San Diego police arrested one person at the scene of a motel fire in Point Loma Thursday evening.

At 6:55 p.m., multiple fire crews responded to fight the flames coming from the Ebb Tide Motel at 5082 W. Point Loma Boulevard.

Fire officials said they saw a moderate amount of smoke coming from the building when they arrived.

They managed to extinguish the fire in about 20 minutes.

One person was taken into custody at the scene, but it’s unclear why.

No further information was released.
 

Tired of broken promises to improve transparency in government, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its supporters protested outside San Diego City Hall Thursday.

They said the city council refused to release racial data involving traffic stops made by San Diego police officers. The ACLU said it was promised the report by now.

“People on the street know what’s happening,” said Pastor Madison Shockley, one of the protesters. “They experience harassment and racial profiling. They experience it every day, but this report will let the world know what’s happening in San Diego, so release the report now.”

The city is paying San Diego State University $50,000 to do an independent analysis of the race data involving traffic stops.

Representatives told NBC 7 they wonder if the report’s release is being blocked because it is not supportive of police.

Leaving a city council meeting, Councilwoman Marti Emerald told the protesters only one phase of the report is completed so far, which is why it was pulled from the meeting’s docket.

“There is no report at this point,” she said. “San Diego State is doing research in three phases. The first phase is analyzing the raw numbers.”

Emerald said it is not fair to release the report in pieces; people need to see the whole picture.

But the ACLU said the numbers in phase one will not change with the release of phase two or three. Those phases involve random interviews with community members and police.

“I understand what you’re saying. You want the complete report released,” said San Diegan Gloria Cooper. “But we’re saying to you it’s important for my community that the first phase of the report be released. Be transparent with us today.”

An expert examining the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice has concluded that the officer's decision to use deadly force against Rice, who was holding a pellet gun, "was clearly objectively reasonable," NBC News reported.

The findings, released Thursday, were part of a report written by police consultant W. Ken Katsaris. It’s the third report released by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty into the actions of Timothy Loehmann, the officer who used deadly force against Rice who was holding a pellet gun.

A Rice family lawyer called the two previous reports released by McGinty a “whitewash,” according to NBC News.

Katsaris’ opinion came on the same day a group of clergy denounced McGinty and called for an independent prosecutor.

It was a grand birthday entrance at Boylston Place assisted living facility in Brookline, Massachusetts, for Sadie Snyder, who turned 106 on Thursday.

There were tender moments, smiles and kisses at the home in the Chestnut Hill area.

Snyder received a bouquet of flowers from her 105-year-old childhood friend and a card from President Barack Obama.

"To see a person as intelligent as she is, and as feisty as she is, and 100 percent in control of everything, including today, it's a marvel," said Arnold Leibovitz, who calls himself her "favorite nephew."

Joanna Lackey, Snyder's physical therapist, says she "looks better than ever."

Necn asked Sadie how she felt to be 106.

"I feel great," she said.

In more than a century, Snyder has lived a lot. She was born back in 1909, growing up in her family's East Boston apartment.

She was a twin and one of many siblings. She loved to sew in her earlier years, and was married for 32 years.

Snyder also lived in Brookline, where she was a bookkeeper.

She attributes her longevity partly to "beer."

The centenarian tells necn she was 6 when she started to drink beer, because her dad was in the beer industry.

"Every week, he'd bring home a case of beer, and I'd wait up for him to come so I could have it," said a smiling Snyder. "By the end of the week, they were all gone."

We also asked her if she had one lesson she'd like to share with others.

"I think it's just wonderful to have family and friends," she said.

Now, Snyder is just looking forward to what the future holds.

At this rate, the San Diego Gulls may never lose a home game.

Okay maybe that's getting a little bit ahead of ourselves but the current formula is working really well.

The Gulls scored three power play goals in their dominating 6-1 win on Veterans Day and staved off Eight penalty kills against the Bakersfield Condors.

It all adds up to a 6-and-0 home record and a very happy head coach.

“Well, I don't think you know what you're going to have when you come into a new organization,” explained Gulls head coach Dallas Eakins. “This team last year (playing in Virginia) suffered greatly in the bottom 5 of the league. But we've made some great acquisitions and we've got a group of high character and they're very hard-working."

One of the new faces San Diego hockey fans are rooting for is Brandon Montour. The talented defenseman loves switching into attack mode and jumping into the offensive zone whenever he can.

“I’m an offensive defenseman, and my main objective is to work on my (defensive) side. That’s where I’m focused and when the time comes I’m going to make my jump (up the ice) and make my play,” explained Montour.

After 11 contests, Montour leads the Gulls in total points with 12 (3 goals and 9 assists). He turned in a 2 goal, 2 assist outing in Wednesday’s victory to the delight of about 6,700 home fans.

“It’s been pretty incredible actually,” added Montour. “Wednesday night we had a pretty good crowd so everybody’s happy with that and everyone wants to keep playing at home.”

Nick Ritchie is also a strong NHL prospect who projects to have a long career with the Anaheim Ducks.

He enters Friday as the Gulls’ leading scorer with 8 tallies.

“I think we have a good system,” said Ritchie. “Coach has done a good job with our breakouts and our setups and all that and I guess at the end of the day it’s the guys executing and our power play’s been good too. Both of our special teams has been good so you’re going to win a lot of games if those two are good.”

About one month into their maiden voyage, the Gulls are tied for first place with 18 points alongside the Ontario Reign (LA Kings affiliate).

The Gulls sport a 9-2 record heading into their back-to-back home games with the Sharks’ affiliate – the San Jose Barracuda – Friday and Saturday evening.

The Gulls will wear their black road jerseys Friday and camouflage sweaters for a second time this week on Saturday evening.

There will be an auction during Saturday's contest for fans to bid on those game-worn camo jerseys which will be signed and awarded to the auction winners afterwards.

A new government survey finds that more than 2 percent of U.S. kids have been diagnosed with autism — or 1 in 45 children aged 3 and older, NBC News reported. 

That seems like a startling increase from the last estimate of 1 in 68 kids.

But the researchers are quick to point out that the latest survey was done in a new way, asking parents different questions about their kids and any diagnosis of autism. They say it's probably the most accurate estimate yet, and stress that it almost certainly doesn't show some big increase in autism actually occurring among children.

Instead, they say, it's clear that doctors are changing the way they diagnose autism, and that parents are far more likely than in years past to seek a diagnosis for their kids.

Iraqi military say U.S. forces have entered Sinjar, the town being held by ISIS, on Friday, NBC News reported.

Kurdish peshmerga troops approached Sinjar "from all directions and started clearing out the remaining ISIS militants," according to Brig. Yehya Rasool.

Kurdish officials later said the peshmerga had secured a cement factory, hospital and several other public buildings, NBC News reported.

The Kurdish fighters launched the assault Thursday backed by U.S.-led airstrikes.

Sinjar was captured in August 2014, after militants seized Mosul and blitzed from Syria across northern Iraq. It’s important because of a 75-mile-long highway that lies alongside the town that has been one of the most active supply lines for ISIS, a major conduit for goods, weapons and fighters.

School lockdowns are difficult enough, but going hours without a bathroom can make the situation that much more challenging.

In light of recent local school lockdowns the issue of student and teacher comfort when they must stay in classrooms for extended periods of time has come into question.

According to the San Diego Unified School District they are intending to buy emergency bathroom kits for every classroom that needs one. Some classrooms already have a bathroom attached and some classrooms have already purchased their own kit.

They also intend to provide kits in areas besides classrooms without direct access to bathrooms such as offices or libraries.

According to the School district they are about a month away from distributing kits to classrooms and it will cost approximately $200,000 to outfit all classrooms within the district.
 

Officials need help identifying a woman's body found near Lake Hodges  last month.

The Medical Examiner's Office believes the woman was of Hispanic or African American descent, between 25 to 35 years old and around 5’4”.

The ME’s office believes the woman died in September. Her body was found in the 19000 block of Lake Drive.

The woman was found wearing a pair of shorts, Padres athletic jersey and a distinctive ring.

The cause of death has not yet been determined.

Anyone with information should call the Homicide Detail at (858) 974-2321/after hours at (858) 565-5200. You can also remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.

The investigation is ongoing.

Several roommates were miffed when 600 bobbleheads bearing the face of a former Padres player mysteriously turned up near their doorstep in University City, San Diego.

Now they're resorting to handing them out as party favors.

The woman who answered the phone at the San Diego Police Department told Philip Jia it was the strangest call she’d ever received.

Jia and a handful of his young 20-something roommates in University City asked if an officer could come out and take a look at the items someone dumped in the middle of their condo complex street.

Hundreds of Padres bobbleheads littered the pavement and they all had the same face.

“I’m now a huge Chris Denorfia fan,” said Philip Jia, who along with his roomates had never heard of the former Padres player now sitting in more boxes than they could carry.

And so began the great Bobblehead mystery of 2015.

“We opened them up expecting to find something a little more nefarious” Jia said, referring to when they first opened the bobblehead boxes.

“We thought it was from a drug cartel or something,” echoed roommate Jalena Lau. “But when we went through them they were just regular bobble heads."

The police department sent an officer who took a report, but advised the group to simply help out their HOA and clean the mess up.

They loaded about half the Denorfia bobbleheads into their apartment, decorating the bedroom of a roommate who wasn’t home and went to bed.

They left the rest in the street and by morning the rest were gone, presumably taken by neighbors.

The roomates give them away to co-workers, friends, and family members, but the bobbling Denorfias still hold a hefty presence inside their home.

A huge stack lines the front entry and another pile sits under the inside basketball hoop.

“Actually we had a huge Halloween party and a lot of our friends came over and it was kind of a like a present we gave out to everyone,” said Lau.

The roomates never heard back from police, so if the Denorfias were stolen or some kind of contraband, it wasn’t reported.

The real Chris Denorfia was traded from the Padres back in July of 2014 and now plays for the Cubs.

The roomates, who’ve considered flooding the Ebay market where some of the same figurines are listed for $20, say the Denorfia Bobblehad demand apparently just isn’t what it used to be.

A trial date has been set for a suspected drunk driver accused of hitting and killing a motorcyclist this summer.

Christopher Henry pleaded not guilty earlier this week to second-degree murder and driving with a suspended license charges. Trial was set for April 4.

Prosecutors said Henry was driving back from Temecula after visiting three bars on Aug. 1 when the crash happened.

At about midnight, he was driving on West Lilac Road near Bonsall when he swerved off the road, plowed into a tree and hit a motorcyclist, 60-year-old Richard Rodriguez. Rodriguez died at the scene.

Henry has a prior 2008 DUI conviction from Riverside County.

During this week of Veterans Day, there is a special series of stories that I'm remembering to me as we celebrate our station's 50th anniversary.

In 1994, our anchor Rolland Smith, photojournalist Roel Robles, and I traveled with local Navy medical personnel to Camp Pleso, Croatia to take over the field hospital during the Bosnian War.

In the many years I've been at NBC7 I have gained a great appreciation for the military and the people who serve. This trip was especially eye opening. We weren't going into the war zone. But it was close, and its affects were easy to see and feel.

We produced more than a dozen stories from that trip. There are two I'd like to share. The first is about the separation felt by those on deployment. We have done countless stories about send offs and homecomings. There is always an acknowledgment of the time families spend apart. But on this trip, we saw that separation and the impact on those deployed first hand.

The other piece is about the toll of war on the people who live there. The Wall of Shame was a monument to the loss of life felt by Croatians as well as a political statement about the perceived inaction of the rest of the world.

For the large military community that calls San Diego home, these stories are not new. It is what they have experienced for generations. But this assignment made me appreciate even more the commitment, the passion, and the sacrifice of our servicemen and women.
 

In January 2011, homeless and broke Ted Williams stood in the cold at a busy intersection in Columbus, Ohio, hoping for a miracle.

The former radio announcer was trying to piece his life back together after it was ravaged by drugs and alcohol.

"My family had all given up on me," Williams told NBC News in an interview this week.

Williams' chance to start over came when Columbus Dispatch reporter noticed his sign, which pleaded for help and boasted about Williams' "God given gift of voice."

The Dispatch posted a video of Williams' attention-grabbing baritone voice — and overnight, Williams went viral. He got a haircut, a shave and offers for big-time work, including voicing commercials for Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. A month ago, Pepsi debuted a new ad voiced by Williams, which is running now and will run during the Super Bowl.

Now, nearly five years later, Williams wants to give back to the homeless community.

For the second consecutive night, Dallas police searched for a culprit responsible for shining a laser at airplanes above North Texas.

Three planes reported laser strikes Wednesday and three more were struck Thursday. According to the FAA, laser strikes can be dangerous and "completely incapacitate pilots who are trying to fly safely to their destinations and may be carrying hundreds of passengers."

The Federal Aviation Administration said the pilots of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 and a private jet reported the green laser strikes at about 7 p.m. Thursday within about two minutes of each other.

The planes were each flying about five miles southeast of Dallas Love Field and were at an altitude of about 2,000 feet at the time.

And just after 9 p.m. the FAA said a third airplane, a Cessna C172 single-propeller private aircraft, was illuminated by a green laser on its left side with northbound at 4,500 feet, approximately five miles south of Dallas Love Field.

No injuries were reported with Thursday's incidents.

Three planes were struck by lasers Wednesday, including a Southwest Airlines jet and a Virgin America jet, about 10 miles southeast of Dallas Love Field.

The latest strikes come as Dallas police report an overall uptick in the number of laser strikes on planes in the area.

Laser strikes also plagued New York City on Wednesday, where an NBC helicopter was hit, along with another news chopper and a police helicopter. A 20-year-old man was arrested in connection with the strikes in New York.

Hitting an aircraft with a laser is a federal offense punishable by prison or an $11,000 fine.

A storm powered across the Great Lakes region and toward the East Coast early Friday, bringing high winds, snow and rain — and a tough morning for commuters throughout the region, NBC News reported.

"The wind is the big story for the population areas," according to Michael Palmer, The Weather Channel's lead forecaster. "The winds will bring the wind chill factor down to the 20s and the 30s."

Raphael Miranda, meteorologist at NBC's New York affiliate WNBC, warned of travel delays with winds gusts reaching between 40 and 60 mph from Great Lakes to the Northeast. According to The Weather Channel, Buffalo and Boston could get gusts of up to 50 mph, Washington up to 40 mph and New York City up to 30 mph. 

The families of Western hostages murdered by ISIS have expressed mixed feelings about news that Mohammed Emwazi was targeted by a U.S. airstrike near Raqqa, Syria, NBC News reported. 

Dubbed "Jihadi John," the Kuwaiti-born British citizen appeared in a series of gruesome videos last year showing the killings of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, U.S. aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and Japanese Journalist Kenji Goto.

Steven Sotloff's mother Shirley Sotloff said, "If they got him great, it doesn't bring my son back ... I don't think there will ever be closure."

For David Haines' daughter Bethany Haines, Emwazi "was only a pawn in ISIS' stupid game ... As much as I wanted him dead I also wanted answers as to why he did it, why my dad, how did it make a difference?"

Alan Henning's brother Reg Henning said he "would have preferred him to face justice."

The bodies of seven babies have been found in an apartment in southern Germany, police said on Friday, NBC News reported. 

A neighbor found the remains of one of the infants on Thursday afternoon and called police, according to a statement released by police and the local prosecutor's office. Officers found the rest of the bodies in one of the apartment's rooms. The remains were in "bad condition," according to the statement. 

Investigators said they were questioning "several people," but had yet to locate a 45-year-old woman who used to live at the property in the town of Wallenfels, Bavaria.

A transgender man was found dead with his face skinned off Thursday in Tokyo's Fussa City area, local media reported.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police told NBC News that 38-year-old Yoshi Tsuchida's body was discovered wrapped in a blanket at his apartment on the outskirts of the Japanese capital by the victim's roommate.

According to the Sankei Shimbun newspaper, the 28-year-old man identified himself as the victim's adopted son but said he was also in a relationship with the deceased man.

Citing police sources, several Japanese news outlets reported that Tsuchida's face had been skinned off with a sharp implement. NBC News has been unable able to independently verify the reports.

Republican presidential candidates have flocked to Orlando, Florida, for the party's Sunshine Summit at Rosen Shingle Creek.

Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Linsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Donald Trump and Ben Carson will address GOP supporters on Friday at the start of the two-day conference.

Rick Santorum, Jim Gilmore, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Carly Fiorina will take the stage Saturday.

On Thursday, former Vice President Dick Cheney kicked off the summit at a Republican Party of Florida fundraising dinner in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, by accusing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton of setting up a private email server when she was secretary of state to avoid having her messages sent to the National Archives, the Associated Press reported.

"I think she's in big trouble," said Cheney to loud applause.

Cheney, whose hawkish policies during the administration of President George W. Bush led critics to call him Darth Vader, embraced the dark side by taking the stage to the "Imperial March" from "Star Wars," the Orlando Sentinel reported.

A 22-year-old woman called police Friday morning to report she had been shot at a motel near San Diego’s Allied Gardens community, officials confirmed.

San Diego Police Department Lt. Kevin Mayer told NBC 7 the victim called 911 around 6:15 a.m. to report she had been shot at the Rodeway Inn located at 5399 Adobe Falls – a motel less than three miles away from Qualcomm Stadium.

When police officers arrived, they discovered the woman gravely injured inside room 130. Lt. Mayer said she had been shot once in the upper torso and was rushed to a local hospital. The injury is life-threatening, investigators said, but as of 7:45 a.m., the woman’s condition was unknown.

There was no one else inside the motel room with the woman when police arrived. After the round struck the victim, the bullet went into the wall, investigators said.

According to Lt. Mayer, the victim was in “severe pain” and was unable to provide much information to police. Investigators are not sure if the woman knows the suspects who shot her. At this point, it appears at least one car – possibly a red vehicle – were seen driving away from the motel following the gunfire, but there is no description on the shooting suspects.

Investigators are at the motel gathering evidence and speaking with witnesses, piecing together exactly what happened leading up to the shooting. Police will look at videos from surveillance cameras for more clues.

The victim’s name was not immediately released. Check back for updates on this developing story.