A woman was stabbed to death Sunday morning inside a hospital room in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village in an alleged domestic incident.

Elk Grove Police received a call at about 11:30 a.m. for a report of battery at Alexian Brothers Medical Center, located at 800 Biesterfield Road. Police were told someone had attacked a family member while visiting the patient's room.

The victim was identified as 42-year-old Francisca Quintero of Burlington, Wisc., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

A 44-year-old man identified as a family member of the victim has been taken into custody and is being questioned by Elk Grove police. The weapon was also recovered at the scene.

"Police are reporting that this was an isolated domestic incident and no patients or employees were in danger or harmed. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victim," officials at Alexian Brothers Medical Center said in a statement.

No other patients were harmed in the incident, police said.

Deputies have opened up a homicide investigation after a man was found shot to death in Potrero, an area about 40 miles east of San Diego. 

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department received a report of a shooting at about 6:45 p.m. in the 23000 block of Coyote Holler Road. 

When deputies arrived, they found a man dead at the scene. 

One person was detained, though it's unclear if anyone has been arrested. 

Check back here for more on this developing story.

Crews are searching for a cruise ship passenger who went overboard near the Florida Keys late Sunday night, authorities say.

Crews have been searching for the man overnight into Monday morning, U.S. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss said.

The USCG was alerted of the incident aboard the Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas late Sunday night between 11 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., WPTV reported.

The man reportedly fell or jumped overboard about 20 miles off the coast of Marathon. Doss does not believe the man was pushed, or that any foul play was involved.

Two Canadian Coast Guard ships, a Coast Guard Cutter, a helicopter and a boat crew are all involved in the extensive search.

The cruise ship was also involved in the search, but has since continued on towards its destination while the search for the victim continues.

An off-roading passenger jet carrying families bound for Walt Disney World got stuck in the mud at a Delaware airport late Sunday.

Frontier Airlines flight 1435, carrying 105 passengers bound for Orlando, Florida, was taxiing at New Castle County Airport at 9:30 p.m. when the pilot veered off the concrete taxiway and onto a grassy area filled with mud, airport officials tell NBC10.

The Airbus A319 jet couldn't propel itself out of the mess and was left slightly tilted with its front and right-rear landing gear stuck. The passengers were led off the plane and the flight canceled, officials said. No one was hurt, but one passenger said his daughter was bummed that the hiccup delayed their trip to Disney World.

Service members from the Delaware Air National Guard were brought in on Monday morning to help pull the plane from the mud.

Just like you would do with a car, the guardsmen are digging around the tires and placing plywood underneath the 70 ton jet's wheels. They will then tow it back to solid ground, officials said.

A representative from the airline said they will be flying the passengers to Orlando on Monday using a different jet.

Watch on @NBCPhiladelphia a Frontier Airlines Plane off the taxiway at Wilmington Airport. pic.twitter.com/eVDPoE6mmW

— Jeremiah (@Haasie20) March 23, 2015

The convicted killer at the center of the popular podcast "Serial'' is making his case that an appeals court should toss his conviction because his lawyer failed to interview an alibi witness and never inquired about the possibility of a plea deal.

An attorney for Adnan Syed, now 34, filed a brief Monday with the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, which has agreed to take up Syed's case.

Syed was at the center of the wildly popular podcast that raised questions about the integrity of the case, the fairness of the trial and his guilt.

Prosecutors maintain that Syed strangled his former high school sweetheart Hae Min Lee in 1999 after the two broke up and she began dating someone else. Syed, who was 17 at the time of Lee's death, has been in prison since 2000, serving a life sentence.

The Court of Special Appeals agreed to hear Syed's appeal in February after two unsuccessful attempts.

The basis of Syed's appeal is that his former lawyer, Christina Gutierrez, failed to interview Asia McClain, a student at Syed's school who said she was with him in the library at the approximate time of Lee's death. McClain had written to Syed after his arrest offering to speak with investigators and his attorney. In her letters, McClain also mentioned two other witnesses who said they saw Syed at the library. But Gutierrez, who was later disbarred by consent after questions arose about her handling of client funds, never interviewed McClain nor called her as a witness.

"It is hard to imagine that Gutierrez could have done anything worse than failing to pick up the phone and call Syed's witness,'' Syed's appeals attorney, Justin Brown, wrote in the filing.

Additionally, Brown argues that Gutierrez told Syed that prosecutors would not offer him a plea deal when in fact she never inquired as to whether one was on the table.

Brown characterized Syed's former lawyer's failure to inquire about a possible plea deal and interview a potentially crucial alibi witness as running "deeper than the typical error or omission that is considered under the umbrella of `effective assistance of counsel.'''

"It not only violates something fundamental to the trial process,'' Brown wrote, "but it violates the duty of loyalty that is at the heart of attorney-client relationship ... his lawyer effectively stopped representing him.''

The attorney general's office, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment Monday.

Oral arguments are expected to be scheduled for June.

Firefighters returning from another incident made a detour when they saw heavy smoke and fire coming from the first floor of an apartment building fire in Clairemont, officials said. 

The San Diego Fire-Rescue crew had just finished responding to a call in the area when they spotted the smoke at apporximately 5 p.m. on the 4500 block of Clairemont Drive. 

The firefighters immediately pulled over and started attacking the fire, which was extinguished less than an hour later. 

No one was at home at the time, and no one was injured. However, six people living in the home were displaced and will be staying with family until the damage is repaired.

There is no word on the cause of the fire or how much the damage will cost.

San Diego State University Police are investigating a sexual battery incident that happened on campus Thursday, the school said.  

The incident allegedly happened Thursday at an on-campus resident, a statement from SDSU said, but was reported on Saturday. 

A female SDSU student reported the sexual battery incident by a male SDSU student. 

The victim knew the male perpetrator, SDSU said, and because the victim knew him police said there was no immediate threat to the campus community. No alert was sent to the campus community. 

SDSU Police are investigating the incident. 

A list of SDSU’s resources and educational activities for sexual assault prevention and awareness can be found online at here.

A Vista man is recovering after he was attacked by a man trying to rob him on his way home, Sheriff’s officials said.

The incident happened at approximately 10:20 p.m. on Sunday near the Plymouth Drive and Olive Avenue intersection in Vista, where the man was walking home.

A man came up to him, asking for “valuables,” Sheriff’s officials said, and the man was able to fight off the robber without giving him anything. He was, however, cut on his head and chest by the robber. 

Sheriff’s deputies said they do not have much of a description of the suspect and will be investigating.

Toni Garrett’s criteria for choosing the University of Dallas was simple: she wanted a college that was small and filled with nice people.

She was surprised to find, upon arriving, that she had picked a Catholic university steeped in religious tradition. But the Baptist-raised Texan discovered both the school and faith to be a good fit as she studied politics and business — even traveling to Rome to see Pope John Paul II speak.

After graduation, she landed a job as a bank teller. 

“I was really excited about my career,” Garrett, now 34, said. “I thought my future was going to be me in my spacious condo with my glass of wine.”

As her career grew, so did the love for the Catholic Church that began in college. A pull to become “closer to God, more authentic” led her to a spiritual director and, eventually, the realization that her true calling might not be in the bank, where she would advance to become a vice president managing 200 people, but in the convent. 

But when she turned to Google to learn more about becoming a nun, she realized she had a $60,000 problem: her student loans.

“I saw that I had to be debt-free and for me this was going to be impossible,” Garrett said. “With what I made with my salary, I would have been an old lady.”

Garrett’s dilemma reflects a growing challenge facing the United States’ nun population, which has declined significantly over the past 50 years. Young adults called to the church, like graduates pursuing many professions, are finding themselves saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in debt that can take decades to repay. But unlike in other fields, long-standing requirements that nuns are debt-free by the time they take their vows can delay — and sometimes deter — those interested in joining religious life. 

Eighty-five percent of applicants to congregations affiliated with one leading association of women religious reported carrying educational debt at the time of inquiry, a major 2012 study commissioned by the National Religious Vocation Conference found. The average amount owed by those applicants, the study found, was $31,000. Both figures track with nationwide figures for student loan debt.

While some religious institutions have the resources to take on debt for some applicants, many cannot. Two-thirds of religious institutions that received inquiries from individuals with educational debt had to turn people away for that reason over the past 10 years, the NRVC study, conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, found. 

“This is a really sad statistic,” said Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame.

"They don’t want educational debt to be the primary factor in whether to accept a woman or not, but where does it fall, how do you deal with that?” she added.

Historically, Cummings says, women pursued higher education after pursuing religious life, often at a women's college affiliated with their organization. Now, the opposite is largely true — 61 percent of women who took their vows in 2014 had already obtained a bachelor's degree, according to one survey. More than half the institutes responding to the NRVC study said they had seen an uptick in inquiries from people with student loans. 

While the trend toward heading to college before the convent can equip congregations with sisters who have skills and experience to enhance their service missions, especially in fields like teaching and health, the high costs of the debt that comes with degrees is creating lasting financial strain. Pay earned by sisters who join active, or apostolic, communities can vary greatly, depending on the type of ministry work and level of experience. The salary goes to the community, though sisters can receive a stipend to cover personal needs.

“The challenge now is how to deal with this thorny problem in a way that’s going to be best not just for the immediate term, but to sustain these congregations over time," Cummings said.

At Daughters of Mary of Nazareth in Boston, created in 2011, three of the community's seven sisters have struggled with student loans, according to the congregation’s Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart. One woman, who had $60,000 in loans from undergraduate and graduate degrees, worked full-time for five years in an attempt to clear her debt. She still had about $15,000 to pay at the end of that period.

“It’s a blessing that in our country we have so many resources for education, but at the same time is breaks my heart,” said Mother Olga, who previously worked in campus ministry.

She encourages women exploring religious life to set and stick to a strict budget — and take steps like selling their cars, discontinuing cellphones and moving back home with their parents in order to save money — and ask family and friends to consider donating to their cause in lieu of birthday or other holiday gifts. One woman has even created an online fundraising campaign to help her finish paying off the $20,000 that remains from her bachelor degrees in theater and English. She’s raised about $2,500 so far. Often they work toward the goal during the yearslong process of becoming a nun, called formation. 

A number of Catholic organizations, from small nonprofits to major associations, have also stepped up to help women and men gain the financial freedom to pursue a religious life. The National Religious Vocation Conference created a new fund after reviewing its survey results and hearing for years that its member vocation directors are seeing “more and more” strong candidates with educational debt that their communities cannot afford to take on, Executive Director Paul Bednarczyk said.

“We don’t grow sisters on trees, so naturally they’re coming with educational debt,” Bednarczyk, a Holy Cross brother, said. “Those (institutions) that can afford it, they will assume the debt as long as they are in formation. Other communities don’t necessarily have the resources to do that, so we’re losing people.”

The National Fund for Catholic Religious Vocations, seeded with $2.5 million from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, will cover educational debt for accepted candidates as they go through formation, assuming the balance of the loan once they take their vows. Bednarczyk said they plan to issue the first grants to religious communities in June of this year, timed to capitalize on interest and inspiration related to Pope Francis’ September visit to the United States. Individual donors, institute endowments and groups like the Knights of Columbus Fund for Vocations also assist with debt relief. 

Garrett turned to one such organization, The Laboure Society, to help pay down her loans before entering religious life.

The concept behind Laboure was born almost two decades ago, when Cy D. Laurent, then a businessman, met an aspiring nun held back by student loans. With the help of friends, he raised enough to pay off the roughly $12,000 she owed. The organization, which he launched years later, now teaches aspirants leadership and communication skills while they work as a group to raise money to pay their loans as they go through formation. One hope is that the process, which emphasizes the sharing of personal stories, will encourage more people to explore religious life. 

“One of the things that affects religious vocations today is that there are less sisters out there ministering in the parishes and the schools and so we have girls that may not have that interaction, that may not question whether they are called," said Cialinett Colon, a Bronx Family Court legal program coordinator who is working with Laboure to help pay off $100,000 in undergraduate and law school loans so she can join Sisters of Christian Charity. 

Laurent said the need for aid has grown as both the cost of education and the age at which young people are ready to make significant life commitments — in both religious and secular life — rises. Because of that, he's planning to significantly expand his effort, which he says has helped 260 women and men pursuing religious life.

Garrett was able to meet her goals in 2012 by following the program’s structure of asking family, friends or acquaintances for a “contribution of prayer, a contribution or money or a contribution of referrals.” She said she easily sent more than 100 letters and scheduled at least 25 in-person meetings over the course of the year.

Now Garrett, whose religious name is Sister Josephine, is undergoing a two-year period of praying, studying and reflecting in Chicago with the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth.

“Being in religious life for me, I’m starting to become the best version of myself,” she said. “And so it’s really neat to discover who God made me to be.”

She’s hoping to take her vows in the early fall, around the time Pope Francis arrives in Philadelphia for the 2015 World Meeting of Families.

“I’m sending the Pope an invitation, actually,” she said with a laugh.

Two months after hundreds of seabirds coated in mysterious goo turned up in the East Bay, lawmakers are trying to recover some of the cost.

On Monday, California senators Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Loni Hancock (D-Oakland) introduced legislation in an effort to close a loophole that freezes state funding for the crisis.

According to the Leno office, the jointly-authorized Senate Bill 718 will “authorize the Office of Spill Prevention and Response to borrow up to $500,000 from the state’s oil spill prevention fund for the rehabilitation and rescue of wildlife in spill events where the substance is non-petroleum based.”

While the California Department of Fish and Wildlife investigated the incident, no significant state resources were available to support non-governmental agencies in their cleanup, rescue and rehabilitation efforts, Leno's office said. The International Bird Rescue center, a publicly supported non-profit group, spent about $150,000 on animal care.

Under current law, money is only available when fuel or oil is spilled.

Lab analysis concluded the goo is not petroleum based, meaning wildlife rescue organizers can’t recoup the money spent collecting, cleaning, and caring for the injured birds.

A total of 170 birds were found in January along the Alameda, San Leandro and Hayward shorelines covered in the substance. The substance impaired their ability to regulate their own body temperature.

The bill will be heard in policy committees this spring.

Emily Bockian contributed to this report.

The NFL Owners Meetings in Phoenix got off to an interesting start on Monday. The 32 teams voted to suspend the league's local TV blackout policy for the 2015 season.

The blackout policy has been in place since 1973, when the NFL mandated any game not sold out at least 72 hours before kickoff would not be seen in that team's local TV market. It was conceived in an attempt to sell more tickets but the rise in costs to attend a game (and the proliferation of high definition televisions) rendered it obsolete.

The timing of the vote is curious because one of the teams most affected by the blackout policy is the San Diego Chargers, a franchise mired in a great stadium debate. The Bolts did not have any game blacked out in 2014, but between 2010 and 2013 were responsible for for 10 of the 59 local television blackouts across the league.

It will be interesting to see if the ability to see games at home without an 11th-hour ticket push will affect attendance at one of the oldest facilities in North American professional sports.

Missing hiker Michael "Mic" Dahl was found alive Monday morning in Yosemite National Park, according to the Marin County Sheriff and National Park Services.

Marin Search and Rescue along with other teams efforted the search to find the missing 20-year-old man, who as last seen Saturday morning near the lower Yosemite Falls area.

Dahl was spotted by visitors on the Yosemite Valley Loop Trail around 11 a.m. The visitors recognized him from the missing person flyer. He was found about a quarter mile east of the Lower Yosemite Fall trail, in a large boulder field below Sunnyside Bench with multiple injuries — including to his head —  and hypothermia. He was taken to a local hospital in an ambulance.

Dahl, who attends UC Santa Barbara, was hiking three friends who reported him missing after they got back from "scrambling" on the rocky area just below the Lower Fall, according to a Yosemite Park news release. After two hours of looking for him, the friends called park rangers.

Approximately 50 search and rescue crew members, including the California Highway Patrol, have been searching for Dahm since he was reported mssing.

@MarinSheriff MarinSAR reports missing hiker found in Yosemite alive but inured with head injuries

— Marin County Sheriff (@MarinSheriff) March 23, 2015

A 12-year-old Boulder County, Colorado, girl is accused of trying to kill her mother on two separate occasions with bleach, after she took away her iPhone.

The girl first tried to kill her mother on March 2 by pouring bleach into her smoothie, police told NBC affiliate KUSA. The mother told police she smelled bleach in the drink, but thought her daughter had cleaned the glass and didn't rinse it thoroughly.

Later that week, police said, the girl put bleach into a water carafe her mother kept in her bedroom. That's when the mother confronted her daughter.

During the confrontation, the daughter told the mother she planned to kill her because the mother took away her iPhone, police said.

"Most kids don't try to kill their parents," a police official said, according to KUSA. "We're not sure where she came up with the idea to do it the way she did."

The mother was taken to hospital, where police were notified. She was not injured.

The girl was arrested on March 20 on two counts of attempted first-degree murder and is in a juvenile detention center. Charges haven't been filed, according to KUSA.

A fire investigator testified Friday the flames started by a girl in her backyard did not necessarily have to create an ember that sparked the Cocos Fire.

The last day of testimony before closing arguments continued in the trial of the 14-year-old girl, who NBC 7 is not identifying because of her age. She face four felony counts.

The prosecution alleges when the girl used a lighter to set a branch on fire in her backyard, it started the smaller Washingtonia Fire. An ember from that blaze then traveled nearly half a mile, igniting the destructive Cocos Fire, they say.

A former firefighter and fire investigator testified in court Monday that the size of the fire and other conditions, such as the source of the ember, would dictate how far an ember could travel.

“It still depends on the size of the ember, and if it’s dry enough to burn, if it is burning, all that stuff,” said Lant Landis when he took the stand Monday.

In order to see an ember travel at all, Landis said, there would need to be convection and wind to move it.

There would need to be “more than smoke and wind needed to make an ember travel,” Landis said.

A San Marcos resident also testified during the trial about the breadth of the fire in the canyon.

“I went out and looked around and then I could see smoke over to the right so I went around the side of the house to the canyon and it was full-on fire on the side of the hill over there,” said San Marcos resident Robert Hoover.

“When I looked down there it was like, I mean the whole hillside was black,” said Hoover. “And the blackness was coming up, wafting up to our side, but down on the lower side it was like bubbling.”

Defense lawyers argued earlier that an ember from the family’s backyard could not have traveled the distance that prosecutors allege.

A female motorcyclist tried to escape from California Highway Patrol officers, leading them on a chase over San Diego freeways.

An officer initially tried to pull the rider over for speeding more than 100 miles per hour near Rancho Bernardo at 2 p.m.

However, the woman refused to pull over, and the officer gave chase.

The suspect traveled south on Interstate 15, but the pursuit ended in a crash near Carmel Valley Road, south of State Route 56, when she tried to ride in a dirt area.

The woman has been taken into custody.

One person is dead and another arrested after a reporter shooting in Potrero, Sheriff’s officials said. 

The incident happened at approximately 6:47 p.m. Sunday on the 23000 block of Coyote Holler Road, just south of Cleveland National Forest in the Inland Empire.

San Diego County Sheriff’s Deputies arrived on scene to find one man dead and detained another person on scene.

SDSO spokesman Lt. John Maryon said Mike Walliser called 911 reporting an assault with a deadly weapon and said he shot another man after the man had made repeated threats with him.

Walliser surrendered to officials when they arrived on scene and will be booked into the San Diego County Central Jail on a murder charge, Maryon said. 

Officials are investigating the incident as a homicide.

A trailer overturned on State Route 94 in Golden Hill, blocking two lanes of traffic.

The trailer carrying a backhoe spilled just before 9 a.m. Monday on westbound SR-94 at 30th Street.

A Sig Alert was issued after two lanes of traffic were blocked. Also, the 30th Street onramp to westbound SR-94 has been shut down, as of 10:30 a.m.

No one was injured in the crash.

An Oceanside Police officer suffered moderate to severe injuries after an early morning traffic collision.

At approximately 7:27 a.m. Monday, officers responded to a traffic collision near State Route 76 and Benet Road. 

A motorcycle officer responding to the crash and an uninvolved vehicle crashed. 

The officer was taken to an area hospital with moderate to severe injuries. 

Police recommend avoiding the area. 

The investigation is ongoing. 

Check back for updates on this developing story.