Members of the Republican party may be put in an awkward spot if Pope Francis’ historic address to Congress on Thursday resembles his speech at the White House.

The leader of the Catholic Church called out for a tolerant and inclusive society on Wednesday.

“As the son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families.”

His comments contrast those made by some Republican presidential nominees, including Ben Carson, who suggested that a Muslim should not be president. The pontiff’s comments on his own heritage also set as a reminder of Donald Trump’s calls to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

Three children eating at a taco stand were wounded in a drive-by shooting in South Los Angeles, police said.

Someone in a car fired shots about 8:40 p.m. in the direction of the taco stand at the intersection of Figueroa and 94th streets, Los Angeles police Officer Liliana Preciado said.

The victims, two 13 and one 10, were struck. Their conditions were not immediately available, Preciado said, adding that at least one of the victims was a girl.

At least two of the victims were taken from the scene for hospital treatment, Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

Two vehicles were seen leaving the locations, but descriptions were not immediately made available.

San Diego police have netted yet another arrest in connection with a deadly shooting at a San Diego hookah lounge last year.

Nicholas Edward Davis, 24, is the third person taken into custody in the death of Rodney Harmon at the Crown Hookah Lounge on Nov. 16, 2014.

On Wednesday, homicide detectives, with the help of a SWAT team, arrested Davis while serving a search warrant to an apartment in the 4900 block of Auburn Drive.

While there, detectives found evidence they think is related to Harmon’s shooting. Davis has since been booked into jail on a charge of murder and is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday.

Harmon was gunned down last year at the El Cajon Boulevard business hours after it had closed. Those inside heard a loud banging at the door, and when Harmon answered it, he was shot several times.

So far, two others have been charged in the shooting: Pierre Verenee Readus, 28, and Carl Antuan Martin, 33. Readus was arrested in April, while Martin was initially arrested last month.

The District Attorney’s office failed to file charges in time to keep him in custody, so Martin was briefly released. San Diego police say officers re-arrested Martin a few days later and charged him with murder.

One suspect, 26-year-old Neil Downey, still remains on the loose, with a $2 million warrant out for his arrest.

If you know where he may be, call the SDPD’s homicide unit or Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.
 

A San Diego man was killed when a pickup truck driver veered on the freeway and struck two motorcyclists, according to the California Highway Patrol. 

Tuesday morning, Jonathan Isay Ortiz, 27, and another motorcyclist were pulled off to the side of the freeway where westbound State Route 54 merges onto northbound Interstate 5.

For an unknown reason, a Chula Vista man, driving a gray 2003 Ford F-150, steered to the right and onto the shoulder.

The pickup truck hit Ortiz on a 2009 Yamaha and his companion on a blue Kawasaki, sending them flying into traffic lanes, the CHP said.

Both motorcyclists were taken to UCSD Medical Center for major injuries, and Ortiz was pronounced dead.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation. Alcohol and drugs are not considered factors.

 Two people were seriously injured after two cars plunged 240 feet down an embankment off Interstate 15 north near Gopher Canyon, California Highway Patrol officials said. 

The crash happened at 2 p.m. Wednesday when two cars, a minivan and a pickup truck, went off the side of I-15 and down an embankment and onto its roof.

CHP officials said it appeared the man driving the pickup truck lost a wheel, lost control of the car and veered over the yellow line. 

He crashed into the minivan, and both cars fell over the embankment, CHP officials said. 

San Diego Fire-Rescue officials sent two helicopter units to land on the freeway and airlift the patients. 

The crash is under investigation. 

No further information was immediately available. 

Residents in one San Diego neighborhood received parking citations this week in an area with new curbing and new striping. They say the only thing missing with the upgrades made recently in Golden Hill  are the signs publicizing the parking restrictions they are accused of breaking.

New parking spaces at 25th and C streets are part of what the City calls a larger "Renaissance" project.

While the concrete is cured and paint is dry, drivers using the new spaces were ticketed because they missed the street sweeping notice.

It was too good to be true for Octavio Benitez and other commuters on 25th Street Tuesday.

“I don't see anything. The sign is on the corner. I parked on the other side of the corner,” Benitez said.

Plenty of available, brand new angled spaces in front of the Golden Hill Cafe but the ticket for parking here was $63.

“You come in over here you no see any sign here,” Benitez said.

Benitez didn't see traffic enforcement coming either but from across the street pawn broker Donald Ingrassi did.

“They pulled up in front of all these cars so they couldn't leave and wrote them tickets,” Ingrassi said.

What Ingrassi knows that violators didn't is the street sweeping schedule. It's posted twice. Once on an old sign tucked in the tree and a new one. Both signs were well south of these parking spaces.

“I really think it is unfair. They have been really aggressive lately," he said.

San Diego City spokesperson Bill Harris responded to questions about the parking in an email.

"News signs will be installed as needed. The installation should occur within the next few weeks," Harris said.

NBC 7 noticed across the street the poles were up just no signs even though Ingrassi says the street project was completed a month ago.

“They're writing tickets before they get them up. They are not making it clear of how this is how it needs to be,” Ingrassi said.

If those ticketed felt cheated Tuesday, here is fair warning for others - if it looks too good to be true, the old adage applies even to parking.

Here is another reminder about parking in street project areas, look for the painted curbs. A green curb means parking is limited to 30 minutes. Citations can be issued on those limitations, no sign included.

Carlsbad resident Jason Harper was allegedly already dead when someone used his phone to send a text saying he was running errands, an FBI Special Agent testified in court Wednesday. 

Julie Harper, Jason's wife, admits she killed her husband on Aug. 27, 2012 but has said she did it because she feared for her safety. After an acquittal on first-degree murder charges, Harper now faces a retrial on second-degree murder charges.

On Wednesday, jurors heard from Forensic Criminologist Ron Martinelli and an FBI Special Agent.

The special agent testified that cell phone records showed Harper was dead when someone used his cell phone to text "Running Errands. Julie has the kids. See mom Friday." to his brother. 

Cell phone records place Julie's phone and her husband's phone at the same coffee shop following his death, the FBI expert testified. 

The morning of Jason's death at 8:36 a.m., someone used his computer to view the California Teacher's Association website to look at the legal, benefits and insurance section before viewing a pay stub. Jason was a Carlsbad high school teacher. 

Harper has said she shot her husband out of fear that he would kill or rape her.

Defense attorney Paul Pfingst called a forensic criminologist with experience in officer-involved shootings and accidental shootings to testify. 

"The anxiety factor factors in with fear, what you can have is an officer's hand may shake may jerk involuntarily and they can set off a gun," said Martinelli, a forensic criminologist, in court.

This is the second trial for Julie Harper.

Last October, a jury acquitted her on first-degree murder charges but was deadlocked on the second-degree murder and manslaughter counts.

Prosecutors decided to retry her on the lesser charges.

Southern California and Tijuana beaches are going pink… for science.

Scientists on both sides of the border are teaming up to find out how pollution moves in the water off Tijuana and Imperial Beach.

From Sept. 22 to Oct. 17, researchers with Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Jacobs School of Engineering, and Mexican agencies will dump bright pink, fluorescent dye into the ocean and track how the dye moves along the coast up to 12 miles away for 36 hours.

In one of three experiments, the nontoxic dye will be dumped at the southern end of Playas de Tijuana in Mexico. Team members on the shore, in boats and on a jet ski will follow the pink stream, measuring its movements to figure out how pollution ebbs, flows and dilutes off the coast.

A plane flying above will also hold a hyperspectral sensor, which measures ocean color, and an autonomous underwater vehicle will map the dye dispersal outside the surf zone.

The scientists hope this research will better inform managers and policy makers on when to close beaches and mitigate possible issues upstream.

Often, when a heavy rain comes to San Diego County, the precipitation washes urban runoff and contamination into the ocean, making it unsafe to swim. Beaches around the Tijuana River Estuary are frequently closed after these storms until the pollution clears.

“By tracking dye released both north and south of the border, we can understand the rate of pollutant transport along the coast, how it dilutes, and learn how to develop accurate models for when it will be OK or not to go in the ocean — similar to weather models,” said Falk Feddersen, a Scripps Oceanography professor, in a news release.

Naval Base Coronado has given the project leaders permission to access the Navy’s property between Imperial Beach and Coronado so they can sample the pink tides.

“We have developed a binational team of scientists because coastal water quality is not a national issue,” said Sarah Giddings, a Scripps assistant professor, in the release. “Water currents, waves, and watersheds do not follow borders and thus neither do the things carried by the water. This work applies not just to water quality but to transport of other waterborne constituents such as sediment and fish larvae.”

The project builds on previous studies, increasing the scope by tracking the dye over longer periods of time and across more coastline. The experiment is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Click here to learn more about the study.

A resident has reported seeing a mountain lion roaming the streets in the City Heights area.

The person reported the sighting to San Diego police just before 11 a.m. Thursday in the area of Wightman  and Landis streets.

Police notified the nearby Unity San Diego Church, which operates a school, to be on alert for the mountain lion.

Officers are patrolling the area on the lookout for the animal.

 Presidential candidate Marco Rubio called fellow GOP candidate Donald Trump a "touchy and insecure guy" who is not well informed.

"He had a really bad debate performance last week," Rubio said during an interview. "He's not well informed on the issues. He really never talks about issues and can't have more than a 10-second soundbite on any key issue. And I think he's kind of been exposed a little bit over the last seven days, and he's a very touchy and insecure guy and so that's how he reacts, and people can see through it."
 

Trump called Rubio a "lightweight" during the second GOP debate last week. 

Caregivers at the Safari Park are hand-rearing a newly born Sumatran tiger cub. The cub, born just before 2 am on September 14, is being cared for around the clock.

The cub’s mother took care of him for the first few days, but zoo keepers noticed he was losing weight and his mother was starting to neglect him.

After the animal care team decided the cub wasn’t getting the proper care he needed they  moved him to the Animal Care Center at the Safari Park. He is bottle-fed seven times a day with a special formula and now weighs 3.36 pounds.

“We’re very happy with our little cub’s progress; he took to the bottle and started nursing right away,” Lissa McCaffree, lead keeper of the Mammal department said in a statement. “He’s been gaining weight very consistently each day, and last night he reached a milestone—he opened his eyes for the first time.”

He is also gaining strength in his legs by walking around his enclosure and is learning to meow and grunt.

Soon, guests will be able to view the cub during bottle-feeding sessions at the Care Center. Times will be posted daily at the viewing window.

The Safari Park is now home to seven Sumatran tigers out of fewer than 350 in the world. The cub is the 26th to be born at the Safari Park and the first to be hand-reared since 1984.
 

Congressional leaders are asking Department of Justice to investigate the detention and arrest of Ahmed Mohamed, the teenager who was arrested after teachers thought his homemade clock resembled a bomb.

In a letter to Attorney General Lorretta Lynch, Congressman Mike Honda (D-Silicon Valley), Representative Keith Ellison, and Representative Andre Carson urged Lynch to look at any discriminatory practices that might have been a factor in Mohamed’s arrest.

“Profiling and mistreatment of an individual based on presumed or actual faith or ethnicity has no place in the World, let alone in the United States of America,” Honda wrote in the letter, which was signed by 29 members of Congress.

The letter goes on to say that Mohamed was denied his civil rights when his requests to speak to his father were rejected by police at MacArthur High School and later at the juvenile detention center where he was held.

In Texas, a child is entitled to be accompanied by a parent or guardian during a police interrogation or questioning.

“His arrest should serve as a wake-up call for everyone to step back and reflect on our fears and our rushes to judgment,
said Carson.

“No matter what their background, our children do not deserve to face the suspicion that so many of us have faced.”

In addition to congressional leaders, Mohamed has also received the support of leaders in the tech industry since news of his arrest broke.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg invited the young teen to visit the company headquarters, and, earlier this week, Mohamed attended the Google Science Fair in the Bay Area where he met Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

His next stop appears to be the White House, and it appears he’s taking his clock with him.

“I cant wait to get my clock back & take it to the #WhiteHouse,” Mohamed tweeted Tuesday evening. “@BarackObama the invite is an honor, looking forward to meeting you!”

A burglary suspect who jumped from rooftop to rooftop in an effort to evade police was arrested at an Oceanside taco shop Thursday after being spotted by undercover detectives.

According to the Oceanside Police Department (OPD), suspect James Craig, 36, burglarized a home in the 1900 block of South Pacific Street around 9:20 a.m. An alarm alerted officers to the home and when they arrived, officers could hear the burglary suspect inside.

As officers surrounded the home, the suspect fled from the house and began jumping from rooftop to rooftop, escaping from police. With help from an ASTREA helicopter crew and K-9 unit, officers launched a search in the area for the suspect.

As the search took place, dispatchers at OPD received a 911 call from a woman who reported a strange man trying to get into her car in the 1900 block of South Tremont. As she backed out of her driveway, the woman said the man opened her passenger door, sat down and ordered her to drive him away from the area.

Police said the woman resisted by kicking and punching the man until he got out of the car.

Moments later, plainclothes detectives noticed a man matching the description of the suspect inside a taco restaurant in the 1800 block of South Coast Highway.

The man was taken into custody and identified as Craig – the suspect in both the burglary and attempted carjacking, OPD officials said.

Craig was charged on multiple counts, including attempted carjacking, residential burglary and a probation violation. No one was injured in the mini crime spree.
 

Martin Shkreli, the Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO who was lambasted for raising the price of a 62-year-old drug by more than 5,000 percent, was pressured to reverse course, striking fears into the heart of biotech investors over increased scrutiny of drug prices.

But Bernstein analyst Ronny Gal pointed out many companies ratchet up drug prices when the market presents an opportunity, NBC News reported. H.P. Acthar Gel, which treats infantile spasms and exacerbations of multiple sclerosis in adults, hopped from $1,650 to $23,000 a vial on a single day in 2007, he cited as an example.

Mylan’s EpiPen, used in emergency treatment for life-threatening allergic reactions, also saw prices soar in recent years, increasing an average of 27 percent a year from 2011 to 2015, to more than $300 each dose.
 

A young boy is being hailed a hero after he saved his mother from a house fire in New Jersey.

Bradley, 7, spotted the flames outside his bedroom window and immediately screamed “fire” to wake his mother up. They then both escaped from the home unharmed.

“I think it’s amazing,” said Bradley’s grandmother Deb Beloin. “He’s a hero. If it wasn’t for him I don’t know what would have happened.”

The fire started in Bradley Bianchino’s home on Meadow Creek Drive in Dennis Township early Tuesday morning. 

Bradley says the power of prayer allowed him to save his mother. 

“I prayed right before I went to bed,” he said. “Just somehow I must’ve woke up. I got lucky because I prayed.”

The fire caused extensive damage to the home. A GoFundMe page was set up to help with repair costs. 

Officials continue to investigate the cause of the fire. 

San Diego police say they have found the child who went missing from his Barrio Logan home Thursday afternoon.

The 8-year-old was last seen at the home in the 2900 block of Boston Avenue at about 1:20 p.m.

According to police, the boy sometimes goes to a friend's house nearby, but when they checked, the child was nowhere to be found.

After officers spread through the surrounding neighborhood, the boy was found safe.

UC San Diego students returned to classes Thursday for the fall semester.

An estimated 5,300 incoming freshmen and 2,700 transfer students joined the more than 25,000 students already studying at UCSD.

The new freshmen have an overall GPA of 4.08 and average SAT Reasoning scores of 628, 690 and 644, respectively, for Critical Reading, Math and Writing.

School officials are enterprising several new initiatives this year.

More peer-to-peer education will be available at the Sexual Assault Resource Center, and learning about sexual assault and how to report it is now mandatory for all incoming freshmen and transfer students.

The university’s Triton Fest, which began last fall, is returning with twice as many events. The festival features five back-to-back weekends of music, food, and activities. It starts at the end of September and runs through the first three weekends of October. The festival is an opportunity for new students to get involved in campus life early in the year.

Lemongrass: Fresh Farm Plates is the newest restaurant opening in the Price Center. Previously a favorite at the weekly farmer’s market in Town Square, the restaurant specializes in Asian barbeque and will feature an expanded menu.

An estimated 4,641 freshmen will live on campus, approximately 43% of undergrad housing. Overall about 10,700 new and continuing students will live on campus.

“It is with great pleasure that we welcome these bright minds to UC San Diego and our academic community,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “Our goal is to provide our students with a high-quality education and a wide-range of opportunities so they can have the best possible college experience.”
 

Two men have been arrested following a fight that involved a sword which was caught on camera in Providence, Rhode Island, according to police.

In the video, one man is seen wielding the sword, one man is laying on the ground and two women are also involved in a scuffle.

According to necn affiliate WJAR, the fight happened on Sept. 12 on Balcom Street.

The man holding the sword, David Thomas, 45, was arrested with disorderly conduct.

Another man allegedly involved, Luis Ruiz, turned himself in Tuesday.

A Chinese military unit is accused of being behind the "Naikon" hacking group, which carried out a cyberspying campaign against countries tussling with the nation for control of the South China Sea as well as international groups including the United Nations, according to a report released Thursday by two cybersecurity firms.

ThreatConnect and Defense Group Inc. said the Chinese hackers sent email attachments with malicious software embedded to the targets of the cyber-espionage program, which they dubbed "Project Camerashy," NBC News reported.

"[It] documents Chinese efforts to gain the upper hand in a geopolitical stand-off by capturing information on regional rivals' negotiating postures, economies and military capabilities," the firms said in a statement. The campaign ran for almost five years, according to the groups' report.

Facebook appeared to be down briefly midday Thursday for some users; a day after the company announced it was rolling out a 360-degree video feature.

On Wednesday, Facebook announced it was rolling out a new video format on the site's News Feed that would allow users to choose the angle from which they want to watch posted videos. 

The crash also came during Pope Francis' historical visit to the United States. Earlier in the day, the pope was giving a speech to Congress urging lawmakers to embrace migrants and act on climate change.

While it's not clear if the crash had anything to do with the trip, prior to the pontiff's arrival, social media platforms and wireless carriers anticipated activity to rival that of the Super Bowl and are using the big game as a guide for added capacity near pope's stops in Washington, New York and Philadelphia. 

People turned to Twitter to aired their frustrations about the social networking website, which appeared to be crashing sporadically in the afternoon.