City News Service

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday declared one of Southern California's rarest butterflies — the Hermes copper butterfly — as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The agency also designated 35,000 acres in San Diego County as protected critical habitat.

The judge said the district's mandate, which does not permit religious or personal belief exemptions, contradicts state law because implementing such mandates without exemptions can only be imposed by the state legislature.

The amount of COVID-19 virus detected in wastewater has predicted the region's COVID-19 caseload up to three weeks ahead of clinical diagnostic reports.

The number of coronavirus patients in San Diego County hospitals decreased by six people to 365, according to the latest state figures.

San Diego County public health officials reported 1,032 new COVID-19 infections and seven additional deaths associated with the virus Friday, increasing the region's cumulative totals to 397,374 cases and 4,406 deaths since the pandemic began.

The unemployment rate in San Diego County decreased to 4.6% in November, down from a revised 5.3% in October and below the year-ago estimate of 6.8%, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department.

The department is looking to fill over 400 positions, and willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars in signing bonuses to attract new employees.

It's going to feel a lot like summer across much of San Diego County starting Wednesday.

It is a long-inactive commission focusing on the needs of women and recommending programs intended to fix gender inequality.