A man who was on the run for a decade for a 2006 killing has been sentenced to 18 years behind bars, according to a published report. 

Guillermo Gonzalez Nunez shot and killed Willie Clark Junior outside of a bar on Hollister Street on April 3, 2006. 

Gonzalez fled to Mexico where he lived until he was extradited in 2016 to face charges in Clark's killing. 

On Thursday, Gonzalez was sentenced to 18 years in prison, according to City News Service.

Clark's family talked with NBC 7 about the tragic killing when Gonzalez was arrested in 2016. 

“We still hear my dad's voice, his laugh. This has all been one big dream. A bad dream,” Clark’s son Julius told NBC 7.

The family said at the time that they forgave the suspect, but they will never forget what he did. 

“I consider him beyond being a monster,” Julius' mother Mary Lopez said. “He took...a big part of me. In my heart I want justice."

Gonzalez, 44, pleaded guilty in August to voluntary manslaughter, CNS reported.

UC San Diego Health on Oct. 15 will open a 57,000-square-foot Rancho Bernardo center with offerings spanning primary care, urgent care and behavioral health.

At 16950 Via Tazon, the facility will also include women’s health, occupational medicine, advanced imaging and pharmacy services.

By January, UC San Diego Health – Rancho Bernardo will be staffed by specialists with expertise in cardiac, orthopedic, neurologic, gastroenterological, dermatologic, and ear, nose and throat matters.

UC San Diego Health said this is part of plans to increase primary care access, among the hospitals in San Diego expanding through satellite sites.

Over the next four years, UC San Diego will open at least 10 express and primary care sites, situated along public transit lines. New locations will be in Encinitas, La Jolla, East Lake, Carlsbad and Poway.

Southern California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who tells a story of losing a drunken arm-wrestling match with Vladimir Putin in the 1990s to settle who won the Cold War, has long advocated friendly ties with Russia. 

But what in the past has been seen as part of the pot-friendly Republican's maverick streak now runs the risk of a more sinister interpretation. He met with a Russian woman later charged with being an agent of the Kremlin trying to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, and dined with her alleged boss. FBI agents even warned him that Russian spies were trying to recruit him.

In this new political universe, with Russian intelligence officials charged with meddling in the U.S. presidential race in 2016 to help get Donald Trump elected, and special counsel Robert Mueller investigating whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to win the election, Rohrabacher's affinity for the Russian president is one more weapon for the Democrat trying to unseat him in November's midterm election.

"He's always been a kind of flake," said Gary Jacobson, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. "He's been an unusual person and one of his characteristics is his favorable view of Russia. But after Trump and after the 2016 election it's probably more of a problem for him to be identified as a Russophile than it would have been earlier."

This year, the 15-term congressman for California's 48th Congressional District is facing one of his strongest challenges ever, from Harley Rouda, a lawyer, real-estate developer and Republican-turned-Democrat who moved to California from Ohio about a decade ago. 

After squeaking by in the primary by just 125 votes, Rouda hopes to appeal to a district that is increasingly less conservative and whose changing demographics now include more Hispanic and Asian voters.

This article, part 2 in a series, examines one of the key battleground races for control of the House of Representatives in the Nov. 6 midterm elections. Carried by grassroots momentum, Democrats must take 23 seats from Republicans to win the balance of power. They are contending with Republicans' experience, organization and an outspoken but polarizing president.

The race is close — far closer than it was in 2016, when Rohrabacher won the historically Republican district in Orange County by more than 16 percentage points, even while Democrat Hillary Clinton won it by 2 points. Now, the Cook Political Report rates the district a toss-up.

A July poll from the Monmouth University Polling Institute gave Rouda 46 percent of the vote to 43 percent for Rohrabacher; the UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies found after a September survey that the race was a dead heat. 

"What's important about this particular race, of course, is Rohrabacher's profile, particularly in his defense of Russia," said Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth poll. "I think if Rouda can win this, it will be seen as a repudiation of the softer stance that the president has taken on Russia."

Like Rohrabacher, Trump has sought closer ties with Russia. Trump held a controversial summit with Putin and often refuses to place the blame for 2016 election meddling squarely on Russia, despite the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion.

Rohrabacher is known for his laid-back surfer style and libertarian leanings — he pushes for states to have autonomy on marijuana policy and once joked that, as a young man, he "did everything but drink the bong water." He reportedly questioned whether Robert F. Kennedy's assassin acted alone and whether there was a foreign connection to the Oklahoma City bombing carried out by Americans.

In the late 1980s, he took off for Afghanistan briefly to visit Afghan rebels fighting the Soviet invasion; he later told The Los Angeles Times that's when he realized that he was fighting communism, not Russians.

Rohrabacher's more recent pro-Russia activities may have caught the eye of Mueller's investigators, but if the 48th District does flip from red to blue, Murray believes that voters will be driven less by Russia than their feeling of insecurity over health care costs and the state of the economy, "concerns about having the rug being pulled out from under you, that you're only one crisis away from a bankruptcy," he said.

"These are the kinds of voters who are toying with voting Democrat even though they normally vote Republican," he said.

'Extremist Views,' 'Completely Disconnected'
The 48th District follows California's coast from Seal Beach south to Laguna Niguel. It has a median household income of nearly $89,000, an average jobless rate in 2016 of 4.4 percent and nearly three-quarters of its residents have some college or higher educational levels, according to the Census.

Rouda, 56, told NBC he thought Rohrabacher was vulnerable "because of his outlandish, extremist views and his unbridled support for Russia while failing to meet his obligations as a representative of the district."

Among the views Rouda cited: that homeowners should not have to sell their homes to gays and lesbians (a practice banned by California but not nationally); that undocumented immigrants in the United States, including "Dreamers,"  should be deported, and that high school students could be trained to use guns stored on school premises in the event of a mass shooting (the result of a prank pulled on Rohrabacher for a TV show that the congressman later called "a sick fraud").

"It's clear that he has lost touch with the vast majority of voters and their values here in the district," Rouda said.

Rohrabacher, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, did not agree to a request for an interview, but his spokesman, Dale Neugebauer, provided a statement. It called Rouda too liberal for the district, noting that he had been endorsed by the Progressive Democrats of America, had pledged to join the Congressional Progressive Caucus and had endorsed "Medicare for All." 

"In fact, it is Mr. Rouda whose views are far outside the normal bounds of political discourse and completely disconnected from those of voters in the 48th District," Neugebauer said.

A District in Flux
Rohrbacher, 71 has held on to his seat for so long because Republicans have dominated in the district, said Jacobson, the UC San Diego professor emeritus. But this year Trump might make the difference, he said.

"In a normal year, he probably wouldn't be particularly vulnerable," Jacobson said. "Trump, as unpopular as he is, especially in California, that gives an opportunity for a challenger that might not otherwise be there."

Rohrabacher still has strong support in the Republican bastion around wealthy Newport Beach, and Republicans have a nearly 10 percentage point advantage in voter registration, but constituents elsewhere in the district are open to someone new, said Murray, the Monmouth pollster.

"They are not your older Orange County families who are used to voting Republican," he said. "They are willing to take a look at the Democrats, particularly in this race."

The share of the county's population that identifies solely as white has dropped by 5 percent since 2006 to about 60 percent, according to Census data, made up by a corresponding rise in populations that identify as Asian or Hispanic/Latino. Countywide, Republicans' advantage over Democrats in voter registration has dropped from a high of 22 percentage points in 1990 down to 2.8 this March, according to the Orange County Register.

In the July poll, Rohrabacher was favored by white voters who did not have a college degree. Those with a college degree were split between him and Rouda, while Rouda led among women, those under 50 and black, Latino and Asian-American voters.

In last month's Berkeley poll, which put the candidates in a dead heat, more than 60 percent of the respondents rated the candidates' views on the economy, health care, gun laws, immigration and taxes as among the most important.

Russia was divisive: Forty-four percent of respondents said Rohrabacher's connections to Russia made them less likely to vote for him, but half said the connections had no effect on their vote.

Rohrabacher's Russia Connections
Rohrabacher has scoffed at the idea that his Russia ties are problematic and called the federal indictment of Maria Butina, accused of trying to infiltrate the NRA, ridiculous and part of a "deep state" plot to undermine Trump.

"It's stupid," he told Politico in July. "She's the assistant of some guy who is the head of the bank and is a member of their Parliament. That's what we call a spy? That shows you how bogus this whole thing is."

Butina, a 29-year-old gun rights activist, is charged with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent on behalf of the Russian government. Rohrabacher met her in Russia in 2015 but a spokesman told The Mercury News in July that he did not remember the encounter and recalled Butina only as an aide to the deputy governor of the Russian central bank who is reported to have tried to broker a meeting between Trump and Putin.

Rohrabacher's spokesman told NBC that the congressman's position on the House Foreign Affairs Committee required him to pay attention to the U.S. relationship with Russia. 

"With respect to our relations with Russia, he believes we should cooperate with them only on those areas where we have a mutual interest and that open hostility towards them is not in the interest of the United States," Neugebauer said.

Some of Rohrabacher's supporters are untroubled by his ties to Russia.

And Rohrabacher's advocacy for Russia is not at the top of Rouda supporter James Percival's concerns, either. 

"To me there are so many other bad things about him that that's just one other blemish," said the 62-year-old Newport Beach lawyer.

Percival criticized Rohrabacher for accomplishing little in his 30 years in office and his refusal to say anything negative about Trump. He opposes Rohrabacher's positions on immigration, gun rights, climate change, health care, immigration and gay rights and said Rouda had a better heart.

Rouda "believes government can be a force for good not only on behalf of the wealthiest who seem to control the levers of power but also on behalf of the powerless and the downtrodden and the economically deprived," Percival said. 

The Other Issues
Some of the positions Rohrabacher's spokesman emphasized to NBC, along with the congressman's longtime connections to the district — he surfs, and the district is home to the U.S. Open of surfing — are bipartisan. Rohrabacher was one of the few Republicans to vote against the president's tax cuts last year, for example.

Last week, he released a new ad in which he portrayed himself as a health care advocate who would protect those with pre-existing conditions medical conditions from losing coverage.

The ad was personal: It features his daughter Annika who was diagnosed with leukemia when she was younger. But critics noted that Rohrabacher voted for the American Health Care Act of 2017, which would have repealed the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare." According to a Congressional Budget Office report, the American Health Care Act would have undermined protections for pre-existing conditions and would have resulted in 23 million Americans losing health-care coverage.

In a video on his campaign website, Rohrabacher warns that California's quality of life is changing because of "a massive flow of illegal immigrants" over the last decades. He says he stands by Trump's efforts to control the country's borders, even if it means building a wall.

Orange County has shown some support for strict immigration enforcement as well — its board of supervisors and some cities joined a March lawsuit brought by the Trump Justice Department against California's sanctuary laws, which restrict how local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officers. 

Rohrabacher has an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund, supports offshore drilling for oil and supported Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. He told KPCC, Southern California's public radio: "I disagree with the theory that CO2, caused, done by mankind, is a major cause for climate change."

Rouda, 56, said he would work in Congress toward reforming immigration laws, creating middle-class jobs and addressing gun violence, climate change, health care and women's rights, all important issues, he said.

But, he said, "The one that has really come to the top in the last 60 days in the sense that our democracy is under attack."

He accused Republicans of failing to stand up to foreign adversaries trying to influence the U.S. presidential election.

He describes himself as a centrist, having left the Republican party in 1997 and staying independent for two decades until registering as a Democrat. The GOP is no longer the party of Reagan, Rouda said, and it was Trump's election as president that spurred him to run for office himself, though he said he was not running against Trump but Rohrabacher.

He was particularly critical of Rohrabacher's failure to get laws passed during his time in office. Govtrack.us, a website that tracks congressional legislation, credits Rohrabacher with being the primary sponsor of three bills that have been enacted as law over his 30 years in Congress.

"He's shown how ineffective he is," Rouda told NBC.

Rohrabacher's campaign responded that the congressman had been effective however many bills his name was on, giving as an example his work helping to get federal funding for flood mitigation along the Santa Ana River. 

As far Rohrabacher's opponent, Neugebauer asked: "Which Harley Rouda should voters believe? The far left liberal extremist who won the Democrat primary? Or the slick politician spending millions of dollars to remake himself now?"

Rail service will be halted over the next two weekends due to testing and improvements tied to the Mid-Coast Trolley project. 

North County Transit District, Metrolink, Amtrak, and the freight carrier BNSF will be affected by the closure, according to the San Diego Association of Governments.

Tests will be run on signal equipment and crews will complete improvement projects where there will be a double track rail service in an area where there is currently only one track. 

In order to do that, there will be no passenger or freight trains running after midnight on Saturday, Oct. 13 through early morning Monday, Oct. 15.

Regular commuter service is scheduled to begin Monday for the morning commute, according to SANDAG.

A second closure is planning just after midnight on Saturday, Oct. 20 through early Monday, Oct. 22. 

The improvement projects include working on the at-grade crossings at the Old Town Transit Center, working on rail and bridge structures near Morena Boulevard and Santa Fe Street, excavating the ground near the existing platform in Carlsbad in preparation for improvements to the Poinsettia Station and replacing existing rail ties in Cardiff-by-the-Sea.

As a result of some work, Taylor Street will be closed between Pacific Highway and Congress Street from 9 p.m. Friday, October 12 through 5 a.m. Monday, October 15.

Follow @SDCaltrans on Twitter and like CaltransDistrict11 on Facebook for updates.

Civil rights groups sued Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor who also oversees elections in the state, saying the method his office uses to verify new voter registrations is discriminatory, NBC News reported.

The lawsuit, filed late Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta, comes after the revelation that thousands of applications remain in a pending status just weeks ahead of November's midterm election.

The filing alleges that Georgia's "exact match" protocol — which requires information on voter registration applications to precisely match information on file with the state's Department of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration or be placed on hold — suppresses minority votes in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the 14th Amendment and the 1993 Voter Registration Act.

"Under this 'exact match' protocol, the transposition of a single letter or number, deletion or addition of a hyphen or apostrophe, the accidental entry of an extra character or space, and the use of a familiar name like 'Tom' instead of ‘Thomas’ will cause a no match result," lawyers for the civil rights groups wrote in the suit.

The transition from teenager to adulthood can be a time of uncertainty for many people, but it’s an exceptionally critical time for foster youth who are aging out of the system.

At age 18, kids who have grown up in foster care without a stable support system are suddenly faced with dozens of big decisions that can set the course for their future. A San Diego-based organization called Just In Time for Foster Youth (JIT) is stepping in to help bridge that gap for hundreds of young adults in a powerful way.

Sal Torrones knows first-hand. He entered the foster system in San Diego County in the sixth grade.

"Me and my brother actually felt unsafe in the house that we were in so we went to seek help ourselves by going to a police station," Torrones said.

Torrones bounced from in and out of the court system, and spent the most time with his grandmother in National City.

“As much as she wanted to help me, there was only so much she could actually help me with. So it was definitely very tough," Torrones said.

Despite minimal support, Torrones graduated high school and started college at San Diego State University when he was just 17 years old. That's where he was introduced to JIT.

At first, it was the promise of some the material things that got his attention.

“They're going to give you a free laptop and a free printer and they're going to take you shopping for your dorm,” he explained. But he soon realized that the connection the organization offered to he and hundreds of other foster youth was far more valuable than anything money could buy.

JIT Executive Director Don Wells said teenagers like Torrones face serious academic and economic challenges compared to their non-foster youth peers.

“Historically, former foster youth account for 70 percent of California's inmates, 40-50 percent are homeless within the first 18 months of emancipation, and over half emancipate into poverty, making $6,000 or less annually. Without access to resources and connections, most end up dependent on government assistance to sustain themselves, with enormous public costs that often last a lifetime,” Wells said.

Wells said while the resources JIT provides are great, the intrapersonal connections are invaluable and critical to a young person’s success.

“So you come for the resources but then you find out that there are all these relationships that will really last longer than any material thing that we give you,” he said.

Torrones, like hundreds of other youth served by JIT, was paired with a mentor who would become like family.

“This guy's been life-changing for me. I mean, the amount of stuff he's done for me -- I definitely, hands down would not be where I'm at today if it wasn't for his help,” he said. “Growing up, I always heard the people say, you know, ‘my parents do this for me, my parents do that for me,’ and I couldn't really relate to them. And my mentor has become that person for me.”

Along with his mentor, Torrones said he gained a community of support unlike anything he had ever known.

“And the reality is there's absolutely no way I would be where I'm at today without their help,” he said.

Wells said the JIT community helps young adults navigate life.

“It's not just one person we're going to connect you with, it's a whole group of people who are doing different things your life…So there might be somebody who helps you get a job and somebody else who shares your interests in movies or somebody else who you really feel comfortable enough to talk about the relationship issues you have,” Wells said.

In 2017 alone, with the help of a volunteer network more than 600 strong, JIT assisted more than 760 foster youth ages 18-27 in San Diego County. For Torrones, the Livingston Family has been a key part in his success.

“They really sat down to take the time to say, what's your future end goal within your career and how are we going to get you there?” he explained.

The Livingstons are employing Torrones as a paid intern at their home mortgage company, RWM Home Loans and he’s on a path to a full-time job.

“There's nothing that warms your heart more than helping kids that haven't had a family to support them…We have been so pleased with the Just In Time youth that have come to intern here. They have been offered full-time jobs because they work well,” Susanne Livingston, Executive VP of Sales and Marketing for RWM Home Loans, said

Livingston says volunteering with JIT has been incredibly rewarding and she’s hopeful others will help support this vulnerable group of young adults.

“We need more people that are willing to share their passions, share their career and spend just a little time,” she said.

Five years later, Torrones is now a college grad. Though his laptop and printer are on their last legs, he's confident and connected in a way that has him smiling for the new-found hope in his future.

“I know that any time, no matter day or night, there's at least four or five people within that Just In Time community that I could pick up a phone and call them and somebody will be there to listen to me or to help me,” he said.

More than half of JIT's staff is former foster youth and the majority of those were served by JIT at some point. So it may not come as a surprise that Sal said once he becomes more established in his career and financially stable he wants to give back, volunteering with JIT to help others like him.

More than half of immigrants detained in San Diego last year by Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not have criminal convictions, according to recently released data.

NBC 7 Investigates filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the number of arrests made by ICE’s San Diego sector office and received numbers that show about 52 percent of immigrants detained last year in San Diego County do not have criminal convictions.

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The data showed that in 2017, ICE arrests of immigrants living in San Diego that do not have a criminal past increased by about 257 percent compared to the previous year.

The number of arrests of non-criminal immigrants has increased by 59 percent since 2014, according to the data. 

A spokesperson for ICE said the spike in San Diego came from the period from October to December 2017 when larger numbers of migrants began to reach the U.S.-Mexico border and were processed by both California Border Patrol and then transferred to ICE for processing.

The spokesperson said it was not indicative of their larger statistic of non-criminal arrests. 

So far this year, arrests of immigrants with criminal convictions is higher than the arrest of non-criminal immigrants. Data was only released through April 2018. 

From January to April, ICE has detained 731 immigrants with criminal convictions and 539 non-criminal immigrants, data shows. 

Figures released Wednesday by Transactional Records Access Clearing House (TRAC), a research entity of Syracuse University, indicate that 59 percent those being held in detention centers in San Diego do not have a criminal record either.

San Diego's numbers are on par with the number of non-criminal immigrants being held in detention centers across the United States. 

Until June 30 of this year, 44,435 people were in detention centers, of which 21 percent committed minor crimes, 16 percent committed serious crimes and 58 percent had no criminal record, according to TRAC.

TRAC found that about 66 percent of those without criminal convictions remain in custody for up to one year. 

ICE said TRAC's numbers contradict their findings from June 23, 2018 that said 54 percent of ICE's detained population had a criminal conviction or pending charge. 

ICE released the following statement in response to the data released by TRAC: 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) focuses detention resources on mandatory detention cases and aliens with criminal activity; however, no category of alien is exempt from enforcement. All aliens in ICE custody are detained as a result of immigration violations. An analysis of the ICE population at nearly the same time (June 23, 2018) of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse’s (TRAC) report shows 54% of ICE’s detained population had a criminal conviction or pending charge(s) and 70% were subject to mandatory detention. These figures reflect appropriate allocation of limited resources. As an agency, ICE is charged with administrative civil detention, which means individuals who come into ICE custody can only be detained for the purposes of furthering an immigration case or removal from the country. ICE makes custody determinations in accordance with U.S. law and DHS policy.

A San Diego man will spend at least a decade behind bars after admitting he picked up a shipment of methamphetamine in the parking lot of a high school. 

Alejandro Barba, 27, of San Diego pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to distribute meth. The guilty plea carries a 10-year minimum mandatory prison sentence. 

Barba’s shipment – estimated to be five kilograms or the weight of a gallon of paint – was delivered to him by a courier who attended San Ysidro High School. 

The defendant met with the courier in the school’s parking lot on Airway Road on May 1.

Soon after, he was arrested by the San Diego Sheriff’s Office Border Suppression Team. 

Prosecutors said Barba told them this wasn’t the first time he picked up a drug shipment from a juvenile on school grounds. 

NBC 7 has reported on the disturbing trend of juveniles working as drug couriers, carrying the illegal narcotics over the U.S.-Mexico border.

At times, the teenagers tape the packages to their bodies and attempt to conceal the drugs by wearing baggy clothing. 

Prosecutors say the temptation is quick cash.

“These kids are 14, 15, 16, 17 years old. They just see the $400 that they’re making. They don’t look at the big picture,” Assistant U. S. Attorney Sherri Walker Hobson said in a May 2018 interview. 

She said students at various high schools have been recruited including those at Castle Park High School and Chula Vista High School. 

Federal prosecutors are working in partnership with the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office to examine how recruitment is happening at the high school level. 

Barba’s next court appearance is on January 4, 2019, for sentencing before District Court Judge Anthony Battaglia.

A preliminary 3.1-magnitude earthquake shook the Wrightwood area Friday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The temblor hit at 11:44 a.m. with a depth of about 3.7 miles, the USGS reported.

The San Diego teenager who drove head-on into oncoming traffic and died in a fiery crash on the crowded highway did not attempt to avoid the collision, according to the official autopsy report released Friday. 

Trevor Heitmann, 18, died on August 23 of multiple blunt force injuries when his McLaren collided with another vehicle driving in the opposite direction in the HOV lane of Interstate 805. 

Video of the impact examined by the California Highway Patrol showed Heitmann did not appear to swerve out of the path of the other vehicle, according to the autopsy.

CHP investigators believe Heitmann drove into traffic using the Carrol Canyon Road direct access ramp.

They estimate he reached speeds over 100 mph before colliding with a Hyundai SUV near Governor Drive, killing a 42-year-old mother and her 12-year-old daughter, and himself.

There were no alcohol or drugs detected in Heitmann's system at the time of his death and there was no history of depression or mental illness, according to the report.

No suicide notes were found. 

NBC 7 has reported previously that San Diego police were warned of Heitmann's erratic behavior hours before the deadly crash.

Police dispatch logs obtained by NBC 7 Investigates reveal a family friend of the driver told police that 18-year-old Trevor Heitmann was “screaming, paranoid and delusional” and had “threatened to harm his mom” at the Heitmann family home in Carmel Valley.

Heitmann’s parents told investigators that their son’s behavior changed in the days leading up to the incident.

When he admitted on Aug. 21 to driving the McLaren at 150 mph in a 25 mph zone, his father asked him what he thought may happen to him if the police ever caught him doing that.

The 18-year-old told his parents “neither police nor their bullets could hurt him,” according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s report. 

On the day of the collision, Heitmann's parents used their vehicle to block the McLaren so their son could not drive it, the report states.

However, Heitmann rammed his father's car and managed to get the McLaren out of the driveway, according to officials.

Heitmann operated a Youtube channel where he discussed virtual gun models, or "skins," for the popular online game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Over the past four and a half years his videos racked up more than 200 million views.

Heitmann's victims included Aileen Pizarro, 43, and Pizarro's 12-year-old daughter, Aryana, who were traveling in their 2010 Hyundai minivan. The mother and daughter were killed in the collision.

Eight other individuals were injured in the crash, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

There may be something to get hung about if you're going to this strawberry field this fall. 

The family-owned Carlsbad Strawberry Company off Interstate 5 and Cannon Road in Carlsbad has opened a frightful maze in 11-foot corn stalks that is sure to thrill. 

"We started doing the nighttime maze last year and people liked it and people were asking for it to be haunted," Jimmy Ukegawa the strawberry field's owner said.

As guests explore "Field of Screams," their nighttime maze open Fridays and Saturdays only until 11 p.m., they will be met with haunts right out of your favorite horror movies. 

Ukegawa didn't want to give away any of the surprises but said one family was forced to turn around after being met by a popular scene from a 2017 horror film (you guess which one). 

"The haunters are enjoying it just as much as the hauntees," he said.

He doesn't recommend the maze for those under 10 years old but Carlsbad Strawberry Company does offer alternatives for those that need less fear and more cheer in their fall-time activities. 

A second maze without the haunts, which is in its fifth year, is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Guests can also take a hayride tour around the strawberry farm or pick out the perfect pumpkin at the farm's patch. 

This year, the Carlsbad Strawberry Company has teamed up with the Agua Hedionda Lagoon Foundation to fund conservation efforts of the watershed adjacent to their strawberry fields. Half of all proceeds from the mazes will be donated to the foundation. 

All the corn from the maze and any leftover pumpkins are donated to local animals farms, Ukegawa said.

Carlsbad Strawberry Company started as a family business more than a half-century ago and has taken a more community-first approach to their business after struggling to compete with global strawberry production. 

"We felt the effects for a long time; we even tried growing our tomatoes in Mexico for a while," Ukegawa said. "It just got to be where the pressure from the imports, we couldn’t afford it anymore." 

The farm, which has been with the Ukegawa for three generations, offers pick-your-own strawberries in the summer and music and food-oriented events throughout the year. 

"There’s music, there’s vendors, there’s food -- it's really becoming a community thing we’re really happy with it," Ukegawa said. 

Field of Screams costs $22 per person while Carlsbad Strawberry Company's main maze costs $9 for adults and $7 for children. Kids three and under are free. 

Local restaurant owners gathered in San Diego Friday to oppose a proposal that would ban styrofoam products. 

The proposal restricts the sale of take-out food containers made with polystyrene and plastic foam. 

The Environmental Services Department is to provide a list of safe alternative containers. 

“If we buy the other containers it’s like four times more expensive,” said Aristotels Garcia, the owner of Wings Empire, a restaurant in San Diego. “We’ll have less employees and be losing money and have less customers. We need the foam right now.” 

The demonstrators gave 50 letters of disapproval to City Councilwoman Myrtle Cole's district office on Euclid Avenue. 

Multiple restaurant owners at the office Friday said they would most likely be forced to shut down and go out of business if they have to use alternative containers. 

“It costs eight cents apiece for the containers I use now and the new containers are forty-five cents apiece,” said Garcia. “That would be an extra $2,000 a month just for containers.”

Those in favor of the styrofoam ban said it would help the ecosystem and reduce pollution.

Over the summer, members of the city council voted 3-2 to approve the proposal for consideration by the full council.   

They are two of the most contentious issues San Diego Voters will decide on in November. We're talking about Measures E and G, the rival plans to re-develop the Mission Valley Stadium site where the chargers once played.

Measure E is known to most people as Soccer City and Measure G is the ballot name for SDSU West.

Both sides have accused each other of being disingenuous, confusing the issues, and even lying as they push their plans to redevelop the land under San Diego County Credit Union Stadium.

Both plans call for a new stadium, a river park, housing, and commercial and office space. So, what makes them different? Proponents for both sides shared what they want voters to know most about their project.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for San Diego State University,” university President Adela De La Torre said of Measure G. “It's not a transactional project. It's really one that will provide the opportunity to expand San Diego State for many students in the future as well as create an innovation district.”

Soccer City’s Nick Stone points to a broader benefit, one that reaches the public school community in San Diego beyond SDSU.

“Soccer city generates $200 million more value for the taxpayer. It generates hundreds of millions more to add value to local schools, K through 12, and we create something that's fun,” Stone said.

That “something fun” refers to an entertainment district concept put on display at a news conference Thursday.  But Stone takes exception with characterizing Measure E as just that. He’s quick to point out that the plan offers 35 acres for SDSU State expansion, though SDSU disputes that claim.

The University argues it has been more upfront with the community than the competing measure.

“Unlike Soccer City, we are actually working with CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act), which requires community input and that's important to understand. We are committed to being transparent in the process. We're committed to having community engagement,” De La Torre said.

A city attorney report states that neither side is legally bound to their concepts.

President De La Torre insists students could be on site by 2025, but Stone thinks that’s farfetched unless tuition is raised.

“There is a better way than the SDSU West plan, which puts students at risk for $150-million worth of debt. There's a better way. [Measure E] gives the university what it needs to expand, but does so in a way that respects the fact that the land is owned by the taxpayer in San Diego today.

De La Torre says tuition or student fees will not be raised to pay for Measure G.

If both measures get majority support, the measure with the most votes wins. If both fall short, it's back to square one over what to do with the stadium site.

A sidewalk vigil is growing on Mile Of Cars Way in National City where 21-year-old motorcyclist Andrew Balderas was killed in an accident Thursday morning.

Balderas was identified Friday afternoon and NBC 7 quickly learned the site of the deadly crash is just a block away from his workplace.

The San Ysidro man died at around 7 a.m. when he broadsided a van turning left off of Mile of Cars near National City Boulevard.

National City police said when they arrived, Balderas was bleeding from his head. Hours later, NCPD confirmed he had died from his injuries.

The van could be seen with a large dent in the passenger-side door while the crumpled motorcycle laid on the ground. 

Further down the street stands Mossy Nissan dealership, the place Balderas worked alongside his twin brother Anthony and his uncle Raul.

Balderas' friend Victor Aguilar, and some of Balderas' co-workers, said the twins were almost inseparable and even owned the same bike in different colors.

"Great kids," Aguilar said describing the brothers. "I mean, they were twins, they were twins. They eat together, they ride together, everything."

Aguilar said Balderas was a lube technician at the dealership.

Friends of the twins say they are now working on gathering money to support this family in their time of need.

The Medical Examiner report stateBalderasas was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident.

The driver of the van stopped at the scene of the crash and is not being charged.

Investigators do not believe drugs or alcohol were factors in the crash. 

No other information was available.

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

Judge Gary Kreep admits some of his views are quite controversial.

He's stridently anti-abortion and still claims Barack Obama was born in Kenya and was not eligible to be president.

But Kreep insists he's a fair, competent and very hard-working judge, who deserves six more years on the San Diego Superior Court bench.

Kreep is the only judge facing a challenge in the November 6 election. His opponent is Matt Brower, a deputy district attorney and Judge Advocate General in the Marine Corps Reserve.

Brower has a “qualified” rating from the County Bar Association, which rated Kreep as “lacking qualifications.”

That’s the lowest of four ratings — from “exceptionally qualified” to “lacking qualifications — that the Bar Association’s Judicial Election Evaluation Committee gives candidates.

Kreep was the only one of six judicial incumbents and challengers rated as “lacking qualifications” for this election cycle, which started with the June 5 primary.

Kreep told NBC 7 News that the Bar Association Committee is biased against him because he’s a conservative Christian with a history of outspoken opposition to abortion.

“Our local County Bar Association is exceedingly liberal,” he said. “They don’t like conservatives. They don’t like Christians. They don’t believe Christians should be on the bench.”

Kreep claims that when the Bar Association’s evaluation committee first rated him as “lacking qualifications” during his successful 2012 campaign, twenty committee members “told me that all Christians are unqualified to be judges because all Christians are too biased. They said this numerous times during the meeting.”

The committee’s chairman Alvin Gomez flatly rejected Kreep’s allegations.

“We do not consider race, religion, gender or political affiliation,” Gomez said. “We do not consider those factors at all.”

Gomez said the committee gathers input from at least 20 attorneys who know the candidate and uses that feedback to score each judge.

The candidates are evaluated on 15 factors, including fairness and objectivity, integrity and honesty, judgment and common sense, and judicial temperament.

“There are 15 factors, and only 15 factors,” Gomez said. “We do not use any other information, such as race or religion, and I make sure of that. We follow the rules, and the rules are clear, that we need to be fair and impartial, and provide an objective scoring system."

Kreep’s opponent, Matt Brower, is a Catholic. He defended the integrity of the Bar Association’s rating system, which the Association says is designed to help voters make intelligent choices in judicial races.

“I think the voters of San Diego should give great weight to the disparity between the ratings” that he and Judge Kreep received, Brower said.

Kreep is also pushing back against the state Commission on Judicial Performance, which last year censured Kreep in a 67-page decision. 

The Commission, which disciplines California judges, found that Kreep committed 29 acts of misconduct and improper action from 2012 to 2015.

“During his (first) campaign (in 2012) … he conducted himself in a manner that created an appearance of the lack of impartiality and demonstrated a disregard for adhering to election laws.” the Commission’s vice-chairman wrote. “After taking office, he often ran his courtroom in a manner that was undignified and suggested bias or prejudgment.”

In an interview, Kreep admitted that he made some mistakes during his first campaign and was at times “just too friendly” with attorneys who appeared before him. But he claimed the state Commission is also biased against him, and that it conspired with “certain people in the local judiciary who were out to get me, and who decided it was a good way … to cause me embarrassment and to pressure me out of running for re-election. I refused, so here I am.”

Kreep’s opponent said he decided to run against the incumbent was fueled in part by the state commission’s “severe censure” of the incumbent.

"It really hit home that we need to replace this person because we have a judge who is not reflective of the values of the people here in San Diego,” Brower said.

A gun-toting man robbed a Walmart on Friday afternoon in Murphy Canyon, police said.

The man walked into the store on 3382 Murphy Canyon Road around 3:45 p.m., approached a cashier, lifted up his shirt to reveal a gun and demanded money, San Diego police Officer Rober Heims said.

"The suspect took an unknown amount of money and fled out the front door into the parking," he said. "It is unknown where the suspect went from there."

The man was described as a 5-foot-3 black man, with a medium build and weigh between 180 to 200 pounds. He was wearing dark clothes, dark glasses and a dark baseball cap.

Anyone with any information about the incident was urged to call the San Diego Police Department Robbery unit or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.

A thunderstorm that brought lightning, hail and showers to some parts of the county forced a delay at San Diego State's game against Air Force.

With SDSU leading 14-9 at the 5:50 minute mark in the third quarter, referees called a 30-minute delay to wait for aggressive lightning in the Mision Valley area to subside. 

NBC 7's First Alert Live Doppler radar showed a strong pocket of rain in the heart of San Diego along State Route 94 between Coronado and Interstate 15 at around 8:15 p.m.

Smaller pockets were also showing above the Grantville and San Carlos neighborhoods, and in Vista and Bonsall in the North County.

NBC 7 weather reporter Llarisa Abreu said moisture over Mexico from Tropical Storm Sergio was making its way over California and the United States, which would make way for showers late Friday.

Rain some parts of the city of San Diego is expected to last overnight until 8 or 9 a.m. Saturday.

An Airport Weather Warning was in effect for San Diego International Airport for cloud-to-ground lightning from 8:15 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.

In the North County, weather forced the cancellation of several high school football games, according to the Poway Unified School District.

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

A San Diego County public defender was in court Friday, not to defend a client, but to plead guilty to providing a firearm to a felon.

Andrea Bayer, 37, pleaded guilty to the charge and a second felony charge of aiding and abetting a felon to possess a firearm was dismissed.

Because it was a plea deal, there was no need to argue bail or the facts of the case in open court. As a result, the public does not know who the felon is, what kind of gun was involved, or even if the gun was used to commit a crime.

Bayer faces four years in prison, but the Deputy District Attorney said that under the plea deal the judge can consider probation. During sentencing, the public could find out more about what happened in Bayer’s case, according to the DA.

Bayer is out on her own recognizance. Her lawyer said he could not talk about whether she will lose her license to practice law or her job as an alternate public defender for the county.

Bayer’s sentencing is scheduled for some time after April 5.

You see the aerial video from the Panhandle and it’s enough to leave you stunned. Miles and miles of devastation, but it looks familiar to anyone who remembers the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew or last year’s assault by Hurricane Irma on the Lower Keys.

As you contemplate roofs that are splintered and walls which have collapsed, remember that experts say for the most part, you’re looking at homes built before stronger building codes became state law in 2002.

Compared to older homes, structures built according to the newer building codes fared much better during Irma and Hurricane Michael, both Category 4 storms.

“Definitely a lot less damage, they would be on stilts, most likely be concrete block structure, hurricane clips on the roofs,” explained Walter Conklin, an engineer who runs FIU’S Wall of Wind lab. “So you have minimal damage compared to what you see now of everything there was to code.”

The Wall of Wind lab is one of only a handful of wind tunnel facilities in the world able to simulate Category 5 hurricane winds. The engineers here are always doing research or testing products and building designs to see how they perform in strong winds. They’re looking for what does and what doesn’t hold up against a storm like Michael.

“What roofs hold up better than others, what nailing pattern would work better than others, hurricane strap compared to no hurricane strap, concrete compared to wood frame,” said Conklin, listing some of the components of modern houses.

The Wall of Wind is a powerful tool for research, but Conklin says his team can’t adequately simulate the effect when a hurricane demolishes a structure and then hurls its debris into another house.

“So even if the home was to code it wasn’t meant to withstand damage from multiple homes impacting it,” Conklin said.

That phenomenon, the engineers at FIU say, surely happened in the Panhandle communities, accounting for an unknown amount of damage, because there are so many homes there built before the building codes were beefed up in 2002.

If those codes are followed, homes and other structures can be made hurricane-resistant, but only if everything is built correctly.

“A lot of it has to do with installation, so you can have the best building codes in the world but if you don’t install it correctly that thing will fall apart,” Conklin said.

Quality matters.

The State Department says former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's security clearance has been withdrawn at her request, NBC News reported.

Clinton's decision comes after Admiral William McRaven penned an op-ed in the Washington Post rebuking President Donald Trump's decision to revoke former CIA Director John Brennan's security clearance in mid-August, according to her spokesperson Nick Merrill.

On Aug. 30, Clinton's representative wrote a letter to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the U.S. State Department asking for a withdraw of her clearance "immediately."

"[Clinton] has no desire to have her clearance become part of an unprecedented partisan controversy over the clearance process, for the reason eloquently stated by Admiral William McRaven," Clinton's attorney wrote.