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.

California has been battered by 10 previous atmospheric rivers this winter.

The latest in-custody death comes on the heels of news that a sheriff’s deputy was arrested for allegedly having illegal drugs on county jail property.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a statement in response to Southwest's cancellations, noting that the department will be looking into the situation.