Fisherman love catching big fish. But when the catch is almost as long as the vessel you’re in and has extremely sharp teeth the day makes for one heck of a story.

On Thursday, July 23, just before 7 a.m., Austin Lorber and his fishing partner David Le were on kayaks about a mile and a half off of La Jolla. David threw out a mackerel and felt something take the bait.

“As soon as he hooked up we noticed a fish jump way out of the water, probably five or six feet,” said Lorber. “I looked back thinking it was a dorado because those are typically what will jump like that that we get around here. And then … I saw a shark. Makos around here are the only ones that will jump like that.”

The mako, typically an open-water swimmer, likely followed the abundance of bait and game fish in San Diego waters close to shore. Once David saw what it was he thought about just letting it go.

“He was kind of hesitant to bring it in but then I let him know that they’re great eating,” Lorber said. “Yes, they’re dangerous, but I was going to take care of the gaffing, which is really the dangerous part.”

Austin had his GoPro camera rolling to capture what happened next.

[[318743271, C]]

“It was already going for the kayak and I was lucky enough to sink the gaff right as it was about to bite the kayak," he said. "I just had to hold on to it for about 45 minutes as it dragged me around. I didn’t want to get my hand anywhere near that head until it had been tired for at least a half hour.”

After fishing for a few more hours for the yellowtail they had originally targeted, the shark eventually tired itself enough for Lorber, with the help of another kayak angler, to get it in to his fish hold and paddle it back to shore.

Representatives from the Department of Fish and Wildlife were at the landing. The 5-foot-long mako easily outran the 60-pound scale that was available so they estimated the fish to weigh around 100 pounds. Lorber, 31, has been fishing since he was a child, but this experience was something he’ll never forget.

“That was a bucket list moment, for sure. That’s number one for me easily,” he said.

The catch has certainly not gone to waste. As of Monday night he said he only had about 10 pounds of mako steaks left.

“Those are the best steaks in the ocean,” said Lorber, “those and thresher shark; beautiful, beautiful steaks.”

Lorber knows a thing or two about food. He and his brothers own Fratelli’s Italian Kitchen in San Marcos and Oceanside. Austin says he’s looking in to obtaining a commercial fishing license so he can serve his fresh catch at the restaurant.

[[318727741,C]]

While the outlook for a strong El Niño this winter looks good, one San Diego expert said it would do little to ease the drought.

Marty Ralph, a climatologist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said San Diego County’s lakes and reservoirs are more than a year behind in terms of water levels, so it would take an extremely wet winter to get back on track.

He also said the effects of an El Niño event are unpredictable and precarious, pointing out past El Niños where California actually received lower-than-average rainfall.

“It’s still a bit premature to know if we’re going to have strong El Niño conditions during our wet season this winter, but the probabilities are increasing toward 80 percent or something,” Ralph said.

Ralph also said the effects of El Niño are often felt stronger in Southern California versus Northern California, though the northern part of the state is where most of our water supply is stored.

“El Niños, strong ones in particular, can produce substantially more precipitation, especially in Southern California – something like 30 percent above normal,” he said.

Ralph, who has studied California weather for 25 years, said this summer does resemble the lead up to the strong 1997-1998 storm when heavy rains flooded our region.

But he believes it’s premature to say we’re in store for another winter like that one.

“Wishcasting doesn’t mean it won’t happen. It’s just not necessarily founded on strong quantitative basis yet,” he said.

A South Bay woman has waited more than two years for thousands of dollars in overtime pay owed to her by a former employer.

Katie Bardo told NBC 7 Investigates she desperately needs the money and she’s extremely frustrated that the state agency whose job it is to protect workers hasn’t done more to help her collect from the company.

“I’m angry they’re in business,” Bardo said. “I’m angry that they’re operating. I’m angry that they stopped making their payments.”

Bardo said she helped manage Pacific Coast Auto Detail, a car wash and detailing shop near Golden Hill, from 2009 to 2012. According to her, it was a stressful job with long hours, for which she was paid a modest salary.

Like many lower-paid salaried workers in California, Bardo did not know she was also entitled to overtime when she worked more than 40 hours a week.

NBC 7 Investigates confirmed Bardo is one of thousands of California workers  many of them here in San Diego — who are victims of “wage theft” by employers. Many of those victims are unable to collect all — or even some — of the money owed them, even when the California Labor Commissioner obtains a court-ordered judgment against the employer.

Click here to see the complete investigation.

Bardo’s ordeal started in August 2012, when a state labor inspector made a surprise visit to Pacific Coast Auto Detail, which was then located in the East Village. Bardo said the inspector asked her boss if Bardo worked more than 40 hours a week.

“And he said, ‘no,’” Bardo recalled. “But I did. I worked tons of overtime.”

That investigation resulted in fines and penalties of more than $32,000 against Pacific Coast Auto Detail.

The company denied the allegations and appealed the fines and penalties, but Bardo had evidence of her overtime work in the form of cellphone records of calls she made to her boyfriend on her way home from her job.

“I called him every day and told him, ‘Honey, I’m headed home.' And it would be 5:30 p.m., or it would be 6 p.m., and I used my cellphone records to reconstruct the (overtime).”

Bardo also had receipts with the time and date from a gas station near the detail shop. She testified she stopped there for gas on her way home to Imperial Beach.

After hearing testimony and reviewing evidence at the April 2013 appeals hearing, the state hearing officer ruled “Bardo’s reconstruction of her overtime hours worked… is credible.”

The hearing officer awarded Bardo $2,408 in overtime. Another former employee was awarded $231. The hearing officer also ordered Pacific Coast Auto Detail to pay an additional $14,000 in fines for wage law violations. (That total penalty of $16,636 was a reduction from the $32,000 penalty imposed by the inspector in 2012.)

“I think I almost cried,” Bardo said. “You don’t feel like you have a chance. So to win that is a big victory, even if it’s not a lot of money.”

She said state labor officials told her they would collect the monies due her from her former employer (she quit her job after the 2012 inspection) and forward the payments to her.

But months passed, and the money never arrived. Pacific Coast Detail remained open for business and Bardo hadn’t been paid a dime.

“It was really frustrating,” she recalled. “It was beyond frustrating.”

Finally, last November — 18 months after she quit her job and four years after she started working that unpaid overtime — Bardot got a letter from the state.

“And I remember, we were at the post office, and my boyfriend comes out with the envelope in his hand, and he knows it’s from the (state) controller,” Bardo said. “And he’s shaking it, and then I open it and see $18. Eighteen dollars! Where’d they even get $18, of all the things to send me?”

NBC 7 Investigates has learned $18 is more than most wage-theft victims ever recover. We analyzed five years of wage claim data generated by the state labor commissioner, and the numbers are staggering: California workers are owed more than $250 million for hours worked but never paid by their employers.

San Diego-area workers are owed at least $820,000.

“We were shocked to discover that just 17 percent of those folks who received final judgments for unpaid wages collected even a dime,” said Tina Koonse, director of the UCLA Labor Center.

NBC 7 Investigates has also learned that the state labor commissioner does not track whether companies comply with those judgments, and no state agency enforces them. Workers must sometimes file lawsuits in civil court to try to collect wages owed them. Those lawsuits cost money, with no certainty of success.

“How could someone who doesn’t speak the English language as well as I do find out who to contact or write a letter and expect to get an answer?” Bardo said.

NBC 7 Investigates has learned that thousands of Spanish-speaking wage-theft victims, many whom work as kitchen staff, janitors and constructions workers, are targets of illegal wage practices.

Language is a significant barrier for San Diego wage-theft victims like David Sanchez and his wife, Consuelo Montesinos, who worked 10 or more hours a day cleaning local restaurants with only a vague promise of a future raise.

Like Bardo, they won a wage theft judgment against their employer. But that was six years ago, and they haven’t recovered a penny.

“They should pay us what they owe us,” Montesinos told NBC 7 Investigates. “We just want what they stole from us.”

A few weeks after NBC 7 Investigates began calling the state and Pacific Coast Auto Detail about the money owed to Bardo, she received a $1,400 payment from the state controller. She is still owned almost $1,000.

Pacific Coast Auto Detail is still open for business. Company managers and the attorney who represented them at the state appeals hearing have not responded to our repeated request for comment.

The state Department of Industrial Relations has also failed to answer our questions or explain what steps it has taken to help Bardo collect the monies due her. The state agency also would not reveal what — if any — actions have been taken against Pacific Coast Auto Detail for its failure to pay the full amount owned Bardo.

“It’s money that I earned and worked for,” Bardo said. “I’ve already done the work for this money and done the work to go after the company. And I’m still working to actually get a check from someone.”

California state legislators are paying attention to these stories and the cases of wage theft documented by NBC 7 Investigates and NBC Bay Area.

State Senator Kevin de Leon, who grew up in Logan Heights where he says he personally knew wage-theft victims, is sponsoring legislation that could help the labor commissioner crack down on companies that don’t pay overtime or minimum wage and sometimes force workers to skip meals and breaks.

De Leon’s proposed law would hold employers individually liable for those violations and require some companies to post a bond to stay in business. If a company violates wage laws, proceeds from the bond could help pay the victims.

“We’re going to make sure we do everything possible to get these stolen wages back in their pockets so they can feed their families,” de Leon told NBC 7 Investigates. “We want to empower the labor commissioner to go after the bad actors.”

A former Ultimate Fighting Champion fighter is facing multiple criminal charges, including possession of an assault weapon, after an incident in a downtown San Diego apartment building involving his estranged wife.

Christian "The Crippler" Leben was arrested earlier this month near a local bar during his 35th birthday celebration. He's facing 11 counts of violating a court order, two counts of criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor charge for vandalism and felony possession of an assault weapon.

The charges stem from a June 8 incident in the 400-block of 10th Avenue where San Diego police responded to reports of a man refusing to leave his ex-wife's apartment.

In a request for a restraining order, Leben's estranged wife, Kaleena, wrote she awoke around 3 a.m. on June 8 to banging and kicking at her door. Around 4:30 a.m. she woke up to find Leben trying to scale the outside wall of her downtown San Diego high rise to access her apartment via the balcony.

Terrified, she says she ran to a neighbor's apartment and returned to her home the next morning.

A San Diego police report describes finding a "loaded Ruger SR45 .45 caliber handgun" on Kaleena's bed immediately after the incident.

Kaleena then wrote in her request for a restraining order, made permanent by a judge, that her building's management alerted her to finding an M16 assault rifle hidden in a maintenance closet a few floors from her apartment.

The day before the alleged intrusion, Kaleena wrote that she received a text message from her estranged husband, stating, "Hey love of my life you broke another promise you told me you were going to call me back I'm going to start by murdering your father at social couple guys finally turn now."

Reached by telephone Monday, Christian said it was his wife who was physically and emotionally abusive toward him.

"The fact of the matter was I was trying to move out," Leben said. "The stress of law school was getting to her and she was physically and emotionally abusive to me." 

He told NBC 7 that his wife hit him in the face, threw things at him and grabbed his throat over their three-year marriage. Leben said he gave Kaleena an ultimatum, telling her to go to an anger management course.

"Everyone in the world, everyone knew she was beating me," he said. He told NBC 7 the assault rifle, for which he is being charged, belongs to his now estranged wife.

But Kaleena's restraining order paints a different picture of their marriage, describing numerous incidents of physical abuse over the couple's relationship. It includes a picture of Kaleena's scarred leg where she says Leben cut her with a knife. Leben said she cut her own leg and used her knowledge of the system as a law student to manipulate the courts.

On a separate incident in 2011, she describes being taken via an ambulance to the ER for staples in her head after Leben allegedly pushed her into a wall, splitting her head open.

According to the ex-UFC fighter, Kaleena was drunk and high that night, so he said he was trying to prevent her from getting behind the wheel while intoxicated. He said he was holding her and she flung her head back against the wall, creating the gash.

Kaleena accuses Leben of suffering from mental illness, of being addicted to opiates, OxyContin and alcohol and of using cocaine and steroids.

Leben said everything in the restraining order is a "flat out lie." 

His attorney Michael Earle stressed the June 8 incident is not a domestic violence case.

"There was absolutely no violence involved with it," he said. "I know there's a lot of rumors going around that it was a DV case. He was never arrested for DV. He was never charged with any kind of domestic violence or any assault. She never claimed he put his hands on her at any time."

Leben's next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 3.

Two boys who authorities say were abducted by the father of one of the children were found safe early Tuesday. 

The Long Beach Police Department located both children, along with suspect Daijon West, at a motel on Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach just before 5 a.m., according to Josh Morris with the Oceanside Police Department.

One of the boys was sleeping in the car, police said.The second boy was in a motel room with West.

When officers called into the room, West came out peacefully with the child.

The children were unharmed and West, 29, was arrested, Morris said. 

Authorities had issued an Amber Alert in connection with the boys' disappearance in at about 12 a.m. Tuesday, hours after they said West injured his wife and fled with his son and the second child.  

They were last seen at 4:10 p.m. Monday as they drove away with West. Police believed the suspect was armed with a gun. 

The second child is the son of West's wife from a previous relationship, Morris said.

Check back for updates on this developing story. 

A man dressed in a crop top, miniskirt and blonde wig sexually assaulted another man on the campus of San Diego City College over the weekend, officials told NBC 7 Monday.

According to the college police’s account, the suspect was bold. They say he came onto campus at about 7:15 Sunday morning and attacked a man on the patio in front of the administration building, forcing the victim to perform a sex act. The location is roughly the center of campus.

Neither the victim nor the suspect is a student or associated with the campus, police say.

The suspect is described as a dark-skinned, 30-year-old man, standing 5-foot-11-inches to 6-feet tall and weighing between 180 to 200 pounds.

At the time of the assault, he was wearing a black miniskirt, black crop top and a blonde wig held in a ponytail. He was also carrying brown high-heeled shoes, police say.

The student body was notified about the incident in a campuswide email, which put many on alert.

“It makes me more aware as I continue my education here that I need to have a buddy,” student Twyla Robinson said.

Student advocate Juan Carlos defended City College's safety record despite this incident and an unrelated sexual battery complaint reported by a female student last March

“It's a very safe campus. You can't catch everything all the time,” Carlos said.

Campus is bordered by city streets with many public entrances and exits, and a busy bus stop sits nearby, as do a trolley stop and an overpass transients often use for shelter.

City College is a commuter campus. Classes start as early as 7:30 a.m., and some last until after dark. Not everyone students encounter on campus is there for an education.

“I come here. It’s a beautiful campus and I admire the beauty. Now it makes me more scared,” student Angelica Zuluaga said.

Campus police do offer safety escorts to assist students and visitors to campus. You can schedule one by calling police dispatch at 619-388-6405.

The school also offers courses like a “rape aggression defense" class, where the curriculum includes lessons on awareness, avoidance and martial arts.

If you know anything about the incident, call college police at 619-388-6405, the San Diego Police at 619-531-2000 or Crime Stoppers at 888-580-TIPS.

This may be worth a toast: a new study released Tuesday says the U.S. beer industry supports 1.75 million jobs in America and generates nearly $253 billion in economic activity.

The Beer Institute and the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) released the “Beer Serves America” report during a Congressional briefing, which details the industry’s impact on the American economy in 2014, including state-by-state data.

The study reports that in California, the U.S. beer industry supports 106,999 jobs across brewing, retail and distributing positions. Those jobs paid $4,380,579,900 in total wages in 2014. The study says the brewing, retail and distributing branches of the beer industry in California contributed more than $13.5 billion ($13,561,063,500, to be exact) in economic activity in 2014.

The study goes on to say the beer industry paid a total of $1,190,474,200 in taxes in California in 2014 and generated $5,099,120,800 in combined federal, state and local taxes in the Golden State.

California is currently home to 738 brewing establishments and 1,046 beer distributing businesses, according to the report, many in San Diego.

Nationally, the study says the beer industry produces $48.5 billion in tax revenue, which include business, personal and consumption taxes, along with taxes on sales, gross receipts and revenue collected from state and federal excise taxes on beer.

The industry’s economic output of $252.6 billion across the U.S. is equal to about 1.5 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product.

The report says the total number of brewing facilities in the U.S. has grown by 2,290 in two years, most being very small brewers or brew pubs. Still, more than 70 percent of brewing jobs in America are linked to large and mid-sized brewers and beer importers. The number of distributor jobs supported by the industry has increased by more than 20 percent over the last decade, to more than 131,207 jobs, according to the study.

Meanwhile, suppliers to the brewing industry – including enterprises that manufacture bottles and cans, cardboard case boxes, brewing equipment or marketing displays – generate more than $83 billion in economic activity and are responsible for more than 383,190 jobs alone.

“The American beer industry directly and indirectly employs more than 1.75 million Americans in more than a dozen different categories – including farming and package manufacturing – whose jobs are just as dependent on a thriving beer trade as those workers directly involved in the brewing, distributing and sale of beer,” the “Beer Serves America” study states.

Read the full study on the beer industry's contribution to the U.S. economy here.

A new restaurant specializing in plant-based, 100 percent organic vegan eats is laying down roots in San Diego’s Little Italy community.

Set to open Wednesday, Café Gratitude is located at Broadstone Little Italy, a mixed-use and residential building at 1980 Kettner Blvd.

The 4,000-square-foot café will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner daily, as well as gluten-free pastries to-go and fresh-pressed juices that are part of the eatery’s chef-curated cleanse program.

The gourmet vegan eatery highlights healthy cuisine and organic ingredients from sustainable sources. To that end, many of the items use produce sourced from local farms as well as fruits and veggies from the founders’ farm in Vacaville, Calif.

Items on the menu are named after positive affirmations, including the “Vivacious” appetizer ($8), oven-baked kale chips with a choice of garlic tahini, cashew nacho cheese or cashew ricotta dipping sauce, or the “Liberated” ($15), an entrée consisting of marinated pesto kelp noodles, heirloom cherry tomatoes, local black and green olives, wild arugula, basil hempseed pesto, cashew ricotta and brazil nut parmesan.

Breakfast dishes include the “Open-Hearted,” gluten-free, buckwheat-flax pancakes with maple syrup, or the “”Bonita” taco plate boasting sprouted probiotic brown rice or quinoa, black beans, salsa fresca, avocado, cashew nacho cheese, toasted pumpkin seeds and a side of four corn tortillas.

The eatery also offers coffee, tea lattes, smoothies, milkshakes, spritzers and “Wellness Elixers” such as the “Beaming,” a vitamin C shot that combines orange juice, carrot juice, goji berry, camu camu, astragalus, acerola berry and amla berry.

This is the first San Diego-based location for Café Gratitude, which was originally founded in 2004 in San Francisco. The café has other locations in California, including Los Angeles, Venice Beach, Santa Cruz and Berkeley, as well as a restaurant in Kansas City, Mo. Another location will open later this year in Newport Beach.

The company’s expansion into San Diego is supported by health-conscious singer-songwriter Jason Mraz, a major investor who lives in San Diego’s North County, and a vegan food enthusiast.
 

Opening statements began Thursday for a bouncer charged in the death of a man he allegedly knocked to the ground outside a bar in Oceanside. 

Derrick Belser, 40, is accused of involuntary manslaughter in the death of 27-year-old Mark Girard Jr.

According to Oceanside police, Belser and Girard were involved in a fight at the rear entrance of the Fire Water Saloon just after 2 a.m. on Dec. 28, 2014.

Belser allegedly knocked Girard down, causing him to hit his head on the ground. Girard was found by police unconscious at an apartment about three blocks away from the bar. He was taken to a hospital where he died two days later.

Police issued a plea for information on the fight on Jan. 1, 2015. An arrest warrant was issued for Belser and he turned himself in shortly thereafter. The bouncer pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter, assault and battery charges and bailed out of jail.

In court Tuesday, the victim’s girlfriend and one of Girard’s close friends took the stand.

Girlfriend Cheyenne Hurley recalled the wound he sustained after his night out. She had spent the early part of the evening with him but later went to bed.

Hurley said Girard woke her up around 3 a.m. and showed her a bump on the back of his head and a black eye sustained in the fight with Belser. Prosecutors showed pictures of Girard's wound after he was punched during the incident, a black lump on the back of his head visible. Hurley suggested he ice his head and go to the hospital when he got home, she said, but he refused. 

"The bump on his head was an indication of what was going on inside," Prosecutor Deane Logan said. "Inside the skull of Girard Jr., his brain was bleeding and it continued through the day and because of that, his brain continued to expand and swell."

Belser's defense attorney noted the victim had surgery in 2003 for a brain tumor. 

Hurley then recalled the moment she realized something was wrong. She had come back from work and when she got home that evening, she said Girard was still in bed. 

"I couldn't hear him snore. I went to check on him," Hurley said. "When I found him, he was not breathing."

Hurley said on the stand she found her boyfriend face down, limp and lifeless as she shook him. His face was pale and white, she said, and she could not hear him breathing. When she noticed blood, she called 911. 

Hurley cried as she listened to that 911 call replayed in court. Girard was taken to a hospital, where he died two days later. 

Girard’s friend Zachary Fonseca-Miller also took the stand Thursday, discussing the incident. 

Belser’s defense attorney said the group made multiple stops that night and had consumed a lot of alcohol before encountering Belser at the backdoor of the bar at 2 a.m., after closing time.

Prosecutors allege Belser followed Girard and his two friends outside the bar that night, punching two of them following an argument.

However, the defense has given a much different account of what happened, arguing that the men were repeatedly told to leave the bar after it closed at 2 a.m. The men left, but Belser spotted them allegedly “hovering” at the rear entrance.

When Belser confronted them, they allegedly became hostile, according to the defense attorney.

That narrative, however, does not fit with how family members have described Girard. His father told NBC 7 earlier this year that his son was an avid surfer with a passion for habitat restoration.

The father called the incident “a really senseless act of violence.”

In late January, a second alleged victim came forward accusing Belser of violently beating him at the Fire Water Saloon just two weeks before Girard's death.

A group of San Diego surfers on a trip in Indonesia woke up on the last day of their trip to find their boat heading away from their destination. 

Their captain, Martin Daly, had woken up to news that morning of a distress call for the Quest 1, an infamous surfing boat in the region. 

"They were ten miles out in open ocean in some heavy seas,” said Paul Seckendorf, one of six San Diego surfers on their boat. “So, it was probably blowing 30 to 40 knots, and we had swells anywhere from 8 to 10 feet. And it was frightening, actually."

Seckendorf, John Gentillon and their fellow boaters had spotted the vessel, well recognized in the surfing world, the day before. The boat had appeared in several surfing videos over the years and hosted some of the world’s best surfers.

The Quest 1 had taken on water overnight and sank before sunrise. Passengers and crew members on board made it off, but were stranded with only their life rafts and a skiff in the open ocean.

Seckendorf said it took approximately five hours from when their boat received the distress call to reach the life rafts floating in open water.

"I'm just thinking good Lord, I was glad I wasn't them,” Seckendorf said. “I mean, imagine being out in the water for five hours."

The sunken boat had several Californians on board, Seckendorf said.

"When these folks came on board, their eyes were as big as saucers and they were so grateful that someone had come and saved them," Seckendorf said.

He said the rescued people were speechless for a while once on board a boat again. Seckendorf and his friends helped out by giving the passengers and crew clean clothes, water and food.

"We had the capacity to give them some clean clothes. They had nothing,” he said. “All they had was what was on their backs."

Seckendorf said their captain, Daly, was a hero for keeping his cool in the high-stress situation. Quest 1 passengers and crew members likely had minutes to decide what to do once they discovered their boat would sink, according to the San Diegan.

“It's good that the water was warm because that's all they had was a rash guard, a pair of trunks, some people had booties on,” Seckendorf said.

Everyone rescued was fine and accounted for, Seckendorf said, and no injuries were reported. 

Seckendorf and his friends missed their last day of surfing, but they now have a story that will last much longer than any wave.

"What else are you going to do?” Seckendorf said. “I was more than happy to help out. I think that was the sentiment of everybody on board."

A new Dr. Seuss book was released on Tuesday to excited fans, more than 20 years after the La Jolla author died.

“What Pet Should I Get?” hit bookshelves nationwide, and at University of California San Diego’s Geisel Library, throngs of fans lined up to get their copy.

The author’s widow discovered the manuscript for the book in 2013 when she was donating some of his drawings to the library; it’s believed to have been written sometime between 1958 and 1962.

The book follows a brother and sister who visit a pet store to pick a pet, but aren’t able to decide on just one. It was colored by Dr. Seuss’ assistant, who collaborated with him on “Oh, the Places You Will Go.”

At Geisel Library, 100 books were available; the book is available for purchase at bookstores across the country and online.

Brian Schottlaender, the university’s librarian, said the excitement at Tuesday’s book launch party was evidence of the impact the books have had on multiple generations.

“Two or three generations of children have grown up on the classic Dr. Seuss books,” he said. “To have a new classic you can read to your kids or your grandkids is just a pretty awesome thing.”

Dr. Seuss, whose real name was Theodor Geisel, died in 1991. He and his wife, Audrey Geisel, were longtime La Jolla residents and made a number of contributions to UC San Diego.

Wildlife officials on Tuesday accused an American tourist of killing Cecil, one of the oldest and most famous lions in Zimbabwe, without a permit after paying $50,000 to two people who lured the beast to its death, Reuters and NBC News reported.

The lion was lured out of Hwange National Park using a bait and was shot by Walter James Palmer with a crossbow, Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, told reporters.

Rodrigues said Palmer paid Zimbabwean hunter Theo Bronkhorst and Honest Ndlovu, a private game park owner, to lure the 13-year-old Cecil. Bronkhorst and Ndlovu will face poaching charges on Wednesday in Hwange for the killing of the lion on July 1, Rodriguez said.

Palmer told NBC News he had the correct permits, worked with local guides, and had no reason to question the legitimacy of the hunt until after it was over.

A new solar power installation at the San Diego Food Bank will save the facility enough money to provide 600,000 more meals annually to local families in need.

The Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank will unveil an 80,000-square-foot rooftop solar power installation Tuesday morning. Representatives say the new feature will save the Food Bank’s warehouse facility in Miramar $120,000 in annual energy costs, or the equivalent of 600,000 meals.

The 1,400-panel solar installation was funded by a $1 million donation from Joan and Irwin Jacobs. The Jacobs planned to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony at the facility, along with Food Bank officials and local leaders.

Representatives say each 4-foot-by-5-foot solar panel alone will enable the Food Bank to provide an additional 513 pounds of food to San Diego families in need through energy cost savings.

Food Bank reps say the solar power installation will reduce the facility’s carbon footprint by the equivalent of 600,000 pounds of coal each year, and will produce 803,000kWh of energy for the Food Bank annually – enough to power 125 family homes for an entire year.

The Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank was established in 1977 to provide food to San Diegans in need. The organization works with more than 330 San Diego County nonprofit charities and acts as a central repository and distribution point for food donations and feeds 370,000 people per month.

According to the Food Bank, of San Diego County’s 3.1 million residents, 475,773 people live in poverty, including 138,334 children.

Currently, the facility’s most needed donation items include canned meat and tuna, peanut butter, canned soups, canned fruits, vegetables and beans, spaghetti, cereal, rice and macaroni and cheese. Learn more about donating to the Food Bank by clicking here.

A 15-year-old boy lured 8-year-old Madyson "Maddy" Middleton inside his apartment and killed her before hiding her body in a recycling bin at the Santa Cruz housing complex for artists where they lived, the city’s chief of police said Tuesday.

Police Chief Kevin Vogel said the teen brought the girl to his apartment, where she went “willingly," before he "murdered her inside his apartment and carried her downstairs to the recycle bin." The teen was spotted very close to the dumpster bin when the body was found, Vogel added, and the girl's body was "concealed in a way that wasn't obvious or readily apparent." A police statement said the teen had gone to "great lengths" to hide and disguise the body.

It took detectives a second sweep of the complex to find the body, Vogel said, because they were in "search" mode at first, before switching to "recovery" mode.

The teen, who was arrested Monday about 8 p.m., was an "acquaintance" of Maddy's, as they lived in the same Tannery Arts Center apartment complex, a haven for artists and performers.

Vogel said there was evidence to lead police to suspect the boy of the "horrific crime," but he did not offer a motive for the killing. Some of that evidence, police said, included Maddy's "belongings, witness statements and video evidence." 

Vogel added that he was so "hopeful" that his detectives would have been able to find her alive, a sentiment that was echoed by Mayor Don Lane, who expressed his "deepest sympathies" to Maddy's family.

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday morning, Santa Cruz District Attorney Jeffrey Rosell said his office is strongly considering charging the teen as an adult. And police will have to wait for an autopsy to see if the little girl was sexually assaulted.

The news conference came after police and authorities from the Department of Justice searched the third floor of an apartment building where the boy lives with his mother. One neighbor described the teen as a "straight shooter" and an overall good kid who comes from a loving family. Even Kirby Scudder, who dates Maddy's mom, called the teen a "great kid." 

The girl, who was last seen riding her Razor scooter on Sunday afternoon at the complex, was officially reported missing at 6:08 p.m. that evening. Video surveillance showed her riding about at 5:05 p.m. Vogel said, "It is my belief that she was killed before we even got the phone call that night."

A 2006 FBI study revealed that about 76 percent of abducted children who are killed are dead within three hours of the abduction.

On Tuesday, a growing memorial of candles, flowers and stuffed animals marked the site where she was last playing. Artists, friends and neighbors walked arm in arm, heads down, showing their grief.

Her mother, Laura Jordan, did not speak publicly after the body was found. But earlier in the day, while crews and volunteers were searching for Maddy, she told NBC affiliate KSBW that her daughter knew not to stray or go with strangers.

"She was in the courtyard where she was supposed to be," Jordan said. "I already fell apart. Now, I'm just in survival mode. I can't explain how difficult this is."

Witnesses said the 15-year-old boy was calm and was cooperating with police when he was seen walking in handcuffs to a patrol car Monday evening.

Terrence Keller, a neighbor, described the teen as a good person: "I've known him a long time. He's a nice, well-spoken kid. It's very unfortunate to say the least."

Keller said he's known the teen since he moved into the arts complex about six years ago. He said he thought so highly of the teen that he once considered inviting him to his gym to work out.

A neighbor who asked not to be identified said that the teen never showed signs of being a sociopath, and was not involved with drugs or gangs that he knew of. “I actually saw him turn down alcohol,” the neighbor said. “He was a straight shooter.”

He said the teen has an adult brother and the most “amazing mother,” the “most welcoming person at the Tannery. If there was a social function, you’d go to her house for food. There was an abundance of love for him.”

The neighbor said that he had never seen the teen hanging out specifically with Maddy or other young children at the complex.

A woman who appeared to be the boy's mother screamed in hysterics as her son was taken away by police.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the murder of an abducted child is rare – about 100 cases each year. That's out of a total of about 467,000 child abductions in 2014, according to the FBI's National Crime Information Center. But in most of the child abduction murder cases, the FBI notes, the victims are slightly older than 11 and the killers are about 27 years old.

NBC Bay Area's Kristofer Noceda contributed to this report.

 A Sig alert was issued for three lanes of Interstate 805 in Chula Vista after a crash involving a motorcycle and pickup truck, officials said. 

The crash happened at approximately 4:40 p.m. near Orange Avenue, California Highway Patrol officials said.

Three lanes are blocked as crews work to clean up the road. 

The extent of the injuries to those involved is unknown. 

A Sig alert was put in place as crews worked to clean up. 

There was no other information immediately available. 
 

A 75-foot tree uprooted and fell onto kids at a summer day camp in Pasadena Tuesday, injuring eight children, two of them critically, officials said.

The pine tree came crashing down about 4:45 p.m. as campers and their families were walking through Brookside Park outside the Kidspace Children's Museum, officials with the Pasadena Fire Department said.

"It's just such a huge tree — no warning," said witness Klea Scott. "Massive amounts of pine needles that we couldn't see if there were more people in there."

Witnesses said children ran in every direction as the 75-year-old tree fell.

"We heard a crack and then I just caught a glimpse of the tree falling down," said Andrew Aguiniga, a child at the park.

Two children were taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in critical condition and six others suffered minor injuries, city fire spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said.

Derderian initially said at least one adult had been injured.

Aerial footage captured by NewsChopper4 showed two children on stretchers and an Urban Search and Rescue team using chainsaws to cut branches from the toppled tree as they searched for more possible victims.

A statement on the Kidspace Children's Museum website said all staff, campers, volunteers and guests were accounted for.

Thirty-three children ages 6 to 8 were enrolled in the summer camp, said Kidspace CEO Michael Shanklin.

An arborist will be called in Wednesday to determine why the tree fell, officials said.

Shanklin said the museum was expected to open Wednesday.

NBC4's Beverly White contributed to this report.

A Bible school van crashed into a train Tuesday night in Middletown, Ohio, killing a woman, seriously injuring the driver and sending all eight children on board to area hospitals, authorities told NBC News.

State Highway Patrol Lt. Clint Arnold said the van was moving at only 2 mph when it drove past multiple flashing warning signals and through a downed gate.

One of the van's occupants, an adult woman passenger, died of her injuries, authorities told NBC News. The driver — the only other adult on board — was seriously injured.

Police told NBC station WDTN of Dayton that all eight children suffered only minor injuries. The van was picking up its last load of children for the Church of Mayfield's summer vacation Bible school.

Police in Tennessee on Tuesday released video showing the April arrest of Mohammad Abdulazeez on a driving under the influence charge, three months before he allegedly launched a deadly attack on two military facilities in Chattanooga, NBC News reported.

The video shows Abdulazeez weave in traffic before being stopped at around 2:10 a.m. on April 20. Police said he smelled of marijuanna and alcohol and appeared impaired.

Abdulazeez said he hadn't been drinking and explained his erratic driving was due to lack of sleep.

The 24-year-old fatally shot four Marines and a Navy sailor in the July 16 attack on a military reserve center, before he was shot and killed during a firefight with police.
 

A man who helped create an important part of San Diego’s skyline passed away Sunday night.

Robert Mosher, a La Jolla architect who most famously designed the Coronado Bridge, died July 26 at the age of 94.

The designer was the first of a new breed of postwar modern architects who changed the look of modern cities.

The two-mile curving Coronado Bridge opened in August 1969 to great acclaim, a year later winning the "Most Beautiful Bridge" Award from the American Institute of Steel Construction, according to the architect's website.

Construction on the bridge took two years and cost $5 million. The bridge's signature curves were a necessary design feature to leave enough room for Navy ships to pass underneath.

"I was only the architect and designer who figured out the way it looked, I didn’t figure out how much steel to put in the pylons, but I can take credit for the look of it." Mosher once said of the bridge.

He also notably designed an early version of the La Jolla Playhouse, the west wing of the San Diego Museum of Art and the NBC Building in downtown San Diego. Mosher also oversaw the expansion of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

“His view of modernism was much more about the quality of the human spirit,” said Larry Hoeksema, principal and former president of Architects Mosher Drew, the firm Mosher founded with business partner Roy Drew in San Diego in 1948. “The human element and how people interact and move through and around [a building] was something they were very much concerned about.”

Mosher died of natural causes in his La Jolla apartment Sunday and is survived by his wife, a son and daughter from two previous marriages, a granddaughter and brother.