A man is dead after being shot in the head while walking his dog along a West Philadelphia street, police said.

The unidentified man was hit once along the 300 block of Horton Street, near Vine Street, around 7:25 p.m. Monday, according to police.

The victim was still holding the dog's leash when medics arrived, according to police.

He was taken to nearby Penn Presbyterian Trauma Center and pronounced dead. The dog was not harmed.

Homicide detectives are investigating. A motive and suspect description wasn't immediately available.

The victim is the second man to be killed while walking a dog in West Philadelphia in a week. Last Wednesday, 34-year-old Mark Marshall was shot several times while walking his two Chihuahuas.  No arrests were made in that case.

The shootings were about three miles from each other.

Just days before Christmas, a family suffered a devastating loss when four loved ones, including a 9-year-old boy, were killed in a rollover crash in Escondido Sunday.

Friends of the family cannot stop thinking about the young life cut way too short.

“He was only 9 years old,” said Joey Siboro, a friend of victim Timothy Silalahi. “It’s just not… it’s just not fair, you know? He was 9 years old.”

Friends say Timothy, his grandmother, an aunt and a friend visiting from Indonesia died when their SUV rolled down an embankment near Nordahl Road off east SR-78. The boy had just celebrated his birthday last month.

Also inside the Toyota Sequoia were Timothy’s mother and two sisters, who were all hospitalized after the accident. The group from Loma Linda was driving home from a relative’s house in Carlsbad, and the CHP says the Sequoia collided with a Chevy Sonic changing lanes before flying off the road. The siblings’ father was not in the car with them.

The friends visiting the victims in the hospital Monday attend the same Seventh Day Adventist church in Loma Linda as the family. Susie Siboro, Joey’s mother, said Timothy was the family’s only boy.

“He’s a miracle child,” said Susie through tears. “More than 10 years they’ve been waiting for him. They’ve been waiting for him more than 10 years. And I hope all of us will be faithful. We will see them again in heaven.”

Officials have not yet released the identities of the three other victims killed in the crash.

“It was just tragic for our family because, you know, Timmy, he’s part of the church,” said Joey. “The church will never ever be the same. It’s a community, and when a family member grieves from a loss like that, everybody grieves.”

The conditions of the mother and sisters in the hospital are not known. The driver of the Chevy Sonic was not hurt. Officers initially arrested him but have since let him go as they continue their investigation.

Authorities say at this point, alcohol, drugs and speed were not factors.
 

Chicago police are searching for two thieves who stole a $95,000 jacket from a Michigan Avenue store last week just minutes after they stole thousands of dollars from another Chicago retailer.

Authorities say a man and a woman entered a store in the 0-100 block of East Oak Street sometime between 2 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. last Monday. The pair stole more than $10,000 worth of items.

Sometime between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. that same day, the two suspects entered a store in the 700 block of North Michigan Avenue and stole an alligator skin jacket valued at $95,000, police said. 

Detailed descriptions of the suspects were not immediately available, but police are warning businesses in the area to be on alert.

Anyone with information on the thefts is asked to call Area Central Detectives at (312) 742-5778.
 

A 70-year-old nun who was struck by a hit-and-run driver a week earlier died Sunday as police continued the search for the driver who took off, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Sister Raquel Diaz, a nun for 50 years, was on her way back to church when a car struck her as she walked in a crosswalk at Winter Street and North Evergreen Avenue in Boyle Heights.

The driver did not stop, and kept driving south down North Evergreen Avenue.

Paramedics took Diaz to the hospital where she remained in critical condition until her death.

Diaz was the director of religious education at the Church of Assumption, and a Sister with the Los Angeles Diocese.

No suspect description was available, but police were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

Anyone with information on the hit-and-run was encouraged to call authorities at (213) 833-3713, Detective Padilla at (213) 486-0753 or Officer Cortez at (213) 486-0766. 

A new design from a Japanese architect has been chosen for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic stadium, NBC News reported.

A new competition was organized this month. A design from architect Kengo Kuma won the competition. It’s been deemed a “wonderful design” that embodies a “Japaneseness” through wooden material, according to Toshiaki Endo, the minister in charge of the 2020 games.

The original plan, proposed by an Iraqi-British architect, was praised for its futuristic conception. It was later scrapped due to a ballooning cost estimate and “ridiculous design,” according to the Japan Sports Council.

The cost for the latest design is under the proposed budget of $1.2 billion dollars.  

A man is charged with killing his 89-year-old Minnesota mother all because their home was infested with bedbugs, NBC News reported.

Michael Theodore Gallagher, 62, was being held without bail pending a hearing Tuesday afternoon on one count of second-degree murder. Authorities said he suffocated his mother with a garbage bag after beating her with a sculpture and choking her didn’t work.

Police said Gallagher called 911 to say he killed his mother inside their downtown Minneapolis apartment. According to an affidavit, he tried to get rid of the bedbugs himself, but failed.

Prosecutors said he told investigators he tried a number of methods to try to kill his mother, including first bludgeoning her five times with a sculpture of himself.  

For 16 years, a Poway couple has opened their home, and hearts, to thousands, showcasing their marvelous “Santa house.” But now, they say, the time has come to close up shop.

John and Kathy Huish annually transform their house inside and out into an amazing display of decorations that draws on average 15,000 visitors who stand in line for hours.

The tradition started in 2000, a simple enough idea to invite people to come see Santa Claus and has grown ever since through word of mouth.

It started in the corner of the couple’s driveway the first year, then grew the second year to include the playhouses in the backyard.

“The following year, we opened the inside of the house and then the following year we built a room that we call the Santa Room and it's just evolved,” Kathy Huish said.

John Huish said it's been his way of paying back the community for supporting his business: the popular Family Fun Centers.

In fact, those playhouses used to be miniature golf obstacles at the old Fun Center in La Mesa. They bring in a crane to hoist a 36-foot tower, bought from FAO Schwarz in Seattle.

The couple is closing up the Santa house mainly because of their elderly ages.

After 16 years, Kathy likes to reflect on the difference the couple has made in so many lives.

"We had a little boy who's dying wish was to come here. And then he passed away just a few days after he'd been here. Those are the kinds of things that touch your heart and know that you've made somebody happy," Kathy Huish said.

The Huishes didn't want to disclose their address, as they say the crowds have just been so large. The house will be open to visitors until Dec. 23.

California regulators on Monday proposed relaxing water conservation targets that have required communities statewide to cut use by 25 percent during historic drought.

Communities in hot inland regions and those using new sources, such as recycled water and recently built desalination plants, could be eligible for reduced conservation requirements, said Max Gomberg, climate and conservation manager for the State Water Resources Control Board.

The state's overall water conservation target could drop to about 22 percent if all of the 411 eligible water agencies apply for adjustments, he said, adding that the moves come in response to some community leaders who complained that strict conservation targets assigned to individual communities are unfair.

"For right now, drought conditions are persisting," he said. "We're proposing modest changes."

California is in its driest four-year span on record, and officials anticipate a possible fifth year of drought. Weather forecasters say a strong El Nino weather system could drench the state, but one good year won't be enough to rehydrate the parched landscape.

Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this year required communities throughout the state to reduce water use by 25 percent. State water regulators set individual targets for local agencies to meet, varying between 4 and 36 percent compared with 2013, but those targets will expire in February.

Brown recently extended his executive order, giving regulators authority to enforce conservation measures through October 2016, if California still faces drought in January.

Local community leaders have criticized the individual targets as unfair and unrealistic. In Southern California, local governments argued state officials should acknowledge huge investments in new supplies to prepare for drought.

This year, the San Diego region completed a $1 billion seawater desalination plant, the largest in the Americas. Orange County recently expanded wastewater recycling to produce 100 million gallons of drinking water daily.

"It has been difficult to tell our ratepayers that their investments in local supply projects have not resulted in providing the buffer against drought as intended," Halla Razak, the city of San Diego's public utilities director, wrote state regulators this month.

Some environmental groups oppose giving local governments credit for new supplies, saying it might discourage conservation.

The state water board will take public comment on the proposed changes for roughly two weeks. Gomberg said the state water board could hold a public hearing Feb. 2.

A dangerously venomous yellow-bellied snake, only documented to have washed ashore in California twice before, was found dead in Huntington Beach Dec. 12, according to the Surfrider Foundation.

As 275 volunteers were cleaning up Bolsa Chica State Beach, a volunteer picked it up and took it home in a zip lock bag to store it in the refrigerator while his son researched what species it was.

"No one really knew when we picked it up that it was venomous," Tony Soriano of the Huntington Beach Surfrider Foundation said.

The Museum of Natural History contacted the man and picked up the snake the following Friday.

Experts encouraged anyone who finds the highly venomous snake to report it. They also said not to touch it.

The yellow-bellied sea snake, also known as Pelamis platura, is typically found in warmer waters in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and can swim backward and forward. They can also stay underwater for three hours.

Experts from the Surfrider Foundation said the snake likely came to Bolsa Chica State Beach due to El Niño.

"There is belief that the El Niño temperature change could have enticed the creature to swim north in search of small fish and eels, which they use their venom to paralyze," according to the Huntington Beach Surfrider Foundation's Facebook post.

The snakes are more likely to attack if touched, the foundation said.

It was the third time documented that the "dangerous" snake was found in California.

Yellow-bellied snakes were found off Silver Strand Beach in Oxnard in October.

The first was found Thanksgiving 1972 at San Clemente Beach, according to the Surfrider Foundation, though Heal the Bay said the first was found in the 1980s.

The snakes are looking for fresh water to drink from recent rainfall, Heal the Bay said.  

One of the six Americans killed in a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan Monday was an New York police detective serving in the U.S. Air National Guard, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said Monday evening.

Det. Joseph Lemm, a 15-year veteran of the department, was on routine security patrol with his convoy around Bagram Airfield north of Kabul around 1:30 p.m. local time when a suicide bomber drove a motorcycle into the convoy and blew himself up, NBC News reported.

Six Americans in the convoy of U.S., NATO and Afghan forces were killed, including Lemm, while two other Americans and an interpreter were wounded, according to NBC News. 

Lemm served in the Bronx warrant squad on the NYPD, and during his career on the force, he was also deployed three times, twice to Afghanistan and once to Iraq, Bratton said. He was promoted to NYPD detective in January of 2014.

The Air National Guard didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lemm is survived by his wife and two children, Bratton said.

"Detective Joseph Lemm epitomized the selflessness we can only strive for: putting his county and city first," Bratton said in a statement. 

"Tonight, we grieve and we remember this selfless public servant who dedicated his life to protecting others," he said of Lemm. 

The loaded gun a 6-year-old girl shot herself with at a San Diego apartment on Saturday was not secured in a child-proof way, San Diego Police (SDPD) spokesman Lieutenant Scott Wahl said. 

The incident happened in the 3800 block of Caminito Aguilar in Clairemont at approximately 3:15 p.m. Saturday, though it is still unclear how the shooting happened. Both of the girl's parents were home at the time, as well as two other siblings, a 7- and 3-year-old.

The young girl, who has not been identified by police, suffered a non-life threatening wound to her leg. After the incident, her parents called 911. She was taken to Rady Children's Hospital, and there is no update on her condition.  

The gun she used belonged to her family and had been owned for several years, police said.

Due to the injury and circumstance, Child Protective Services automatically became involved in the process. 

Child abuse detectives will conduct a forensic interview with the girl when she recovers. 

As of Monday, the girl was in custody of her family. 

No one has been been arrested, but officials say the investigation is ongoing.

Police warns parents to secure potentially dangerous items, including guns, medications, extension cords and other items, that may be dangerous to children. 

SDPD's Northwestern Division has free gun locks. The station is located at 12592 El Camino Real. They can be reached at (858) 523-7000.

Iraqi forces have moved into the center of Ramadi as part of a final push to retake the city from ISIS, the spokesman for Iraq's counterterrorism forces said Tuesday, NBC News reported. 

Sabah Nua'man told NBC News that counterterrorism forces were able to cross the Euphrates River into the center of the city, backed by cover from the air, killing 12 ISIS fighters in the sudden assault.

ISIS took over Ramadi in May in an embarrassing defeat for Iraqi forces which raised questions from Defense Secretary Ashton Carter over whether Iraqis lacked the will to fight.

Iraqi forces launched a push to retake Ramadi earlier this month.

Half of American voters say they would feel "embarrassed" to have current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump as the country's next president, a new Quinnipiac poll found, NBC News reported. 

According to the survey, 28 percent of Republicans support Trump to be the party's nominee. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas came in second with 24 percent support, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio got 12 percent, and Dr. Ben Carson gets 10 percent support.

Asked whether they would be proud or embarrassed if Trump is elected, fully 50 percent of all registered voters suggested that they would feel ashamed, including 20 percent of Republicans, 47 percent of independents and 82 percent of Democrats.

Just 23 percent of voters said that they would feel proud if Trump lead the country.

A Maine schoolteacher said she was forced to remove a pink "Hello Kitty" Christmas tree from her classroom, a move that she argued shows society has reached a troubling "turning point."

According to Catherine Gordon's Facebook post, the school's principal told her she was no longer allowed to put up the tree. It was the first time in 30 years that she was told the holiday display had to go, she wrote. 

Gordon explained "the tree had no religious symbols on it whatsoever. No crosses or angels - just pink Hello Kitties and my students really enjoyed it and it cheered me up during the day."

Gordon was not told that there had been a change in the policy regarding classroom decorations, the Bangor Daily News reported. The paper was not successful at reaching the school's principal for comment.

Necn left a message for Principal Butler in response to the decision to remove the tree as well.

Gordon put the tree up on Wednesday and was told to take it down Friday, prompting questions from her students.

She explained that the students were just as disappointed as she was.

"It just sucks the joy out of everything," she wrote.

Gordon's Facebook post has gained widespread attention on social media.

Maine Congressman Bruce Poliquin posted on his Facebook page as well to criticize the decision.

"Displaying a Christmas tree is a longstanding tradition in our country. It should not be condemned, especially in our classrooms," he wrote. 

The congressman released a statement encouraging the Bangor School Department to reconsider their decision to remove the tree.

Gordon wrote that she used to be able to throw holiday parties for her students right before break but that is no longer allowed as well.

She added, “I feel that this is definitely a turning point in our society - when everything offends everyone all the time.”

A Hollywood special effects producer who went missing on Nov. 24, launching a weeks-long search and tear-filled pleas from his family to find him, revealed on Facebook that he's an addict and thanked everyone who looked for him. 

"My name is Eric Kohler and I am an addict," he said in one of the opening paragraphs of his post on Sunday. The post had received 461 likes and 515 shares on Facebook by Monday afternoon. 

"The actions that led up to the events unfolding over these past few weeks are not my proudest moments. Addiction is a serious issue that I clearly recognize now," Kohler said.

The 27-year-old visual effects producer, who worked on films such as "The Avengers," "San Andreas," and "X-Men," said he went into a "frenzy" because of high expectations, stress and addiction. He disappeared because of an emotional and physical breakdown, he said. 

In the post, Kohler also said that through his "downward spiral" he witnessed a miracle.

"I witnessed support from family, friends, loved ones, co-workers and people I've never even met before," Kohler said. "Individuals from every corner of the country and even across borders united as one to create a support group during a period of my life that I wasn't even aware I needed."

Kohler went missing when he left work on a Tuesday without his wallet, laptop, or bag. He didn't contact his family to let them know of his whereabouts, so they began frantically posting fliers and making their pleas via media outlets to find him.

He took off from his job in Gardena in his new Range Rover.

Surveillance footage showed he went to a Food 4 Less parking lot, then apparently turned off his phone.

"I know my son would never do this," Sheryi Kohler said in one of the first appearances the family made on TV.

The Los Angeles Police Department said 10 days after he disappeared tha Kohler was found alive in La Paz, Mexico, and was no longer considered a missing person.

Media outlets received concerned pleas from the public to continue looking for Kohler after word that he had turned up in Mexico began circulating.

A Facebook post from his sister published hours before LAPD's announcement that Kohler was found said that Eric was still missing, and police as well as the media were wrong about him being found.

"It is very unfortunate that the local news and other media outlets are running stories that are NOT true," the post from Kristina Loren said. "We have not located Eric! He is not in La Paz Mexico, that photo was a hoax. The authorities are working very hard to find Eric!"

Calls and messages to the family were not returned to NBC4.

After Kohler posted his apology to Facebook Sunday, Loren said on the social media site that she was incredibly proud of her brother for writing the post.

NBC4 has reached out once again after the news of Kohler's Facebook post, but the family has not responded.  

The San Diego Coastal Chamber of Commerce is looking for volunteers to help staff the 2016 Farmers Open Golf Tournament.

Golfers will compete beginning Wednesday, January 27 at Torrey Pines and last through Sunday, January 31.

Volunteers are needed for the main entrance, fan areas near some of the holes on the course or the Grove bar. Check here to register.

You may wear a polo shirt with your company logo on it while volunteering, exposing your brand to thousands of attendees visiting the tournament each day.

All volunteers will get a parking pass and meal vouchers as well as the opportunity to see the tournament before or after your volunteer shift.
 

A second airman based with the U.S. Air National Guard in New York is among the six Americans killed in a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan Monday, authorities said Tuesday.

Louis Bonacasa, 30, who is from Coram and was stationed at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, died in Monday's attack along with NYPD detective Joseph Lemm, a 15-year veteran of the department who was also stationed at that base, family members and officials confirmed Tuesday.

Bonacasa and Lemm were on routine security patrol with their convoy around Bagram Airfield north of Kabul when a suicide bomber drove a motorcycle into the convoy and blew himself up, NBC News reported.

They and four other Americans in the convoy of U.S., NATO and Afghan forces were killed while two other Americans and an interpreter were wounded, according to NBC News.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Bonacasa and Lemm's 105th Base Defense Squadron had deployed to Bagram in October, and the two men were both on their last tours of duty, their relatives said.

"Leading a team of passionate defenders, they took on the most challenging mission for themselves and epitomized the concept of leading from the front, a concept that has distinct risks that they both acknowledged and embraced," said Col. Timothy Labarge, commander of the 105th Airlift Wing. "Their example and sacrifice will never be forgotten as we do our part, on behalf of a grateful nation, to thank and memorialize them in perpetuity."

Bonacasa's mother, Diana, said she remembers the day her son came to her and told her he wanted to be a soldier.

"He graduated high school in 2002, he was only 17, and he said, 'Mom, I want to join the Marines,'" Diana Bonacasa told NBC News. "I said, 'No, if you're going into the service you're going into the Air Force. I wanted him to go to college."

His mother said he enlisted right after graduation. Family said Louis Bonacasa completed four tours in hostile territory. Diana Bonacasa said her son learned after arriving home from one of his last tours that a friend who had replaced him had been killed. She said he wasn't the same after that, and believes that's why he volunteered for another tour -- the tour from which he would not come home.

"This time that he left, it felt different," Diana Bonacasa told NBC News. "All the other times we kissed and hugged but this time something felt like I wouldn't see him again. I cried for two weeks."

Louis Bonacasa is survived by his wife and 5-year-old daughter. He met his wife in bootcamp and married her at 19. She is also a veteran.

Lemm served in the Bronx warrant squad on the NYPD, and during his career on the force, he was also deployed three times, twice to Afghanistan and once to Iraq, Bratton said. He was promoted to NYPD detective in January of 2014.

Lemm lived in West Harrison in Westchester, where grieving neighbors and friends offered up bittersweet memories. 

"He was a good man," said Fred Riguzzi, owner of Fred's Barbershop where Lemm often stopped in for a haircut. "It's tough. It's tough."

Two years ago, Lemm returned from a tour in Afghanistan to surprise his wife Christine and two children, Brooke and Ryan, at a singing competition at Westchester Burger in Rye Brook.

Restaurant owner and family friend Vincent Corso recalled of the tearful reunion: "It was a very touching night. You had 200 people with tears in their eyes." 

Corso said Lemm was in the restaurant two months ago, "happy because this was his last tour." 

At Barino's Market in the Bronx, near the 50th Precinct stationhouse where Lemm was most recently working, the staff grew to know Lemm and would ship him care packages full of local specialties like cookies and candies, "things to remind them of home," said Michael Barrett.

"It's heartbreaking," said Barrett. "He was a class-A good guy."

"He protected us here, protected us abroad," he said. "There's nothing that guy didn't do for us." 

"Detective Joseph Lemm epitomized the selflessness we can only strive for: putting his county and city first," Bratton said in a statement.

Lemm's children will receive a gift from a foundation that provides scholarship funds for the children of firefighters and police officers in the metropolitan area who are killed in the line of duty, NBC 4 has learned. Though Lemm was on leave from the NYPD and deployed as a member of the National Guard, the board of the Silver Shield Foundation has decided to set aside funds for his two children to honor his service to his country and his city. 

Gov. Cuomo released a statement Tuesday morning saying those who died will be "greatly missed."

"Staff Sgt. Joe Lemm was committed to his fellow Americans, and embodied the selflessness and bravery of the U.S. Armed Forces and the NYPD. I join all New Yorkers in mourning his loss, as well as the loss of the other victims of this horrific attack," he said in the statement.

Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino called Lemm "a true-grit all-American hero who fought for his country during three tours of duty, served his community as a police officer, and was a loving husband and father. Westchester is on bended knee in sadness over the death of one of our own and the grief that it brings the Lemm family." 

Lemm and Bonecasa are the 34th and 35th members of the New York National Guard to die in combat since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. They are the second and third members of the New York Air National Guard to die in combat.

The first New York Air National Guard Airman to die in combat was Staff Sgt. Todd J. Lobraico Jr., who was killed while operating in the vicinity of Bagram Air Base on Sept. 3, 2013. Like Lemm and Bonecasa, he was a member of the 105th Base Defense Squadron.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, 12 members of the New York Army and Air National Guard have died while deployed in Afghanistan.

First responders are working to rescue 2,600 piglets after a truck carrying the animals rolled over on a North Carolina highway, according to NBC affiliate WNCN.

The tractor-trailer flipped onto its side and hit a guard rail Tuesday on Interstate 40 in Raleigh, seriously injuring some of the swine, WNCN reports.

Other piglets got loose and began wandering around the site of the crash, which stalled traffic on the highway.

Police, firefighters and animal control flocked to the scene to rescue the animals and right the overturned truck. Animal control used nets to capture loose piglets, a WNCN reporter tweeted.

It's unclear if the driver was hurt or what caused the truck to flip onto its side. According to WNCN, the truck was traveling from Johnston County, North Carolina, to Iowa when it crashed.

Some 2,200 piglets were involved in a similar rollover in Ohio over the summer.

Eight months following the fatal shooting of Fridoon Rawshan Nehad, a 42-year-old mentally-ill man, in the Midway area of San Diego, a federal judge ruled that private surveillance video could be released to the media.

San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis decided to make the unprecedented move of releasing the video along with other clips and evidence from the investigation into the officer-involved shooting.

Here are the clips released Tuesday by the San Diego County District Attorney's Office.

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