San Diego Area News (BETA)

A fire damaged a two-story home in Alpine on Monday evening, a Heartland fire dispatcher says.

A person who heard a smoke alarm at a neighbors home called firefighters Monday afternoon, who were able to knock down the flames in about 30 minutes.

About 200 city workers will lose their jobs and municipal services will be trimmed as part of an 18-month budget plan that the City Council finalized today in an effort to close San Diego's $179 million budget deficit.

A group of residents who say their cars were illegally towed for the North Park Toyland Parade is demanding a refund from the city, asserting that no-parking signs were either not properly posted or were absent altogether on parts of the parade route.

All but a handful of customers had their power turned back on Monday afternoon after a large outage in the Carlsbad and La Costa areas knocked out service to more than 21,000 Sunday night.

Hundreds of college students are back on solid ground after a semester-long journey around the world.

A Helix High School assistant principal, who was fired for helping a student having troubles at home catch a bus to Oregon to visit a relative, pleaded not guilty today to misdemeanor charges.

Before you go holiday shopping, keep in mind that 12 million people still have purchases on their credit cards from last year.

A young man was convicted today of torture and attempted murder in the beating and kidnapping of a 76-year-old woman who was abducted from her home and kept in the trunk of her car for 26 hours.

As part of the budget cuts, the city council also eliminated the police department's mounted enforcement unit. All the horses that officers ride in Balboa Park will be sold off except for one. His name is Clark, and he's already found a new home.

An Encinitas family's home built by ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" has been saved temporarily.

An Ocean Beach man has a unique plan to save a long-held San Diego tradition hit by budget cuts, 10News reported.

A Chula Vista family will never forget this Christmas after they said they were victim of an Internet scam, 10News reported.

A new plan will make moving compressed methane gas through Point Loma safer for residents, the 10News I-Team reported.

A sex offender who pretended to be a teenager and molested four young boys was convicted Monday of multiple counts of child molestation.

A young man who was blinded in a brutal assault takes the stand.

A man admitted he beat and kidnapped this La Mesa woman but didn't torture her. A jury decided differently.

The sexually violent predator has been a success story.

Price Club founder dies at 93.

Oceanside police report that Jefferson Middle School was locked down at about 11 a.m. Monday.

Jeffrey Edward Nelson's jury conviction follows his guilty plea on ten separate counts.

University surpasses the national average.

Attorney says Matthew Hedge's treatment is working.

A fire causes $3 million damage and closes a busy street during the morning commute. 12/14/09

Police search Oceanside's Jefferson Middle School for more than 2 hours.

That's a fair question to ask for those involved in two of our topics on this week's edition of the Capital Notes Podcast. For John Perez, the soon-to-be Speaker, it's the only real question after several weeks of palace intrigue about the battle for the top job. And for the still non-existent citizens redistricting commission, [...]

That was the sentiment of John Perez of Los Angeles after Assembly Democrats unanimously chose him today to be the fifth Speaker of the Assembly in just the last nine years. Perez, 40, emerged from a long private meeting of Assembly Democrats this afternoon arm in arm with the outgoing Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and his [...]

Just a little over a year after voters created an independent commission to draw most of California's political maps, the process is costing a lot more money than was allocated. In fact, it's possible the commission that's slated to convene in 2011 may have as its first task to ask lawmakers for more funding. [...]

No major news today on whether Abel Maldonado will… or won't… be California's next lieutenant governor. But new comments from the leader of the state Senate seem to acknowledge one part of the deliberations… or rather, six billion parts. As in the $6.3 billion of missing dollars needed to balance the current budget… a deficit [...]

"It's very simple what people want," said Mark Baldassare. "People want progress." That was the context for… and the motivation behind… a provocative two hour discussion on Friday morning at our KQED studios in San Francisco, a discussion among eight thoughtful veterans of the good and bad of government and public policy in California. They were [...]