The city attorney’s office filed a petition Wednesday to get all the data from an SUV that crashed into a man and his baby daughter, killing the infant.

Attorneys requested a hearing on a petition to preserve evidence from the 2004 Chevrolet Suburban’s computer system. It could possibly tell them the speed at which the two were hit or if the driver used brakes before the impact.

San Diego Police investigators and city attorneys fear that if they do not get the data, it could be erased.

When asked if gathering this information in case the baby’s family files a lawsuit against the city, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office said he could not answer this.

For the time being, the Suburban will stay in the custody of the SDPD’s traffic investigations unit. A hearing on the petition is scheduled for May 1.

The SUV was taken by police after the March 3 collision in Point Loma. A couple was out for a walk, pushing their 7-month-old girl Juniper Aavang in a stroller, when they came to the intersection of Catalina Boulevard and Canon Street.

The mother made it safely across, but as the father entered the street with the stroller, the Suburban turned onto Canon. The driver did not see the duo and crashed into them.

Both the father and Juniper were taken to the hospital in critical condition. More than a day and a half later, the girl died from a traumatic brain injury.

Neighbors have urged the city council to make changes to that dangerous intersection.

Three men attempting to enter the United States illegally by ride on jet skis were arrested in Imperial Beach Calif., Wednesday morning, officials said.

Border Patrol agents spotted the two jet skis at about 12:46 a.m. Wednesday crossing from Mexico into the U.S. Agents notified the Joint Harbor Operations Center (JHOC) that then notified a CBP Office of Air and Marine (OAM) Coastal Interceptor “SAFE” boat that responded.

When the boat approached the jet skis they attempted to turn around and flee towards Mexico.

However, one jet ski lost control in the process and three adult men on board flipped into the water. The second jet ski fled back to Mexican waters.

After Border Patrol agents ran an immigration inspection, officials learned the men were in the U.S. illegally.

The jet ski was seized by the Border Patrol.

The man who drove into a crowd of "zombie walkers" at Comic-Con last year believes he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Michael O. Pocci, who is deaf, is now charged with a felony count of reckless driving resulting in a serious injury. On July 26, 2014, he and his family, all inside a car, found themselves surrounded by a throng of pseudo-zombies marching in the Gaslamp District. As he surged forward, he hit a 64-year-old woman, injuring her arm.

Pocci, describing the events through an American Sign Language interpreter Wednesday, mostly blames the commotion of the crowd for the woman's injuries. He signed that charges should be brought against a man who banged on his windshield causing him to panic and drive away.

He signed that the crowd was out of control, banging on his car, screaming things at him and his family that none of them could hear or understand, and opening the car doors.

"I was so nervous that someone was going to come into my car that I tried to go through a little bit slowly, but that's when someone banged on my windshield," Pocci said. "That's when someone banged on my windshield and you know cracked the glass and after that I was so petrified that I decided to just go through."

When asked if he would have done anything differently now that he's learned more about what was happening at the time, he signed: "Would I change anything? That's a really hard question to answer."

"I could only do based on what I saw and what I thought would be the right thing for me to do," Pocci signed.

The man's attorney, Ashby Sorensen, said the case will hinge on Pocci's state of mind at the time of the incident and his intent.

"What was he thinking? And was it reasonable?" said Sorensen, who believes the collision happened because the crowd took on a mob mentality, aiming outrage at a car full of people who are handicapped and could not hear them.

Pocci is facing three years in prison if convicted on the felony charge. He has entered a not guilty plea to that charge.

Pocci signed that he's never been in an accident like that before and never hit anyone in his car. He communicated that if he could, he would tell the woman whose arm was broken how horrible he feels that she was hurt.

Pocci and the woman are both suing the city for what they maintain was poor crowd control at the event.

A woman had to be cut from her car after she slammed into two parked vehicles and a house in Lemon Grove Wednesday night.

"We had a large, what felt like an explosion, outside of the house. The house shook, bang, loud noise, shook the sofa," said Maria Brown, who lives in the damaged house with her husband, two kids and a foreign exchange student.

The car came crashing onto the property at about 8:50 p.m. in the 8200 block of Golden Avenue, hitting two vans, two jet skis on a trailer and the house. 

"Thank God my daughter wasn't in bed because it hit her room of the house and she was minutes from saying goodnight and going in her room," said Brown.

A witness told NBC 7 after bouncing off the home, the car wrapped around a telephone pole. The female driver became trapped when her grey car stopped, and firefighters took the roof off to get her out.

She appeared to be conscious as she was taken to the hospital for major injuries.

Everyone inside the home is fine, though Brown said her children are shaken up by the incident and emotional. 

A building inspector must decide if the damaged bedroom is safe enough for the girl to stay in. Brown told NBC 7 part of the ceiling inside is cracked, and the outside stucco is broken.

Brown's husband Stephen said he has no doubt speeding was involved, based on how many things the driver hit.

It's unclear if drugs or alcohol were factors in the crash.

"People do need to slow down. It's a residential neighborhood," said witness Tracey Dalton.

San Diego-area DEA agents say they are seeing the reappearance of a dangerous substance on our local streets that is 30 to 50 times stronger than heroin.

It’s called fentanyl and it’s used by medical professionals during surgeries and to treat terminally ill patients. However, illegal drug organizations are cutting heroin with fentanyl, and unsuspecting users are overdosing.

DEA Assistant Special Agent in Charge Karen Flowers says drug organizations are doing this to increase product and potency.

“The potency is the area we're concerned with,” said Flowers. “About .25 mg is the standard dosage unit would be for fatalities. If you take a head of a push pin, about that much or a few grains of salt [can cause death].”

“So when you have a novice user or someone who uses [heroin] daily and they suddenly get this extra dose of potency, the effect is an overdose which can be fatal,” she continued.

Flowers says local DEA investigations reveal fentanyl has been seized in San Diego County in the last eight to nine months. During one incident, straight fentanyl was disguised as a brick of heroin.

The potent substance also puts law enforcement officers at risk.

“Due to the exposure potential we issued a threat to be cautious of this substance because absorbing it through the skin or inhalation can cause fatalities. We haven't seen fatalities, but the potential does exist,” said Flowers.

Fentanyl has been the cause of heroin overdoses in different pocket of areas throughout the country.

Flowers says the spikes have been particularly dramatic in the past 12 months.

According to the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Officer, heroin deaths have increased since 2012, but Flowers says it’s hard to say fentanyl is the cause. She does believe, however, fentanyl deaths are very underreported here in San Diego.

“If you ingest something that contains heroine or fentanyl or just straight fentanyl it metabolizes in your system and when we test for it, it just shows morphine,” she said.

There is good news. There is an antidote called Narcan, and it’s carried by Sheriff’s deputies and DEA agents. DEA officials say it’s very effective.

More than 13 years after the twin towers fell, medical examiners have been able to identify another one of the 2,753 people who died in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The city identified Matthew David Yarnell, 26, by retesting DNA reference samples of remains found during original recovery efforts at ground zero between 2001 and 2002.

Yarnell, of Jersey City, is remembered as a good friend and prankser who carried around a phony $1 million bill and asked strangers if they could “break a million,” according to a New York Times portait published on Dec. 18, 2001.

According to the Times, Yarnell grew up in Kinnelon and graduated from Kinnelon High School before going to Carnegie Mellon. He worked on the 97th floor of the south tower for Fiduciary Trust Co. and was in a training session when the building was hit by United Airlines Flight 175.

The identification brings the total number of positively identified victims in the attack to 1,640.

The medical examiner's office has been retesting human remains recovered during the original recovery at ground zero, collected before May 2002.

In 2013, authorities sifted through truckloads of debris unearthed by construction crews working on the rebuilding. Possible remains of more than 20 victims were recovered.

San Diego may be home to year-round sunshine, vacation-worthy beaches and lots of outdoor recreation but a new study also says it’s one of America’s hardest working cities.

The NYC Comptroller released a study Wednesday showing the hardest working cities in the United States based on the typical weekly work hours for employees, plus the weekly commute time getting to and from work.

San Diego ranked No. 20 on the list, with 42.12 hours worked weekly, plus 3.58 hours of weekly commute for a grand total of 46.10 total hours worked per week.

Of course, America’s Finest City isn’t alone on the list. The study found that the No.1 hardest working city in America is New York City (49.08 total hours worked per week), followed by San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Other cities on the list that ranked higher than San Diego include, in order: Ft. Worth; Chicago; Boston; Dallas; Philadelphia; San Jose, Calif.; and Los Angeles.

The NYC Comptroller study also found that lower-wage workers have longer commutes since they often can’t afford to live in the areas near work.

The check out the full study, click here.
 

Operators recently completed a $12 million renovation of the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley hotel, with a new outdoor event deck and pool area expected to open this spring.

Officials said the 350-room hotel, at 901 Camino del Rio South, has a newly opened onsite restaurant called Polcano Kitchen & Bar, serving Latin-style cuisine and led by executive chef Nicholas Villamil.

The hotel’s lobby and interior spaces have been redesigned, and there is a new “city view executive lounge.” The property’s 21,000 square feet of meeting and event spaces have also been renovated, and there is a demonstration kitchen with retractable doors and a hot-stone granite buffet.

The hotel also has a new artisan food marketplace for meals and other items available for to-go purchase, along with a Starbucks espresso bar and a new fitness center with the latest equipment.

The upcoming outdoor event and pool space will have new furnishings and allow for alfresco dining year-round, operators said.
 

Target is poised to settle a class-action lawsuit filed following the retailer's massive data breach in 2013, according to court documents filed Wednesday in Minnesota.

Link: Target Data Breach FAQ

A $10 million dollar fund will be established for victims of the breach, and people hoping to claim must be able to prove they have experienced at least one of the following:

• Unauthorized, unreimbursed charges on their credit or debit card
• Time spent addressing those charges
• Fees to hire someone to correct their credit report
• Higher interest rates or fees on the accounts
• Credit-related costs
• Costs to replace their identification, Social Security number or phone number

Victims will also have to prove they used a credit or debit card at any U.S. Target store, excluding the Target.com website, between Nov. 27, 2013 through Dec. 18, 2013.

More than 100 word wizards took the stage at the San Diego Hall of Champions in Balboa Park Thursday for the 46th annual UT San Diego Countywide Spelling Bee.

The 7th and 8th grade competitors from schools throughout the county began the spelling showdown at 9:15 a.m., with final rounds expected to end around 1 p.m.

Quickly, the contestants were given words to spell such as "alcove," "tofu" and "layette," as they advanced from round to round.

Aside from serious local buzz, the winner of the spelling bee will also go on to represent San Diego at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., in May.

The event is hosted by Spelling Bee Master Dr. David Hay, an Adjunct Professor of English/Coordinator of International Faculty Programs at the University of San Diego, who is in his 34th year as Bee Master.

San Diego students have impressed in the past with their spelling skills. In 2012 Francis Park School student Snigdha Nandipati, then 14 years old, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee with the winning word, “guetapens.”

Nandipati’s big win followed in the footsteps of another star speller from the San Diego area who dominated the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2005. In that competition, Poway student Anurag Kashyap, then 13, won the big bee and later went on to win the “Jeopardy! Teen Tournament.”

This year, Nandipati's younger brother competed in the Countywide Spelling Bee, said Music Watson of the San Diego Office County of Education.

Watson said a total of 103 students hit the spelling stage, with the competition expected to last about four hours. She anticipated things would become very intense as the pool of students was whittled down throughout the day.

She said watching students show off their spelling skills in this era of texting, emoticons and tweeting is something truly special.

“Spelling is the fundamental portion of our language. It’s really important to be able to communicate and to spell well,” said Watson.

A group of 11 people were arrested in San Marcos early Thursday morning for allegedly burglarizing a home, causing $5,000 worth of damage to the residence, officials said.

According to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, a large group of both adults and minors broke into a vacant home in the 2700 block of Casa Linda Way just before 1 a.m.

The nearly one dozen suspects – which included males and females – were seen jumping a fence from the Apostolic Assembly of Faith Church on Smilax Road into a neighboring residential yard, deputies said.

Once they hopped the fence, the group forced their way into the house, causing major damage to the inside.

Deputies arrived on scene mid-burglary and arrested the suspects. Detectives from the San Marcos Gang Detail are investigating the incident. The names of the suspects were not released.

Who will pay for the billion dollar price tag on a potential new Chargers Stadium in San Diego? Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s Citizen’s Stadium Advisory Group (CSAG) began addressing this issue Thursday.

The group presented a financial report to the Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations (ED&IR) Committee at San Diego City Hall regarding its stadium site selection process.

Though the stadium task force publicly presented its suggestion to build a new Chargers stadium in Mission Valley last week, the group still has many hurdles to overcome in its fight to keep the Bolts playing in San Diego.

For starters, the group must still iron out where the money to build the new stadium would come from. The group says it wants to find private investors with private money.

Adam Day, chair of the CSAG, addressed the committee. He said the task force will look at the San Diego Chargers as funding sources as well as seat licenses, naming rights and private investors. Day said that at this point, every possible funding idea is on the table.

The committee will also have to find a resolution to what's happening with plans to expand the convention center.

Last week, the CSAG said building a new stadium at the site of Qualcomm Stadium would save the city approximately $250 million. The ultimate goal of the group is to avoid costs to taxpayers when it comes to financing the construction of the stadium.

But JMI Realty Inc., which is studying both sites, believes the Chargers’ hybrid stadium-convention facility proposal in East Village would cost $400 million less than the combined cost of a Mission Valley stadium and separate expansion of the 25-year-old bayfront Convention Center.

San Diego City Councilmember Myrtle Cole, chair of the ED&IR Committee was set to oversee Thursday’s hearing.

"I support keeping the Chargers in San Diego and understand the economic benefit to do so. We want a stadium that residents can be proud of and can successfully compete for world-class sporting and entertainment events,” Cole said in a media release.

"We want to continue to be a destination place for visitors and San Diego's robust convention and tourism industry," Cole added.

Negotiations to build a multi-use sports arena in San Diego intensified last month when the city learned the team was considering building a stadium in the Los Angeles area to be shared with the Oakland Raiders.

Though the Chargers have been very vocal about a downtown stadium rather than a Mission Valley stadium, Day said Thursday that a downtown site for the stadium is no longer an option.

He said the advisory group wants a facility that's not just good for the Chargers, but a good site for San Diego to host hundreds of events each year, and Mission Valley meets that criteria.

Day said he plans to meet with Eric Grubman, a representative from the NFL, tentatively on April 7 and April 14.

The CSAG will present official financial report to Mayor Faulconer by May 20.
 

A dead gray whale was found floating in the waters near Torrey Pines State Beach Thursday morning, San Diego Lifeguard officials confirmed.

The young whale -- measuring approximately 15 to 20 feet in length -- was discovered about 250 yards off the shore. Lifeguards confirmed the animal was dead when they reached it just before 10 a.m.

Aerial video showed dozens of birds hovering over the carcass, which was floating belly up in the water.

San Diego Fire-Rescue spokesman Lee Swanson said lifeguards were waiting to see if the whale would drift to the shore before beginning any recovery operations. Swanson said officials were trying to determine if the whale would wash up on a city or state beach in order to then decide who would then be responsible for getting rid of it.

Swanson said lifeguards don't have the equipment to haul it off, so officials would need to hire a contractor for the clean-up.

Marine Safety Lt. James Gartland said there was no threat of the animal washing onto the shore. Ultimately, he said officials decided to tow the whale into Fiesta Island on Mission Bay in an operation that would take several hours.

Gartland said the whale would be towed in by the tail. After that, he said a national marine fisheries team will come out and take samples from the whale in order to determine its cause of death. Once that's complete, a team will dispose of the carcass by hauling it to the city dump.

Gartland said it appears the whale has been floating in the water for weeks, as its carcass is very bleached out. He said the clean-up would be inevitably smelly.

“It’s really pungent; it’s usually a pretty stinky operation,” he explained.

Gartland said the last time a whale was found near a local beach was around this time last year near Sunset Cliffs.

A North County woman is accused of posing as a medical professional, working with students at the Army Navy Academy in Carlsbad.

In September 2013, the Medical Board of California received an anonymous complaint about Suzanne Suarez. Investigators stated in a criminal complaint that Suarez falsely represented herself as a Physician's Assistant, even though she had never been certified by the state.

Nash Hartdegen, 18, a student at the Army Navy Academy, injured his left knee at wrestling practice.

“I happened to tear my knee entire knee out. Basically, you know, ACL, MCL, Meniscus, BCL…everything,” he explained.

Upon his school's recommendation, Hartdegen went to Carlsbad Orthopedic Group, where he was examined by Suarez. He thought she was a nurse or physician's assistant.

She was wearing what he described as a "white doctor coat.”

“She seemed very professional. She did all the paperwork for my leg,” Hartdegen recounted.

Dr. Jon Pembroke Kelly also examined his knee and told Hartdegen to come back a few days later for an operation.

When Hartdegen returned, his mother noticed a huge mistake in her son’s paperwork.

“They had marked that everything was on my right knee. So they were about to conduct surgery on the wrong leg,” he said.

They notified the staff and Dr. Kelly successfully operated on the correct knee.

Hartdegen said Suarez also wrote him prescriptions for strong painkillers.

“I don't know how she did that without a license or without credentials or anything,” he said.

Besides Hartdegen, four other Army Navy students believe they were misled.
According to the complaint, one student said Suarez attended the school's varsity football games as the team's physician.

After injuring his hand during a game, the student said Suarez examined him and told him he had a "pretty bad sprain" and to keep playing, but X-rays later showed he had 10 broken bones in his hand.

The Army and Navy Academy's spokesperson sent NBC 7 a statement stating that the school "is not a party to any litigation concerning Dr. Jon Kelly and/or his staff, we have no details and are unable to comment further."

Dr.Kelly is also charged with conspiring with Suarez.
Dr. Kelly told investigators he thought she was a licensed physician's assistant and when he discovered she wasn't, he fired her.

Suarez and Dr. Kelly pleaded “not guilty” to the charges. Their preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 19.

Smoke can be seen rising above a Point Loma apartment complex and Interstate 8 as a fire burns in the brush near it.

The fire was reported at 5:11 p.m. near the Mariner's Cove apartments at 4336 W. Point Loma Boulevard.

Flames created a large plume of smoke in the area, but firefighters were able to make quick work of it. No evacuations are being ordered and no one was injured.

There is no word on a possible cause.

Two teenagers accused in a local crime spree and leading police on a chase appeared in court on Thursday.

Victor Ledesma, 18, and Jonah Ledesma (no relation), 17, faced a judge, witnesses and police officers for their preliminary hearing.

Police say the defendants and two other minors were involved in armed robberies of several people throughout San Diego on Jan. 23.

NBC 7 was in court as alleged victims took the stand one by one. Here are some of their accounts of what happened:

Witness 1:

This witness said that on Jan. 18, his green Honda Civic was stolen near Thorn Street and Highland Avenue. Five days later, his car was involved in a police chase and ended on a curb in Point Loma. It was very damaged with a smashed bumper and windows. He said he did not know who stole his car.

Witness 2 :

William Whelan said that on Jan. 22, at about 7:49 p.m., he was walking to his car, parked in Hillcrest. He recalls that two suspects approached him, surrounded him around his vehicle and demanded his wallet. He said defendant Victor Ledesma said: “I have a gun. Give me your wallet.” He then reports seeing a gun in Jonah Ledesma’s waistband. He said the two demanded his cell phone after taking his wallet. Whelan negotiated with the teens, saying he’ll put his phone in his trunk and won’t call police. He said the suspects left, taking only cash. Whelan did not report the incident to police until the next morning because, he says, his wife is paralyzed and she needed help getting to bed that evening.

Witness 3:

Amalia Pena said that at about 2 a.m. Jan. 23, 2015, she was on a date, and the man walked her to her car parked near Neptune Place and Nautilus, when two teenagers robbed them of their wallets and phones. Pena reported seeing five suspects. She said the two robbed her and her date, another drove the getaway car and two others were checking locks of other parked cars nearby.

Witness 4:

Brandon Potter said just before 1 a.m. on Jan. 23, he took his dog out for a walk in the 4600 block of Georgia Street in the University Heights area. He noticed a green Honda Civic driving around suspiciously. He said he was going very slow and stopped once in a while to make U-turns. When he started walking back home, he said the car pulled up to him and a man got out of the passenger seat. He said the suspect had a bandanna over his face and pointed a gun at him demanding “all he got.” Potter said he saw a handgun and handed over his iPhone. He reported seeing two other people in the car.

Defendant Victor Ledesma has a robbery conviction from 2012 and faces up to 28 years in prison if found guilty. The second defendant, Jonah Ledesma, faces up to 18 years in prison if convicted.

Defense attorneys declined interview with NBC 7 on Thursday. Family members were in court and also declined to speak.

Prosecutors say two other minors were involved in the crime spree. They are being prosecuted in juvenile court.

A White Settlement, North Texas, mother is upset her 5-year-old son was put on a school bus at North Elementary School, a White Settlement ISD school in Fort Worth, when he was supposed to remain at the school for an independent after-school daycare program Wednesday.

Ashley Holder told NBC 5 her son, Gabriel Muntu, told a substitute teacher he was not supposed to ride the bus, but he was put on the bus anyway. The driver dropped him off nearly a mile from their apartment, and Gabriel walked home alone.

“He had told his substitute teacher that he was not a bus rider, and they still put him on the bus,” Holder said.

Her son crisscrossed Saddle Road before making his way across Clifford Street, a busy four-lane road, which his mom says her son told her he crossed more than once.

“He dodged cars to try to get home and I asked him, I was like, 'Were there cars, did you see them?' And he was like, 'Oh, they stopped for me,'” Holder said. “If they wouldn’t have stopped, that could have been my son’s life and that’s the only reason why I’m saying something.”

Holder said she was shocked when she found out what happened.

“I felt sick and I cried because that’s my baby, you know. He could have been hit by a car. He could have been kidnapped. Anything could have happened,” Holder said.

White Settlement ISD officials say there was a lapse in procedure at the school, and a substitute teacher was involved. The school has apologized to the family and is now reviewing current procedures to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“I asked him to show me where they dropped him off, thinking it was just around the neighborhood. No, they dropped him off over a mile away,” Holder said. “He’s supposed to have surgery on his feet and he walked over a mile with bad feet.”

Graco has agreed to pay a $3 million fine for delayed reporting of consumer complaints about difficulty opening car seat buckles.

As part of the agreement with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Graco will also invest $7 million in child passenger safety programs and education.

Laurel Hurd, president of Graco Children's Products, said in a statement on Friday that the company regretted that it fell short of the NHTSA's expectations for data collection and reporting procedures.

"We accept this fine and the additional funding requested by NHTSA for a joint venture involving child passenger safety initiatives in the future," Hurd said.

The NHTSA announced in December that it was investigating whether Graco took too long to report a safety defect in its child car seats. Graco recalled 6.1 million car seats last year because the buckles could get stuck. That could put a child's life at risk in an emergency. It is the largest child seat recall in U.S. history. Graco has previously said that no injuries had been reported because of the problem.

Federal rules require a manufacturer to report a safety defect within five days of becoming aware of it.

Graco Children's Products Inc. is a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Newell Rubbermaid Inc.

State leaders met with Baja California representatives Thursday to discuss cleaning tires and other waste from the Tijuana River Valley, after NBC7 Investigates highlighted the issue last month.

When you buy a tire in California, you pay a $1.75 fee, and $1.00 of that goes into a state tire recycling management fund, but NBC 7 Investigates found tires are not recycled with state funds earmarked for that purpose.

Click here to read NBC 7's full investigation.

Last week, a state Assembly budget subcommittee approved a pilot project to allow CalRecycle to give money to outside agencies, including nonprofits, that could clean up tires which have ended up on both sides of the border.

The Assembly Committee for Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials traveled to the Tijuana River Estuary Thursday to dig into specifics and better grasp the problem. Thousands of tires pollute the Tijuana River Valley, washing across the border from Mexico.

"This is a problem that goes back 15 years, and really it's time to deal with it because now we are in emergency mode," said Fay Crevoshay with WiLDCOAST, an environmental nonprofit.

Crevoshay said the problem starts on this side of the border.

When you buy a tire, your old one could be sold to haulers who are permitted by the state to drive it to the U.S. Mexico border and sell it to one of thousands of llanterias or tire stores that line the streets of Tijuana. Fernando Raul Flores Reyes, who owns one such llanteria in Tijuana, said all of the tires come from the U.S.

CalRecycle estimates more than 637,500 California tires are legally exported to Baja California a year, and more than $1.2 million California tires are illegally dumped across the border in Mexico.

"Those are in the Centros de Acopios. How many do we have in the border? In those illegal dumps? We don't know. That's part of the challenge there," said Baja California's Secretary of the Environment Carlos Graizbord.

Graizbord estimates that number is more like four million tires a year.

CalRecycle's Mark Oldfield said his agency doesn't control international commerce and does not have the authority to change the situation.

The tire fund can't be spent cleaning up tires that are dumped across the border in Mexico, he said, until they wash back here into the south San Diego and Imperial Beach areas.

"Where can you spend a California fee? Well, you have to spend it in California," Oldfield said.

For decades, nonprofits have been asking CalRecycle to spend money cleaning up tires in Mexico, where they say it's cheaper. To clean up 2,000 tires, it costs about $30,000 in Tijuana, compared to $2 million just across the border.

Under the proposed program, CalRecycle would give some of their fund to a third party organization to do the work in Mexico. The secretary of the environment for Baja is pledging funds from Mexico's budget for cleanup as well if the plan goes through.

"Working on border water quality and environmental mitigation is extremely important to me as we search for long-term solutions to address the problem of trash and other pollutants flowing into the Tijuana River," read a statement from Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins' office.

The program still needs to be ratified by the full state Assembly, Senate and governor.

In a previous interview with NBC 7, a CalRecycle representative said such a plan, which was hypothetical at the time of the interview, of granting taxpayer money to outside nonprofits for use outside of the country would possibly need legal review.

Editor's note: A former version of this article has been updated to better reflect a CalReycle spokesman's previous comments on an idea to fund an outside nonprofit to spend money out of the state. Also, a previous version of this article incorrectly stated how much of the tire fee goes into the tire management recycling fund. The fee is $1.75 but 75-cents of that fee goes to the Air Resources Board and $1 goes into the Tire Recycling Management Fund. The sentence has been corrected.

SeaWorld San Diego will continue to suspend its sea lion and otter shows for at least another week, as trainers continue to focus on rescue efforts of sea lion pups stranded along the coast.

In the meantime, some of the trainers will host sea lion and otter informational presentations at the park. The presentations will start Friday and will be at 1:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. at the stadium.

The other trainers will continue to rescue the large number of pups found stranded along the Southern California Coast.

SeaWorld first announced it was suspending the shows on March 7, so that trainers could instead focus on rescue efforts.

Park officials said Thursday they will re-evaluate the situation next week regarding when to bring back the sea lion and otter shows.

SeaWorld San Diego has rescued more than 400 sea lions so far this year. That number is more than twice the number of marine mammal rescues the park averages in a typical year, the park said.
SeaWorld also announced it's in the process of constructing two temporary pool for the rescued sea lions.

Several pups rescued this year have been found in poor condition, with some weighing around 20 pounds. Typically, sea lion pups weigh 50 to 60 pounds.