President Donald Trump took to Twitter early Monday morning to accuse former FBI director James Comey of leaking classified information to the news media.

But, as NBC News reports, a source close to Comey has pushed back against those allegations. Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman, who received some of the memos and shared part of one with reporters, says the part he shared did not contain classified information.

At issue is a report from The Hill stating that more than half of the memos Comey wrote about his conversations with Trump were determined to contain classified material.

The report appeared to prompt a tweet from Trump, saying what Comey had done was "so illegal."

Hundreds of protesters on Monday gathered in the halls of Congress in an effort to stop a Republican health care reform plan. Some demonstrators were able to get into Speaker Paul Ryan's office. Capitol police arrested dozens of protesters, some of whom said they had pre-existing conditions.

A car crashed into a building in La Jolla leaving one elderly person trapped inside Monday, confirmed San Diego Fire-Rescue (SDFD).

SDFD crews are working on rescuing the elderly person. The collision happened around 2:40 p.m. near Ivanhoe Avenue and Torrey Pines Road.

At about 3:20 p.m., the patient was successfully removed from the vehicle and taken to Scripps La Jolla for medical treatment.

The San Diego Police Department is also at the scene.

No other information was immediately available.

Please refresh this page for updates on this story. Details may change as more information becomes available.

Insurer profits are up this year in Obamacare’s individual exchanges, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

NBC News reports the analysis found insurance companies are paying a lower share of premiums out in medical claims than in any period since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, without any significant difference in the health of the group measured.

The new information suggests the insurance market is stabilizing, despite claims from Republicans that Obamacare is collapsing.

However, some insurers have submitted significant premium increases or pulled out of the market, which experts say could be related to uncertainty over health care legislation.

A Hawaiian soldier was arrested and accused of trying to provide military documents and training to ISIS, the Army said in a statement Monday.

The active-duty soldier, identified as Ikaika Kang, 34, of Waipahu, also apparently swore allegiance to ISIS, the statement said. He was taken into custody Saturday by an FBI SWAT team, NBC News reported.

The Army and the FBI had been investigating Kang for more than a year, Paul D. Delacourt, the FBI's special agent in charge in Honolulu, said in the statement.

Kang is currently in federal custody and is expected to appear in federal court Monday evening.

A man whose truck flew off the Coronado Bridge last November, killing four people, appeared in court for the second day of a preliminary hearing Monday.

Relatives of victims flew in from all over the country to see the preliminary hearing for 25-year-old Richard Anthony Sepolio. The courtroom was fully packed.

A large part of the hearing Monday focused on testimony from a cell phone expert who said Sepolio admitted to wanting to get wasted before the crash.

The investigator for the District Attorney's office, Michael Edwards, said the defendant said he wanted to get 'white girl wasted' in a text message to a coworker on the day of the crash.

"I want to get white girl wasted. What does that mean?" asked Edwards. "I had to look it up. It's a term that kind of means, you want to get so drunk..."

Edwards downloaded the cell phone messages Sepolio had sent on the day of the crash.

Sepolio was an active duty service member stationed in Coronado when he allegedly sped up the northbound I-5 onramp at approximately 81 mph on Nov. 15.

Prosecutors also said that Sepolio was on his phone texting before he veered off the ramp. The defense says Sepolio was forced off the road by another vehicle, but the DA says there is no evidence of that.

Sepolio had been having drinks with a friend that Saturday afternoon, and he was under the influence when he got in his car to drive back to Coronado, prosecutors allege. They say he was drunk at the time of the crash.

His truck hit a guardrail and fell 60 feet into Chicano Park below, instantly killing four people at a festival: Cruz Elias Contreras, 52; AnnaMarie Contreras, 50; Andre Christopher Banks, 49; Francine Denise Jimenez, 46.

He has pleaded not guilty to four counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and charges of driving under the influence causing injury or death.

His injuries prevented officials from performing an accurate breathalyzer test, prosecutors say. A later test showed his BAC was .08.

If convicted on all counts, Sepolio could face a maximum sentence of 23 years and eight months in prison.

The hearing was continued from last month after delays caused by scheduling conflicts with the judge and attorneys.

A man who pleaded guilty to helping smuggle two Mexican nationals across the U.S.-Mexico border in the trunk of a car, leading to their deaths, was sentenced to 12 months in custody for the crime

Pedro Velasco-Manzano, 44, a citizen of Mexico, previously admitted to helping arrange the smuggling of two Mexican citizens, Casas-Blanco and Jose Aurelio Quiroz-Casas, who suffocated in the trunk of Nicholas Zakov's car while he tried to smuggle them across the U.S.-Mexico border at San Ysidro in August 2014 for a fee of $11,500.

Velasco-Manzano arranged for the two victims to be housing in Tijuana until plans to smuggle them across the border could be finalized, according to his plea agreement. 

He then took them from the stash house to the smugglers: Zakov and Eduard Ervemac Saavedra.

The men smuggled the victims into the U.S. across the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Aug. 12, 2014, for the prospect of a $3,500 payout. 

Saavedra admitted to arranging for the victims to be hidden in the trunk of Zakov's Dodge Challenger in Tijuana. He then directed Zakov to drive through the San Ysidro Port of Entry with the two victims in the trunk, where temperatures were rising amid little ventilation. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers later found the victims unresponsive in the trunk. Despite medical attention, the two victims died of hyperthermia and mechanical asphyxiation, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Zakov was previously sentenced to 84 months in prison. Saavedra was previously sentenced to 63 months in prison. 

Active duty military and their families can visit SeaWorld San Diego for free through Dec. 31, 2017.

The park announced their Waves of Honor program extends to any U.S. active duty military members, activated or drilling reservist or National Guardsman, as well as three additional guests.

Veterans and their families also get one complimentary admission per year to SeaWorld. The offer is available through Sep. 30 and servicemembers can visit until Dec. 30.

The tickets are available online.

Servicemembers must verify their active status through ID.me on the park's website.

NBC 7’s Derek Togerson takes a look at the Padres losing a lot of games in the second half in this commentary

At the 2017 All-Star break the San Diego Padres are in 4th place in the National League West with a 38-50 record. But they have been playing well of late.

If you break the 88 games they’ve played in half you find they went 15-29 in their first 44 and a much-improved 23-21 over the second 44. Obviously, they’re doing it wrong.

At least that’s what many Padres fans believe. There is a growing movement urging the Padres to tank the rest of the season, meaning lose as many games as possible to try and improve their draft status and acquire more, better, younger players with higher ceilings and more chance for prolonged Major League success.

It’s basically what the Astros did and right about now it looks like it’s working out pretty well for Houston, another franchise like the Padres that does not have the financial clout to sign a bunch of guys to 9-figure contracts like the Cubs, Yankees and Red Sox.

The idea makes sense. The Padres are not going to compete with the Dodgers or Diamondbacks or Rockies and get back in to playoff contention this season. So winning a bunch of games in the second half of the year to get to the middle of the pack and obtaining a WORSE draft position does not seem like a very good strategy.

But there is something else to consider. Several of the guys the Padres are expecting to be the nucleus of the team when it gets in to perennial playoff contention are already up with the big league club and playing pretty well. Catcher Austin Hedges, centerfielder Manuel Margot, right fielder Hunter Renfroe and starting pitcher Dinelson Lamet, just to name a few, are showing signs of being really good Major Leaguers.

Here is where the problem lies.

If those guys (along with Wil Myers, who is still only 26 years old) are going to be the leaders of the Padres success they have to know how to win because they will be the ones to teach the waves of younger players to come up how to win. So the questions are:

1)    Do you actively stunt the growth of the guys already in The Show for the sake of adding more talent?
2)    When do you have enough talent in the system to stop trying to get good draft slots and start trying to win every single game you play?
3)    Where are the Padres in all of this?

The answer to the first one is for a while, yes. Just look at Jose Altuve. The Astros 2nd baseman was up in 2011 and went through three consecutive 100-plus-loss seasons and he turned out to be pretty good. Sometimes you just have to take the lumps for the end product.

The answer to the second one is much more problematic. The Padres have re-vamped their system with more than 50 international signings and another 60-plus draft picks, plus a handful of high-value trade acquisitions the last few years and yet they still are very likely nowhere near where they need to be talent-wise.

That brings us to the answer to the third one, which is no chance. They’ll get there when they have multiple top-notch prospects at every level of the system and right now they are simply not there. If General Manager A.J. Preller and his squad keep up this pace for the next two years and some of these guys start to pan out then San Diego will be at the point where they stop courting losses and start despising them.

And I know there is a caveat to the whole draft and international signing thing. I’ve touted it myself many times. For every Ken Griffey Jr. there is a Matt Bush (both #1 overall picks). You can find a Cy Young Award winner with the 7th overall pick (Clayton Kershaw) or in the 7th round (Dallas Keuchel). In 2009 Mike Trout was the 6th outfielder selected.

Basically the point is, although there is a history of the #1 overall pick panning out with greater frequency (24 of the first 48 became All-Stars) the MLB Draft is an inexact science, more so than any other sport. Remember four of the overall first picks that did NOT become All-Stars were taken by the Padres. Talent can be found anywhere at any time. Jake Peavy in the 15th round, anyone? Sure I’ll take that.

But as it stands now the Padres are in tank mode, something that will become even clearer as the trade deadline looms and some of the veterans they have on the roster are sent away for even more young talent.

Given their strategy it’s probably the right thing to do. So enjoy the small successes the Padres are having in 2017 and root for the youngsters to play well and learn … but lose a lot of games. They’re 8.5 games back of the Phillies for the worst record in baseball and need to make up some ground.

A group of hikers contacted lifeguards Monday evening for a rescue from a cliffside in La Jolla, the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) said.

The call came out at approximately 4:20 p.m. on the 2800 block of Torrey Pines Scenic Drive. 

The group was on top on a cliff near Glider Port and said they could not get down.

Fire officials said the hikers were not injured.

A helicopter was heading to the location to assist in the rescue.

No other information was available.

Please refresh this page for updates on this story. Details may change as more information becomes available.

Liliana Salazar says high-end cosmetic companies are slow to lower their prices.

"I think they probably know that women will buy it regardless," said Salazar.

She's not alone. Rhonda Wick has gotten used to paying top prices for her makeup.

"Because we need it and we're gonna pay the money," said Wick.

But Tonya Warner said increased competition could change all that.

"With the new way we shop, retail versus online, it's a little bit of a different world," said Warner.

But while major department stores may be feeling the heat, they won't necessarily slash prices on the shelf.  San Diego State University Marketing Professor Michael Belch said stores are more likely to go for short-term sales cuts rather than lowering the price.

"Once you lower the price people recognize that you can sell it at that price," said Belch. "There is no coming back from that."

The Wall Street Journal reported that stores like Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale's and Macy's have all recently offered some sort of advertised discount on cosmetics.

More price oriented stores like Ulta and Sephora may have contributed to the pressure on department stores to lower their prices.  But online competition is also taking a bite out of makeup sales.

Wick told NBC 7, she would love to see department stores feel the pressure to lower their makeup prices.

"I would love to see a price war. It would be more affordable, and then I would buy more of it," she said.

The man killed in a fiery wrong-way crash on Interstate 5 in Logan Heights early Saturday has been identified. 

California Highway Patrol (CHP) officials said the deadly, head-on crash happened at around 12:10 a.m. on northbound I-5 just north of Interstate 15.

CHP officers received several phone calls moments before the crash reporting a driver in a sports car traveling the wrong way on the freeway near 28th Street. 

Minutes later, CHP officers received more emergency calls, this time reporting the driver of the sports car had plowed into the driver of the tow truck on northbound I-5 at 32nd Street.

When emergency crews arrived, both the tow truck and the car were in flames, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) Chief Ted Moran said.

CHP said the driver of the car was killed in the crash. He has been identified as 42-year-old Marc Le Friant.

The tow truck driver involved suffered burns and major injuries and was taken to UC San Diego Medical Center.

Witnesses told NBC 7 the driver of the tow truck managed to get himself out of the wreckage before it fully burned. He was seen running over to the wrong-way driver's car, trying to help him as the flames consumed the car.

The accident prompted CHP officers to shut down traffic in both directions on I-5 for several hours overnight. 

The deadly collision is under investigation; it is unknown, at this point, if alcohol played a factor. 

Hurricane Eugene, off the southern coast of Baja California, is causing big waves and rip currents in San Diego thanks to a phenomenon called hurricane surf.

Large waves from five to eight feet and some as big as ten feet will hit south-facing beaches in northern San Diego on Tuesday and into Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

The biggest waves can be expected in Oceanside and Camp Pendleton.

According to meteorologists with the NWS, strong winds from the hurricane have caused bigger swells in southern California. Parts of Orange County, like San Clemente, will also see bigger waves.

Experts warn that it is important to swim near lifeguards, as rip currents can unexpectedly pull swimmers out to sea during hurricane surf.

Amazon’s Prime Day, a carefully fabricated “retail holiday” meant to take advantage of the company's vast shipping network, is set for a time of year when the busy holiday shopping season is still a ways off.

“If you had to build a machine that could handle peak operations, and it was idle for 10 months of the year, Prime Day now lets you leverage that machine for profit,” said Marc Wulfraat, the president of supply chain consulting company MWPVL.

Indeed, an Amazon spokesperson told NBC in a statement that the day is “nothing out of the ordinary for a summer sale.”

The company has not released information about last year's sales, but analysts estimated $500 million to $600 million in total, according to CNBC.

For the past five years, Amazon has been busy creating a network of warehouses, trucks — and now, planes — that can handle the surge in orders expected on Prime Day. Wulfraat said the company has made big strides in increasing the "level of control they have over the outbound transportation operations."

"They've made tremendous gains to...get close to the customers,” Wulfraat said.

In addition to its massive distribution hubs, which are known as “fulfillment centers,” Amazon has built at least 58 warehouses specifically for Prime deliveries in dense urban areas.

One of these hubs — each of which is around 50,000 square feet — is inside a corporate tower in midtown Manhattan. Inside, employees called "pickers" weave through mazes of the company’s 10,000 top-selling products, TIME reported.

“We have high-tech algorithms that we have taken from our normal fulfillment centers, and we use them in this smaller building,” Stephenie Landry, Amazon's worldwide director of Prime Now, told TIME. "It takes the picker on the fastest path possible to grab all of the items.”

The much larger fulfillment centers are usually a few hundred miles from cities, but these smaller Prime-only facilities like the one in New York mean that Amazon can deliver products to many of its Prime customers within an hour or two.

Amazon used to rely mostly on FedEx and UPS to transport goods from its warehouses to customers’ doorsteps, but this process was sometimes unreliable and often expensive, Wulfraat said.

Shareholder data shows that between 2010 and 2014, the company spent more on shipping than what it made in shipping revenue, according to Quartz. Taken as a share of product sales, these expenses rose from about 8 percent in 2009 to 17 percent two years ago.

To cut down on shipping costs, Amazon also has been trying to take over more of the actual shipping process — with planes that can fly Prime products from one coast to another — and more warehouses that can pass on packages to postal workers, who are cheaper and more efficient than FedEx might be, Wulfraat said.

This complex system is only filled to capacity during the holidays — when Amazon gets up to 8 times more orders than during the rest of the year — so Prime Day is a chance to operate these systems at full capacity and make some profit.

“Amazon is trying to shift some of the shopping towards the average part of the year in order to leverage all of the investment they’ve made for peak operations during the holidays,” Wulfraat said.

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer's big and bold plan to attack homelessness in the city is raising questions about its similarities with a plan put forth by the San Diego Housing Commission months ago.

“Over the next three years, the commission will spend roughly $80 million on several vital programs all aimed at reducing homeless in our city and our region,” Faulconer announced on July 5.

That was three months after a proposal from the housing commission.

Dubbed the Housing First Initiative, the plan has six key points: give landlord incentives to assist in housing homeless, build new permanent supportive housing, assist homeless households to get and keep permanent housing, provide rental assistance, reduce the inflow of newly homeless, and expand support and coordination of existing street outreach efforts.

A spokesperson for the San Diego Housing Commission told NBC7 it's the exact same plan they put forth months ago, except for the Homeless Prevention and Diversion Services. The City Council kicked in an extra $1 million in this latest version.

Instead of helping more than 1,000 people, they'll be able to assist more than 1,400.

In the last three months, the mayor has been criticized for his handling of the homelessness crisis in San Diego. Even outside proposals have trickled in from the business community.

“Everybody says it's about the money to a degree, but it's about things more important than the money," Dan Shea said on June 29. "It's about leadership and it's about the organization of those resources.”

So if many stake holders are calling these plans pretty much the same, then why was this initiative announced this July, after so much criticism?

The Mayor's office told NBC 7 in a statement that "The 'HOUSING FIRST SAN DIEGO' plan ... was unanimously approved by the City Council in May and went into effect July 1.”

The Mayor’s office also says July 5 was the first time it publicized the plan, even though there are some write-ups on the Housing Commission’s original proposal in March.

The Housing commission told NBC7 its fiscal budget did not start until July 1, which is why it made sense to make the announcement July 5.

There are two new parking spots on Fiesta Island reserved for the physically disabled starting Tuesday.

The City of San Diego created the two new spots to allow the physically handicapped easier access to the off-leash dog area of Fiesta Island, according to a statement.

“Fiesta Island is an extremely popular place for dog owners to exercise their pets and service dogs, and it’s projects like this that ensure San Diego beaches and bays are accessible to everyone,” said Thyme Curtis, the executive director of the city’s Office of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Compliance and Accessibility, in a statement.

One of the spots is a regular ADA spot, and the other is van accessible spot with a striped walkway.

The construction work to create the spaces involved grading, painting, striping and sign installation.

In a statement, Curtis said the improvements will make it easier and safer for those parked there to access walking trails, the beach, and water of Mission Bay.

The mother of a five-year-old boy hit by a car while crossing a Vista intersection says her entire family is traumatized by the sudden death.

"My life is forever changed," the single mother told NBC 7.

Ivan Hernandez, 5, was struck while crossing the intersection at Bobier Drive in Vista on Friday. 

His mother, Liliana Huaracha, said she was walking down the road that morning to get a haircut with her children. 

"We were just going to get a haircut, across the street," she recalled. 

The group was trying to cross the street. Her two older children were already across the street, and Huaracha was crossing the street with her 5-year-old, Ivan, and her 3-year-old. 

The 3-year-old took off running for the flower bed nearby all of a sudden, Huaracha recalled. She chased after the toddler, leaving Ivan behind. 

When she looked back at Ivan, she remembers seeing him serene. 

"He had no fear or nothing cross his mind, or something," Huaracha recalled.

The first thing she heard after that was her daughter's scream.  

"She tells me, Ivan, mom," Huaracha said. "And I'm like, oh really?"

Her son was struck by a woman in a Honda CRV who stayed at the crash scene. An air ambulance transported the injured child to Rady's Children Hospital. He died shortly after. 

"How it happened," the mother said. "We have to live with that."

"For a little angel, you know, he was 5-years-old," Huaracha recalled.  

The intersection near her home has long been an accident waiting to happen, she said. Following her son's death, Huaracha said, she hopes the City will take steps to make the area safer, like splitting the street, adding more traffic lights, stop signs or speed bumps. 

"There needs to (be) change, it needs to change as soon as possible," Huaracha said, visibly distraught.

She said her son's death has struck the entire family. 

"It's traumatizing not just for me, not just my kids, other families who even saw, especially for the kids," she said.

To donate to the family through a GoFundMe page, click here.

A 40-minute standoff involving SWAT in Vista Monday night ended peacefully, the San Diego Sheriff's Department (SDSO) said.

The incident began around 9:30 p.m., SDSO officials said. Deputies responded to a report of domestic violence situation involving a husband wielding a gun inside a home on Girard Way and Coventry Road.

The man's wife and adult son were both inside the home. Officials said the son was able to run out of the home and call for help.

A Sheriff's helicopter spotted the man in the backyard.

After 40 minutes of asking the suspect to come out of the home, the suspect surrendered, SDSO said.

The unidentified man was arrested. He faces charges of domestic violence and assault with a deadly weapon.

No other information was available.

Please refresh this page for updates on this story. Details may change as more information becomes available.

An unexpected house guest rattled one couple in Serra Mesa Sunday night.

It's a night Robert Tortora and his partner Belinda Vasquez told NBC 7 they won't be forgetting anytime soon.  

Vasquez said she heard fireworks so she stepped outside for just a second. But when she came back inside the house, she had a surprise waiting for her.

"I just stood there at the step because there was a snake here, all straight, 3-feet straight," she said.

A red diamondback rattlesnake decided to make the spot its next home. 

Vasquez told NBC 7, her first reaction was to save their beloved cat and dog.  She grabbed the pets and stood out on the curb for two hours while she and Tortora waited for Animal Control.

"I was at the sidewalk and I could still hear the rattle," she said.

Meantime, Tortora held guard inside.

"For two hours. Just the rattlesnake and I," he said, adding he had a cane and a picker upper.

He waited until Animal Control arrived and got the snake safely out of their home.

"You want the rattlesnakes alive. You don’t want to kill the rattlesnakes--you just don’t want them in your house," he said.

Animal Control told the couple they were going to release the snake back into the wild in a canyon about a mile away.

A bite from this species of rattlesnake is a medical emergency. Doctors say it can be fatal without prompt anti-venom treatment.

Escondido Police officers arrested a man Tuesday who had barricaded himself inside a home for several hours, ending an all-night standoff with SWAT officers. 

Police responded to a call of shots fired Monday around 11:55 p.m. on West 7th Avenue, near South Redwood Street. 

Officers said a man barricaded himself inside the house when they tried to talk with him.

Police negotiators were called in to talk with the suspect. They were outside the home for several hours, trying to convince him to come out. 

The man surrendered to officers about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, without incident. 

No other information was available.