Calling all beer drinkers...on diets?

San Diego's Stone Brewing Company has created their first-ever gluten-reduced Indian Pale Ale brew. To the health-conscious, this is for you.

"The arrival of Stone Delicious IPA provides a tangible example of why continual IPA and hop exploration are so fulfilling," Stone says in a blog announcement. "Our newest IPA is unique to our stable of beers in every way, including the fact it just so happens to be our first gluten-reduced offering."

The brewing process remains the same - stone-brewed, heavy-handed hopping - but this new brew is fermented in a way that drops gluten levels to FDA-qualified "gluten reduced" standards, opening opportunity for once-hesitant beer drinkers.

The new ale does contain some traces of gluten, but Stone has included the use of an enzyme called "Clarity-Ferm", which separates and eliminates the gluten protein chains in the fermenting process, according to the FAQ section of their blog post.

Gluten-conscious drinkers (or just curious customers) in San Diego can find the Stone Delicious IPA at their flagship brewery in Escondido.

For additional information about Stone's brewing process, check out their website.

Carlsbad High School and Carlsbad Village Academy will be closed Tuesday after a threatening post on Instagram was shared Monday among students and parents.

As of Monday night, Carlsbad Police did not have information on any arrest or who could be behind the post.

The threatening message read, "I'm going to shoot up Carlsbad High School today at 11:30 or tomorrow at 10:20 if all else fails. See you soon."

“I hope it's a prank but you don't know so until it's confirmed it's not real you have to take it seriously,” said Stacey Gardner who has a freshman son at Carlsbad High School.

Gardner is one of nearly a dozen parents NBC 7 spoke to Monday evening to see how parents felt about the decision to keep students away from the school for an additional day.

“I would err on the side of caution and if its a big attention ploy..this is pretty big scream for attention,” Gardner added.

Parents Anna Marie Dean and Skyler Garrahy also agree it’s better to be safe than sorry in this situation.

Garrahy is a middle school teacher at another school district and says when police find the person behind the post, the focus then needs to turn to disciplinary action.

“I think there should be a punishment so there aren't copy cats,” she said.
 

The San Diego surfing community mourning the loss of an award-winning surfer.

Barry Ault, who won the U.S. Surfing Championship in the Master’s Category in 1970, died Christmas Day after a battle with an illness.

Ault was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Los Angeles and Arcadia before moving to San Diego to attend San Diego State University. He was a veteran and served as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. He later worked as a computer scientist in Civil Service for the government and for FGM until retirement.

In addition to winning the U.S. Surfing Championship in 1970, he placed second in the U.S. Surfing Championship in 1971. He placed first in the senior category in Hawaii in 1980. Recently, he competed locally with the Sunset Cliffs Surfing Association. Five days before his death, he was surfing at Sunset Cliffs.

Ault is survived by his wife, Sally, his daughter, his son, two nephews and his cousins.

There will be a paddle out for Ault at Luscomb’s Point in Sunset Cliffs Saturday, January 17 at 2 p.m. A celebration of his life will be held at San Diego Yacht Club on Sunday the 18th.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Surfrider Foundation in his memory.

SeaWorld’s multi-million dollar expansion plan to build a larger killer whale environment will get its first public hearing today.

The City of San Diego Park and Recreation Board’s Mission Bay Park Committee will hear about the Blue World Shamu Expansion during an advisory committee meeting.

SeaWorld plans to spend upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars to build an expanded killer whale environment and programs to protect the creatures in the wild in 2015.

SeaWorld San Diego will be first park to debut the new killer whale environments, named the Blue World project, with a planned total water volume of 10 million gallons, nearly twice as much as the existing facility. The new environment will also provide the world's largest underwater viewing experience for guests.

The plan comes amid a turbulent year for the company. In December, The CEO of the parent company of SeaWorld Jim Atchison San Diego stepped down as head of the company and named his chairman as interim leader amid falling park attendance. A day after the CEO stepped down, the company eliminated more than 300 jobs in an effort to save $50 million annually.

Additionally, the company has been battling negative publicity following the documentary "Blackfish" that suggested its treatment of the animals may have led to the death of trainers.

SDSU Business Lecturer and attorney Wendy Patrick said this may be seen by many as a step in the right direction, but it won't be enough to sway people who believe confining orcas is cruel.

"SeaWorld, of course, argues the opposite. They are treated humanly and they are kept happy and healthy. So, you've really got two polarized camps and building bigger tanks is not going to bridge that divide all at once, but perhaps it brings them closer to the center," Patrick said.

She said this isn't just about the animals.

"So, what we're going to be seeing is: let's see if that increases revenue, let's see if that quells at least some of the criticism that has been drawn that they keep these whales in tanks to begin with."

Leading up to the meeting, PETA protestors will rally outside the Santa Clara Recreation Center, where the meeting will be held to call on SeaWorld to move the animals to coastal sanctuaries rather than funneling greater resources to keep them in captivity.

In a statement, PETA Foundation Director Jared Goodman said, "the lush new look and feel of SeaWorld's proposed 'Blue World Project' is for visitors, not for the orcas who will still swim in endless circles in a barren tank that's still tiny and full of chemically treated water."

SeaWorld lead veterinarian Dr. Christopher Dold said the park invited a number of experts to be part of an advisory panel to help design the project. Plans will include a fast-water current.

In addition to the new habitat, SeaWorld is pledging $10 million in matching funds for killer whale research. The company said it is embarking on a multi-million dollar partnership focused on ocean health, the leading concern for all killer whales and marine mammals. The total investment will be hundreds of millions of dollars, officials told NBC 7.

The meeting will be held Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Santa Clara Recreation Center.

New figures show Californians are doing slightly better on conserving water during the state's historic drought.

The state Water Resources Control Board reported Tuesday that Californians cut overall water use by 9.8 percent in November compared to the same period a year ago. Gov. Jerry Brown has asked state residents to cut use by 20 percent -- a figure that has yet to be reached.

Central Coast residents did the best in November, cutting use by 21 percent. Residents of south-east regions reduced use by just 1.2 percent.

In October, residents decreased daily-per capita water use by 6.7 over October 2013.

The closest the state's 38 million people have come to meeting the 20 percent goal was in August, when water use was down 11.6 percent year-on-year.

In January 2014, Brown declared a drought emergency for the state and called for the 20-percent reduction as the state's reservoirs reached critically low levels and Sierra snowpack, a critical source of water for millions of Californians, diminished.

About 32 percent of the state remains  under exceptional drought, the most severe category used by the U.S. Drought Monitor. That figure is down from 58 percent three months ago, before a series of winter storms helped slightly improve conditions in some parts of the state.

More that 94 percent of the state remains under severe drought.
 

A San Diego woman who managed to steal a California Highway Patrol vehicle despite being handcuffed in the backseat pleaded guilty to several charges at a pretrial hearing Tuesday.

Casaundra Lane initially faced seven charges, including auto theft, theft of an emergency vehicle, evading police, being a felon in possession of a firearm and hit and run.

As attorneys for both sides gathered for a preliminary hearing, Lane entered a change of plea and admitted to four of the charges: two counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon, stealing and driving a law enforcement vehicle and felony evading with reckless driving, the district attorney's office reported.

The deadly weapons charges are strikes, and all four carry a stipulated term of four years and eight months in state prison, they said.

In November, Lane hit a car on Interstate 5 near the Mission Bay boat launch and ditched the car, running into the bay. An officer chased her into the water, handcuffed her and put her in the back of the patrol cruiser.

While the officer was outside the vehicle, Lane moved from the backseat and reached for a long rifle stored in the patrol SUV, San Diego police said. As she drove toward the officer to run him down, the CHP officer opened fire, fearing for his life, police said.

Lane sped off, driving south on the 5, then onto Interstate 8 and State Route 163. She was apprehended 30 minutes later in Mission Valley after she rolled the cruiser into another vehicle and officers forcibly removed her.

Lane also hit two vehicles driven by innocent drivers as she fled, officials said.

She will be formally sentenced Feb. 24.

For all the civic progress in downtown San Diego, large stretches of East Village are still a walk on the wild side.

All too many high-rise townhouses overlook heroin dealers and homeless camps.

So what can be done to upgrade the district's downside?

Solutions to the myriad problems have been elusive since well before ground was broken for what became Petco Park.

Redevelopment brought that project and dozens of residential and commercial ventures to East Village.

But now that it's over by state fiat and backing from the courts, deep pockets of poverty are plaguing the community.

Over four decades, East Village has morphed from a seedy warehouse outpost into a gentrifying housing, commercial and nightlife "destination".

But low-life elements that had spread farther west, in the Gaslamp Quarter and financial district, are now concentrated in the village.

"This is kind of like Fifth Avenue was in the Eighties,” says Mission Brewery president Dan Selis, whose business in the historic Wonder Bread building occupies much of the block at the southeast quadrant of 14th Avenue and L Street.

“In time, the progress pushed down to Sixth, to Seventh, to Eighth,” Selis recalled in an interview Tuesday. “And now it's at 14th. The progress is going to continue from 14th down to 15th, and so how long is that going to take? A few years?”

Mission Brewery is across the street from one of the city's new, half-million-dollar Portland Loo, an oasis of relief for the homeless who otherwise would do their “business” in landscaping and storefront alcoves throughout East Village.

Selis calls the pre-fab restroom, which has drawn public outcries over cost and logistical issues, “a Band-Aid fix” for the problem of human waste in East Village.

Folks who live and work nearby say the Loo is often littered, and filled with suspicious activity.

"I don't know that they're necessarily always using just for the restroom,” a woman walking her dog nearby told NBC 7. “I think they're using it as a place to escape being seen sometimes, too."

The homeless crowd scores of sidewalks, in the shadow of residential towers, among businesses whose employees and customers find themselves panhandled, pestered and paranoid walking around alone, especially after dark.

Whether just destitute, drug dealers or users, the derelicts won't disappear.

"The police describe it like a balloon,” says Selis. “You know -- you squeeze it, and it just pops up somewhere else."

Homeless advocates warn it'll take a lot more money for rehab and housing programs.

"It's going to go into Golden Hill, into Barrio and other places,” says Bob McElroy, founder and executive director of Alpha Project for the Homeless who’s fought funding battles at City Hall since 1987. “ It's better for us to coalesce. Let's not fight against each other. Bring as many resources as we can to the table, and solve the problem."

Right now, nearly $2 billion worth of public and private development projects are in the planning, city permit processing, or financing and construction phases throughout East Village.

Precious little is earmarked for homelessness.

There are no shortage of complaints from East Village residents, merchants and developers alike.

Firefighters quickly doused a fire that sparked near Westview High School in Torrey Highlands.

Starting at about 4 p.m., the vegetation fire spread to about a quarter of an acre near the 13500 block of Camino del Sur, San Diego Fire officials say.

It was moving slowly through heavy fuel, so firefighters were able to knock it down within half an hour. A helicopter dumped buckets of water on the blaze from above.

Officials planned to mop up remaining embers for some time.  

No structures were threatened.

A man is charged with murdering three older neighbors who were found dead in the North Andover, Massachusetts, public housing complex for the elderly and disabled where all four lived.

George Kettinger, Jr., 79, Walter Hamilton, 78, and a 68-year-old whose name is being withheld at this time were all found dead in their own apartments at 10 Foulds Terrace.

Salvatore Guglielmino, 57, who lived in a fourth apartment in the unit, has been charged with murder, and will be arraigned on Wednesday.

It is not known at this time if Guglielmino has an attorney. 

Officials say there will be an interfaith service for all residents affected by the triple homicide on Wednesday at St. Michael's Church at 196 Main St. at 7 p.m. There will also be a circle of healing at the North Andover Senior Center on Thursday morning, where grief counselors will be on hand.

Ronald Mc Donald House Charities employees are gearing up for their 11th year of the Dream House Raffle.

A multimillion dollar home will be raffled off to a lucky winner and all the proceeds help families who need a place to stay while their kids are sick in the hospital.

The seven-bedroom, six-bathroom 7,000 square foot home sits on 2.4 acres in Rancho Santa Fe.

Proceeds from the San Diego Dream House raffle goes to the San Diego location.

“Our job is to make sure moms and dads can be as close as possible,” said Chuck Day, President and CEO Ronald McDonald House Charities.

One ticket costs $150, three tickets cost $400 and five tickets cost $550, Day added.

There is a February 6 deadline for the first drawing.

The Grand Prize winner chooses either the San Diego Dream House or $2.1 million in cash.

Get details on how to enter here.
 

You've heard the rumors -- turns out they're true: AC/DC is back in black to headline this year's Coachella Music & Arts Festival, along with Jack White and Drake. Together with the rest of the bands (see full lineup below), they'll fill the desert valley in California with thousands of festival-goers April 10-12 and again April 17-19.

The presale passes (last May, guys, get with it) sold-out like, whoa, but for all you hopefuls who attend massive (and massively costly) weekend-long party shows based on -- gasp! -- who's actually playing, you've still got time. Regular ticket sales Wednesday, Jan. 7, at 12 p.m. PST. Check the Coachella website for full details.

Joining the headliners will be some local acts: A few years back, the festival tried to recruit Drive Like Jehu to perform a reunion show for a pile of money: denied! Instead, the San Diego rockers awed a packed Spreckles Organ Pavilion for a free reunion show last year. And now they're making their Coachella claim for a Saturday spot on the lineup (hopefully for a pile of money). It's all about timing, you know? Also chiming in on Saturday is San Diego-born Gaslamp Killer, a DJ and alt hip-hop producer who made a name for himself (literally) playing clubs in the Gaslamp District. Manning the turntables that same night will be the the Nortec Collective Presents: Bostiche + Fussible, who have deep Tijuana roots.

Or maybe you can't shell out the $375 for a ticket right now. Hey, man, that's cool. You could just watch old episodes of SoundDiego (all archived on your DVR, we know), since we've had dozens of the bands on the show. You could even throw an abridged, digital Coachella party at home! Check it: In place of Fridays full set, for instance, tune in to our shows that featured Interpol, Porter Robinson, Action Bronson and Allah-Las. And who needs to stand in the Saturday afternoon heat when you could watch Alt- J, Flosstradamus, Father John Misty and Run the Jewels from the comfort of your air-conditioned living room? Your Sunday viewing pleasures, of course, include David Guetta, Fitz & the Tantrums, Vance Joy, Built to Spill, St. Lucia and the Orwells.

It's official: festival-season fever has begun. And it's only January.

Here's the lineup for both weekends:

Friday, April 10 and April 17

• AC/DC
• Tame Impala
• Interpol
• Steely Dan
• Alesso
• Alabama Shakes
• Ride
• Nero
• Azealia Banks
• Flying Lotus
• Raekwon and Ghostface Killah
• Lykke Li
• DJ Snake
• Porter Robinson
• Caribou
• Todd Terje & the Olsens
• Angus and Julia Stone
• Not Natured
• George Ezra
• Squarepusher
• Kiesza
• Action Bronson
• Gorgon City
• Reverend Horton Heat
• Sylvan Essa
• Kimbra
• Vic Mensa
• Erol Alkan
• Kele
• Cloud Nothings
• Keys n Krates
• MK
• Pete Tong
• Ab-Soul
• Haerts
• Eagulls
• Allah-Lahs
• Alvin Risk
• Chris Malinchak
• Jon Hopkins
• Oliver Heldens
• Ryan Hemsworth
• Jason Bentley
• Brant Bjork & the Low Desert Punk Band
• Marques Wyatt
• The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger
• Los Rakas

Saturday, April 11 and April 18

• Jack White
• The Weeknd
• Axwell /\ Ingrosso
• Alt-J
• Belle and Sebastian
• Ratatat
• Hozier
• Flosstradamus
• Bad Religion
• SBTRKT
• FKA Twigs
• Tyler the Creater
• Father John Misty
• The War on Drugs
• Deorro
• Run the Jewels
• Tycho
• Chet Faker
• Kasabian
• Drive Like Jehu
• Swans
• Milky Chance
• Toro y Moi
• Jungle
• New World Punk
• Clean Bandit
• Glass Animals
• Royal Blood
• Alison Wonderland
• The Gaslamp Killer Experience
• Loco Dice
• Danny Tenaglia
• Antemasque
• Parquet Courts
• Gramatik
• What So Not
• Yellow Claw
• DJ Jarvey
• Tale of Us
• Yelle
• Andrew McMahon
• Carl Craig
• Phox
• St. Paul & the Broken Bones
• Cashmere Cat
• Nortec Collective Presents: Bostiche + Fussible
• Tourist
• Benjamin Boxer
• Matthew Koma
• Perfume Genius
• Jamestown Revival
• Bad Suns
• Ruen Brothers
• Bixel Boys
• Andrea Olivia
• Ryn Weaver
• Radkey
• Coasts
• Until the Ribbon Breaks

Sunday, April 12 and April 19

• Drake
• Florence & the Machine
• Kaskade
• Ryan Adams
• David Guetta
• St. Vincent
• Marina & the Diamonds
• Fitz & the Tantrums
• Brand New
• Madeon
• Stromae
• Kygo
• Odesza
• Gesaffelstein
• RAC
• Circa Survive
• Jenny Lewis
• Desaparecidos
• Jamie xx
• Martin Solveig
• Duke Dumont
• Lil B
• Mac DeMarco
• Vance Joy
• Built to Spill
• J.E.S.+S. (Jack Master, Eats Everything, Skream and Seth Trexler)
• Panda Bear
• Kaytranada
• R3hab
• St. Lucia
• Dirty South
• Tiger and Woods
• Dubfire
• Sturgill Simpson
• Annie Mac
• Chicano Batman
• MO
• Sloan
• Doc Martin
• Saint Motel
• The Orwells
• The Cribs
• tINI
• Ben Klock
• Night Terrors of 1927

Hannah Lott-Schwartz, a San Diego native, moved back to the area after working the magazine-publishing scene in Boston. Now she’s straight trolling SD for all the music she missed while away. Want to help? Hit her up with just about anything at all over on Twitter, where -- though not always work-appropriate -- she means well.

A fire on 2nd avenue downtown has caused a building to be evacuated, officials said.

The fire was reported shortly after 10 a.m. Tuesday morning at the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department's headquarters downtown on 2nd Avenue.

Fire officials said the fire originated in a mechanical room on the seventh floor of the building where smoke started from a burnt-out fan motor.

More than 70 firefighters and six fire trucks were on scene working to put out the fire. People inside working said they could smell the smoke from multiple floors away as it drifted through the air vents.

The Fire-Rescue Department originally request a second and third alarm response to the fire, though they later canceled that resaponse.

The people evacuated from the building are still waiting outside to be let back in.

The San Diego Police Department and the SDFRD are responding.

Check back for updates on this developing story.

The homeless man who found the body of a missing 3-week-old girl as he picked through a dumpster south of San Diego was "mad as hell" that anybody would hurt a newborn, he told NBC 7.

Harold Sherman found Eliza Delacruz dead in a bag of trash behind an Imperial Beach shopping center Sunday, a day after the baby's parents and uncle were shot and wounded in their Long Beach home.

"It hit me: That's a baby — that's a baby, man," Sherman, better known in the neighborhood as Freddy, told NBC 7 of the moment he realized what he had found. "My conscience wouldn't let her go."

"I wanted to cry, and then I got angry. I was mad — mad as hell, bro," he said.

"I'm still freaked out by what happened. I could not let that be the child’s last resting place,” Sherman said.

Sherman regularly picks through dumpsters for cans, and the dumpster where he found the newborn, behind Giant Pizza King at Palm Avenue and Rainbow Drive, is on his regular route.

On Sunday, as he ripped trash bags open to scan for cans, he found what looked like a baby doll. But when he touched the baby, her skin was ice cold.

It was then Sherman realized he had found a dead baby. 

Sherman said he had to get out of the dumpster and sit down for a minute to take it all in and to try and understand how anyone could throw away a baby.

At first, he was afraid to tell anyone about the baby, because there is a steep fine for canning in dumpsters — but he decided against keeping quiet, because it was the right thing to do.

Sherman's good friend Marrianne, weakened by a stroke, called him a "kind soul" and said he still comes to her home to help around her house.

“He tries to keep up some of the plumbing and things like that for me," Marrianne said.

"A flush of emotion came over me," Sherman said. "I got my cart and my bike, and I came over to the next dumpster and sat down and it just — it hit me. That’s a baby. That’s a baby, man, and what's a baby doing there, you know? How could that happen? How would anybody just do that?"

Police say the baby was taken from her Long Beach apartment Saturday. Investigators are trying to track down the man they say shot her parents and uncle, then grabbed Eliza.

How she ended up in the seacoast neighborhood of Imperial Beach is still a mystery. Well-wishers have been stopping by a growing memorial to bring by flowers as they mourn the child.

“Sickening, just sickening and to think that this happened in our neighborhood, it's horrible,” resident Thea Draude said.

But the discovery of Eliza’s body is a lead for detectives working around the clock to find her kidnapper, and perhaps much more.

“God bless him — for not only the baby but for the parents, at least they don't have to stay wondering,” IB resident Michelle Nunez said.

Detectives are hoping to find more clues on security video to lead them to who might have taken her.

Fire crews in North County responded to a house fire and reports of heavy smoke Tuesday night.

The fire broke out inside the main entry of a home at 300 Beaumont Court in Vista, and crews were assigned to "fast attack" and search the interior of the home first, authorities said.

Luckily no one was in the home.

Officials said the fire appeared to be burning inside the interior walls of the house, even after the exterior flames had been put out.

San Diego Gas and Electric was requested to inspect both the gas and the electrical and to assist with utilities.

The cause of the fire is still unclear and an investigation continues.

Feds have seized more than $18 million from the accounts of owners of a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy tied to a deadly, nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak.

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz announced the seizure on Tuesday, saying the money was taken from the accounts of Barry Cadden and Carla and Douglas Conigliaro.

Authorities say they've taken about $1.5 million from Cadden, a shareholder and former head pharmacist of New England Compounding Center who was among the 14 indicted in connection to the 2012 outbreak that killed 64 people and sickened dozens of others. He's been charged with 25 counts of second-degree murder along with mail fraud and conspiracy.

About $16.8 million has been frozen in accounts held by or connected to Carla Conigliaro, 51, of Dedham, Massachusetts, who is the majority sharehold of the compounding pharmacy, and her husband Douglas.

Both of them were among the 14 people indicted in December, and are charged with transferring assets after allegedly transferring millions after the outbreak, shortly before the pharmacy's petition for bankruptcy and after a bankruptcy court issued orders prohibiting it. 

Part of Carlsbad State Beach is closed Tuesday after a sewage spill into Encina Creek.

The beach is closed at Encina Creek and 500 feet both north and south of the outlet. This area will remain off limits until the water is no longer affected by contamination.

The spill happened after a gate valve failed to close during routine plant operations, according to the Encina Wastewater Authority. The sewage, which is mostly "dilute digester sludge," spilled into the creek, which runs into Carlsbad State Beach, they said.

Signs are posted at the Encina Creek access points and will remain in place until the area is deemed safe.

For updates on the closure, click here.

Local scientists are developing a drug to trick your body into thinking you ate a meal, causing your body to burn fat.

Scientists at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, in coordination with dozens of other scientists across the globe, have been working for the past ten years to develop the drug called Fexaramine.

Senior staff scientist Michael Downes said the drug has been tested on lab mice, and after five weeks, those given Fexaramine had lost 25 percent of their body fat.

Downes said it works because “normally when you have a meal, bile acids are released from your liver and they go down to the intestines. What this compound does is a mimic of bile acids and so it tricks the body into thinking the normal process that you've had a meal."

Downes said to think of it as – an imaginary meal.

Not only did the mice lose weight, scientists also discovered the drug lowered cholesterol and blood sugars. Plus, they say Fexaramine is like no other drug on the market because it does not absorb into the blood stream, which often causes side effects of the heart and brain, for instance.

Now that the drug has been proven on mice, the next step is to develop the drug for human consumption. Then, just as scientists did on mice, they will test it on humans which could take a few years.

After they’ve perfected the human dose, the drug will have to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. That, too, can be a lengthy process.

So in reality, the drug won’t be available to the public for at least another five or six years.

Downes said at this point, scientists can’t determine if the drug will be available over the counter or if it will be prescribed by doctors.

He said they do know it will be prescribed to those with serious weight problems.

Two friends' deaths just days apart have left a small South Jersey community and the teens' high school in mourning as a new year gets underway.

Ado Halkic, a 15-year-old student at Burlington Township High School, was found hanged in his bedroom inside his family's home on Jan. 1, a short time after he asked his dad to order him chicken wings, his father Adam Halkic told NBC10's Cydney Long.

Four days later, his good friend and fellow Burlington Township HS student, Mike Steve, 18, was also found hanged inside his Burlington City home -- a home he and his family had recently moved to, according Halkic.

Despite their age and grade differences -- Halkic was a freshman and Steve a senior -- the two were longtime friends who trained together at the JBM Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Academy in Edgewater Park for about eight years, said Halkic.

"It has been shocking news for us that two of our students, one who was 15 and another who was 18, have committed suicide," JBM Gym Director Victor Lopez said in an email to NBC10. "Both of them were a part of our Jiu Jitsu Academy that we treated as extended family..."

The high school released a statement regarding the boys' deaths. Read the full statement here,

"Needless to say, the past few days have been painful for our entire community. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those who have been touched by the sudden death of two of our high school students," the school said. "It is in times like these that we need to come together as a community to support each other."

Both the high school and the jiu jitsu academy are holding events tonight to offer guidance and support on how to cope with losing a child.

Burlington Twp. High School's event begins Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center at 610 Fountain Ave.

The Academy's discussion on children and the importance of life starts at 7 p.m. at Flex Gym 4237 Rt. 130. The event is open to the public.

An open discussion with grief counselors on hand will also be held at JBM Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Academy on 4237 Route 130 South, Edgewater Park, New Jersey. All are welcome to attend.

"This is a horrible tragedy," said Lopez.

What prompted the boys' deaths is unclear at this time. 

SUICIDE PREVENTION: If you know someone who needs help, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Teen SUICIDE PREVENTION
 

A man who shot at a police officer during a suspected DUI traffic stop will spend nine years in prison, the district attorney's office says.

Michael Eugene Rains, 29, pleaded guilty last month to shooting at an unoccupied vehicle, as well as assaulting an inmate and possessing a weapon in jail. The latter charges stem from two different incidents while Rains was in jail for the shooting, the district attorney says.

On Nov. 16, 2013, a San Diego police officer tried to pull over a white SUV in Poway because he thought the driver, 18-year-old Daniel Schwartzel, was under the influence. Sitting with Schwartzel was Rains.

When the officer turned on his emergency lights, he says he heard four gunshots and saw the muzzle flash from a firearm.

Uninjured, the officer called for back-up and followed the vehicle on Poway Road, eventually pulling it over. Sheriff’s deputies helped take Rains and Schwartzel into custody.

Investigators found a handgun in the SUV and shell casings from it on the street.

Schwartzel has pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting in the incident and will be sentenced on Jan. 27.
 

A pedestrian suffered head trauma after being hit by a vehicle in the Clairemont area Tuesday evening.

The crash happened in the 6300 block of Balboa Avenue just before 6:30 p.m.

The driver stopped to check on the victim, and there's no sign of DUI, San Diego police say.

The pedestrian was taken to the hospital, but the extent of injuries is not known.

Check back here for details.