City News Service

San Diego County public health officials have reported 278 new COVID-19 infections and two additional deaths related to the illness, raising the region's totals to 45,425 cases and 767 deaths.

A Los Angeles federal judge today ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to release records regarding COVID-19 outbreaks at the Otay Mesa and Adelanto immigration detention centers and Border Patrol stations to a legal aid organization that sued to obtain the information.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced Wednesday that the Padres Development Team has won the competitive bidding process to transform a four-block parking lot sometimes known as Tailgate Park into a mixed-use destination called East Village Quarter.

The board voted 3-2 to withdraw an application to the state's Homekey Program which would have provided funding to improve a former Holiday Inn on 8000 Parkway Drive in La Mesa, located just east of San Diego.

A study co-authored by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and San Diego-based Millennium Health found that drug test positivity rates for cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine have increased nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before the pandemic, there was no difference in the rates at which Democratic and Republican voters cast their ballots by mail or in-person. Now, there's a significantly greater preference for mail, or absentee, ballots among Democrats than Republicans.

The National Weather Service has issued an excessive-heat warning, effective from 10 a.m. Tuesday to 8 p.m. next Monday.

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.