absentminded way. The skin has started sloughing off, soon those narrow shoulders won ’t b...