Ben Leibowitz called up relatives to tell them he got into Carnegie Mellon University's prestigious graduate computer science program. He even went out to dinner with his parents to celebrate.

Then he got a second email saying he hadn't been accepted after all.

About 800 other Carnegie Mellon applicants experienced similar swings of ecstasy and agony Monday - first rejoicing that the Pittsburgh institution had selected them for its master of science in computer science, then being told the acceptances were sent in error and that they had been rejected.

"It was brutal. I didn't get much sleep last night," Leibowitz, of Stamford, Connecticut, said Tuesday. "Now I have to clean up the mess. I'm calling all my relatives, I'm going, 'I'm sorry it's not happening.'"

Carnegie Mellon spokesman Kenneth Walters said the "Welcome to Carnegie Mellon!" messages were the result of "serious mistakes" in the university's process for generating acceptance letters and that it would conduct a review to prevent another error.

"We understand the disappointment created by this mistake, and deeply apologize to the applicants for this miscommunication," Walters said.

The university sent a follow-up email to the rejected students Tuesday afternoon, saying its system had "incorrectly flagged" applicants as being admitted.

Dozens of applicants shared snippets of their rejection emails along with hints of their own disappointment on a message board for people applying to graduate programs.

Carnegie Mellon's computer science graduate school tied for No. 1 with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley in U.S. News & World Report's most recent rankings.

The university said in the erroneous messages that it accepts less than 9 percent of more 1,200 applicants - or about 100 people - into the master's program each year.

But all the technological know-how and selectivity in the world couldn't prevent the university from joining the list of high-profile institutions that accepted applicants when they didn't mean to.

In December, Johns Hopkins University mistakenly sent nearly 300 undergraduate applicants welcome messages when they were actually rejected or deferred.

In February 2014, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sent thousands of students a mistaken email about financial aid saying they were receiving the information because they had been admitted.

In 2009, the University of California at San Diego sent acceptance emails to all 46,000 students who applied, including 28,000 who were rejected.

Elisa Davis, a consultant who helped Leibowitz prepare for the graduate admissions tests, said she'd never heard of erroneous acceptance letters at the graduate school level, in part because the process is much more personal than for undergraduates.

"People need to put care into things that affect other people," Davis said. "I'm very disappointed in them."

A shooting this week at a San Bernardino marijuana shop is part of a larger problem, police say, as they tackle a growing number of illegal pop-up pot shops.

Relatives of security guard Anthony Pineda were overcome with grief Tuesday in the wake of the shooting death of the 25-year-old in San Bernardino.

Pineda’s job was to secure an illegal marijuana dispensary, and he was gunned down in a robbery attempt Monday night.

Police say the people who worked at the shop have been uncooperative, and locked Pineda inside where cops could not get to him.

"We had to break the glass door to the front," said Lt. Richard Lawhead of the San Bernardino Police Department.

Lawhead said similar scenes are becoming more commonplace as pot shops, which are Illegal within the city limits, continue to pop up

"We have about 45 dispensaries in the city that we are actively working cases on," he said.

Most of the shops are nondescript locations with no indicators of the marijuana dealings going on inside evident on the exterior of the business.

"It's a cash business, like a bank almost. They have a lot of money, people want access to that money," Lawhead said.

Cops say as they close down one, another opens, and much of the illegal activity occurs in broad daylight.

"They'll go to City Hall and get a business license for a flower shop and, like i said, they are selling the wrong kind of flowers," Lawhead said.

Community policing specialists follow any leads and hand out citations, fines up to $1,000 or eviction notices to those places selling pot illegally.

But some involved in the trade said the city’s laws are blocking some dispensary owners from doing things the right way, allowing the illegal trade to flourish.

"If you don't have a valid recommendation from the state of California you are not going into the shop whatsoever," said a man who would only identify himself as Daniel.

Daniel said he was the owner of a now-defunct shop. He would like to see the city law changed for the cancer and other patients he says he used to sell to.

"We have anywhere from four to eight actual owners (who) are on board to pay taxes and to do it the right way," he said.

Lawhead, the police spokesman, admitted that the city is facing an uphill battle. He said he doubts Pineda’s murder will be the last one San Bernardino sees.

"No, not until not until we do something radical to change it," he said. "I am not sure that there's anything we can do. Some cities have found if we legalize a few of them the others will go away but that isn't the case either. I am not sure that there is a clear it answer."

What Lawhead does know is that police will continue to try and shut down these illegal shops. They are also working to get surveillance video from Tuesday’s homicide. The owners won’t give detectives the access code to the video, so investigators have to break it.

Police are looking for two suspects, one who is believed to have been shot when Pineda fired his gun at the intruders.

Years of illegal activity at two crime-ridden properties in the Los Angeles area have led city officials to file two nuisance abatement lawsuits as part of a dramatic step to clean up the corrupted areas.

LA City Attorney Mike Feuer announced the injunctions against the homeowners Tuesday, claiming their properties had become toxic to the surrounding neighborhoods.

"A single property can cause an entire neighborhood to go from being a safe place in which to nurture a family, to being a very dangerous place where every single step can be hazardous," Feuer said.

A single family residence in the Vermont Square neighborhood of South Los Angeles at 1233 West 52 Street was targeted in one of the lawsuits. Mattie R. Sampson, 77, has owned the property for about 50 years. Aside from Sampson, her son Bobby Sampson Jr. was also listed in the lawsuit and described as a "senior, significant" gang member "who lives at the property when he is not in custody."

Sampson's home had become a "free-for-all location" where PCP was used and sold by "a rotating cast of gangster drug dealers, often working in coordinated groups and armed with guns..." according to the lawsuit.

The elderly woman's home became so familiar to gang members in the neighborhood they referred to it as "Miss Mattie's house," the lawsuit alleges.

The civil abatement action also sought to restrict Sampson Jr. from being allowed on the property at any time, for any reason.

In a second similar lawsuit, David Lester Baxter was listed as the property owner of 5655 and 5657 Lexington Avenue in Hollywood. These locations became "the epicenter of criminal activity in (their) neighborhood," according to the lawsuit.

The properties are within 1000 feet of four schools, including an early childhood education center, and two parks.

Since 2003, around 75 arrests, 43 of which were narcotics related, were made at the location.

"The Hollywood property is more of a free-for-all flophouse for meth users, transients and prostitutes," Frank Mateljan said, deputy director of Feuer's office.

Although Baxter claimed he didn't approve of the presence of narcotics on the locations, he "enabled and allowed persons with extensive criminal histories to remain on the property...," according to the lawsuit.

"While the property owners may not have been directly arrested, the location that they are responsible for is facilitating this criminal activity," Mateljan said.

The properties in South Los Angeles and Hollywood are not the first of their kind. Problematic homes attracting criminals and illegal activity have long been a battle for city officials who said injunctions like these have been effective in the past.

Officials are urging anyone with knowledge of a toxic home in their neighborhood to call the city attorney's office at 213-978-8100.

A trio of men, including a Southern California foster care provider, are accused of making child pornography using boys they lured from parks by telling the children they would work as child models, authorities announced Tuesday.

"I've seen cases similar to this, but this one is rather egregious," said Robert Goetsh, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Investigations unit. "This one rises to the top."

Erick Alan Monsivais, 29, of Los Angeles, William Clyde Thompson, 54, of Las Vegas, and John David Yoder, 43, of Desert Hot Springs are each charged with multiple sex-related felonies for allegedly operating the child porn ring.

The investigation began Jan. 28 after Riverside County authorities learned from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children about Thompson's arrest in Nevada. He was arrested and charged in Nevada in January 2013 but failed to appear in court that September, and may have removed a GPS monitor place on him during house arrest, prosecutors said.

Later in September 2013, Thompson was indicted in federal court in connection with child pornography and child exploitation charges.

Thompson was eventually arrested in Needles, California, on Jan. 27 by Nevada authorities and had used the aliases of Tony Bailor and Jason Brock, prosecutors said.

During the arrest, authorities found the phone numbers for Monsivais and Yoder in Thompson's phone, prosecutors said.

"He had requested to contact two other individuals in the city of Desert Hot Springs by the name of John David Yoder, and the other one is Erick Monsivais of Los Angeles County," said Andrew Liu of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Riverside County authorities began investigating Yoder and Monsivais. 

Investigators learned Yoder had two adopted sons and was a licensed foster care provider in Riverside County, and also worked as a teacher's assistant at Desert Hot Springs High School, prosecutors said.

Yoder passed background checks and certifications needed to qualify as a foster care provider, officials said.

"At this point we are doing a review of our practices and we will be looking for any opportunity to strengthen our system," said Susan von Zabern, director of the Riverside County Department of Social Services.

Investigators said Desert Hot Springs Police Department received reports in March 2014 of two men "trying to solicit young boys at a skate park to do modeling," prosecutors said, adding that Yoder and Thompson were later identified as those two men.

Investigators believe Thompson paid Yoder to recruit boys to be photographed for use in child porn, and the pair allegedly showed the boys a fake modeling contract, prosecutors said. Yoder was arrested Jan. 30.

Thompson is also accused of sexually abusing a boy in Desert Hot Springs as well as in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Thompson is charged in connection with several sex charges including intercourse with a child 10 or younger, human trafficking of a minor, and conspiracy to commit child pornography. His arraignment has not yet been scheduled, but he faces up to 85 years to life in prison.

Yoder is charged in connection with human trafficking of a minor, oral copulation and lewd acts with a child under 14, and aiding to avoid arrest of another. He has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 35 years to life in prison.

Monsivais was arrested Feb. 2 during the execution of a search warrant and is accused of taking part in the alleged molestations.

Monsivais is also accused of committing sex crimes against a child during trips to Orange County, prosecutors said. He is charged in connection with intercourse with a child 10 or younger, human trafficking of a minor, and oral copulation by force or fear of a child under 14, among other charges. Monsivais has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 167 years to life in prison.

Authorities did not release the number of alleged victims but said they are all under 14 years of age.

Officials urged anyone who believes they "may have had suspicious or illegal contact" with any of the three men should call 866-SAFE595 (866-723-3595).

City News Service contributed to this report.

A suspect barricaded himself inside a car for more than two hours in a standoff with police officers in Burbank Tuesday afternoon.

The incident began near the intersection of 3rd Street and Magnolia Boulevard before 3 p.m. and police issued an alert just after 3 p.m. asking residents and motorists to avoid the area.

People were kept away from the area around the mall and police station as the negotiations with the man in the silver car wore on for hours.

Just before 5 p.m., aerial footage showed officers attempting to draw the man out by surrounding him with armored vehicles. They appeared to have deployed a flash-bang grenade or other device to force him from the car.

He emerged moments before 5 p.m. wearing only red undershorts and was shot by a nonlethal beanbag round before being detained.

"It brought back memories of the Boston Marathon," said Cynthia Gamache, who was nearby the incident. "It was really scary, to be affected by that."

Authorities said he is a suspected car thief and the standoff began after an attempted traffic stop.

Teenagers don’t expect to be diagnosed with cancer.

But when they are, finding the right place for treatment can be difficult. They are often too old for a children’s hospital but too young for an adult medical center.

To bridge this gap, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center created the Daltrey/Townshend Teen Cancer Program, a sanctuary for teenagers and young adults battling cancer.

"Their entire world is turned upside down," explained Dr. Noah Federman. "The most difficult part in the beginning for these patients is understanding that their life, as they know it, has changed."

That was the case for Joe Covarruvias, 19, who was diagnosed with a life-threatening bone and soft tissue cancer known as Ewing Sarcoma. The standout basketball player was ready for college when his illness put his dreams on hold.

"I was pretty shocked…it’s really unexpected and, you know, no one in my family has cancer," Covarruvias said.

Facing a 30 percent mortality rate, Covarruvias turned to UCLA’s Teen Cancer Program to begin an aggressive treatment regimen. While some of the procedures may be the same as the ones given to adult patients, the UCLA program recognizes that teens with cancer have very specific needs, distinct from their adult counterparts.

The program takes a holistic approach to treating teenage cancer patients, providing everything from emotional support in the form of group counseling to sessions on preserving fertility during chemotherapy.

"They feel supported and cared for besides just their family because the hospital and all the people that work here become their family as well," Dr. Federman said.

The hospital unit is specifically designed to cater to teens, complete with a teen lounge that revolves around socializing, relaxing, and game playing. Doctors are allowed in the lounge under one condition: no medical talk.

"This is a really important space because it allows our teenagers and young adults to get together as peers in a nonthreatening environment," Dr. Federman said.

Although the UCLA program is unique in the United States, the Teenage Cancer Trust has already funded 19 such programs in the United Kingdom.

Legendary rockers Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who helped fund the program with support from Led Zepplin frontman Robert Plant.

"We hope to bring the success of the Teenage Cancer Trust program in the UK to this inaugural program at UCLA," Plant said in a news release.

Covarruvias underscored how the UCLA program has spurred within him a sense of hope.

"It’s real nice being able to get out of your room and coming to this teen lounge… being able to use the computer, the game," said Covarruvias. "It’s really a good way to get your mind off of it…get your mind away from the sickness and just be able to have a good time while you’re here."

With crime rates no longer on a steady decline in Los Angeles, a conference room on the 10th floor of the Police Administration Building has been assigned new duty - as the Chief's Situation Room.

The transformation began barely a week ago, with electronic displays and deployment charts going up inside, so that Chief Charlie Beck can step across the hallway from his office and get an immediate realtime picture of incidents and resources.

"Sometimes the chief has to step forward and take direct control of the department, and this is one of those times," said Chief Beck.

Getting briefed on crime overnight is now the first thing Beck does when he arrives at headquarters, he said. Meeting there with his assistant chiefs, he is now making decisions on resource re-allocation on a daily basis.

Crime rates had been falling consistently for more than a decade, a trend that continued into the first two months of last year, but then turned upward.

A four-day period earlier this month, from the Feb. 7 through Feb. 10, proved a turning point when 15 shootings occurred over a swath of the city that extended from Boyle Heights to the southside. The department called a tactical alert the morning of the 10th, and Beck called for the situation room to be set up.

"First thing I do when I check in every morning is go there and be briefed on crime overnight," Beck told members of the police commission Tuesday morning during their regular weekly meeting. It was the first time the department had disclosed the existence of the new briefing room.

It is still a work in progress. Three flat screen video displays are mounted atop filing cabinets with screws and fender washers. A work station has yet to be installed for the data analyst to be assigned here. But already it affords the chief rapid access to a detailed picture of policing in the
city simultaneously on macro and micro levels.

"In a room like this, he can see the entire department," said Sgt. Barry Montgomery.

A week ago, Beck ordered additional motor officers and platoons of elite Metropolitan Division officers to deploy to the areas where shootings had occurred. Preventing retaliatory gang shootings was the priority. As it was, this past weekend there was a shooting attack on a bus rider,
and another fatal shooting in Mar Vista, but the number of shootings overall was lower.

"We were able to squeeze it down in South Bureau, we had a little uptick in Central Bureau," Beck said. "So, you know, this is the push and pull of not having enough resources all the time."

Beck cautioned that a week is far too short an interval to verify trends. But he remains committed to data-based policing, and believes the CompStat tool has played an important role in the long-term reduction of the city's crime rate.

For the forseeable future, Beck and his assistant chiefs plan to make frequent use of the situation room.

Said Sgt. Montgomery: "When you have people who make decisions in the same room, things
happen fast, and that's what we're trying to do--quckly--get the crime rate
heading back down."

Two people were arrested after an SUV crashed into a building in Beverly Hills during a police pursuit early Wednesday.

Officers gave chase in Downtown Los Angeles at 12:45 after noticing the vehicle had several code violations, Los Angeles Police Department said.

The pursuit ended in 5100 Wilshire Boulevard after the driver crashed into the Beverly Hills BMW Service Center at around 1 a.m.

One suspect is to be charged with evading and the other with driving without owner consent. Two other occupants were questioned an then released.

A suspected car thief who was barricaded inside his family home in Chino early Wednesday surrendered after a standoff with SWAT officers.

The incident began in Ontario when officers decided the man was a possible drunk driver just after 2 a.m, and when they checked the vehicle's plates they were listed as stolen, Ontario Police Department said.

Robert Perea refused to stop, and drove all the way back to the house on D Street and then ran inside the residence. He did not take any hostages, and his family left the home. They cooperated with officers and identified the suspect.

SWAT and K-9 officers were stationed outside the house, and after police negotiated with the suspect he came out of the house peacefully at around 5:30 a.m.

Perea will be charged with possession of a stolen vehicle and felony evasion of a police officer, and also had outstanding warrants.

Precious items are lost in Times Square each day, but there may be one still out there that's particularly special to a British woman who lost her teenage daughter to cancer two years ago. 

Before Vicky Pyne's 17-year-old daughter Alice died of cancer, Alice gave her a necklace that contained her fingerprint.

"The necklace was something Alice had made for me when she found out she was terminal," said Pyne. "She had put it on a chain and gave it to me before she died."

Pyne was visiting from England when she went to the Applebee's restaurant in Times Square on Saturday, and that's where she last remembered touching the fingerprint, as she often did to remember her daughter. She continued shopping and didn't notice it missing until she got to the hotel. 

"I was absolutely horrified when I realized it was missing," she said. 

The necklace could be anywhere in Times Square -- under the hundreds of thousands of feet that have walked by, or perhaps under the fresh coat of Tuesday's snow. 

The other fingerprint strung on the necklace belongs to Milly Pyne, Alice Pyne's sister. She was by her sister's side as she captured her country's attention fighting the blood cancer that would claim her life. 

In 2012, Alice Pyne was awarded the prestigious British Empire Medal. 

"Cancer is gaining on me," Alice Pyne had written. She put together a bucket list and left the necklace for her mother.

"I desperately want this necklace back," her mother said. "She left me a few things, but this is the most precious thing she left for me. I can never get Alice back, but I'm hoping I can get my necklace back."

Five relatives trapped inside a burning Hawthorne apartment were pulled to safety by firefighters early Wednesday, officials said.

The blaze was reported about 12:15 a.m. in the 4000 block of West 133rd Street, according to the LA County Fire Department.

A woman who lived in the apartment said she was inside with her uncle, 21-year-old cousin, 20-year-old sister and 11-year-old son.

The woman said her uncle is in his 40s and had a pre-existing breathing problem before the fire. He remained hospitalized Wednesday morning, she said.

It was not immediately clear what sparked the fire. Firefighters doused the blaze by 12:33 a.m.

A man suspected of viciously beating up a grandfather at an ATM in Temple City has been arrested.

Raul Fonseca was hospitalized following the attack at the Bank of America on the 9500 block of Las Tunas Drive at around 7 p.m. Saturday.

Temple City resident Eric Khun, 25, was arrested at his home on suspicion of assault after evidence linking him to the assault was uncovered, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. The investigation is ongoing.

Fonseca, 79, said he was waiting in line when a man started screaming "do you know me" in his face.
He tried to defend himself by swinging at his assailant,  however the situation rapidly escalated.

His attacker easily overpowered him, raining down punches to his face, arms and head, then kicking him as he lay on the floor.

Fonseca blacked out during the beating, and when he came too he was covered in blood. He was surrounded by good Samaritans and paramedics.

A family is asking for the public's help in identifying a hit-and-run driver who fatally struck their loved one in a wheelchair last week.

Jose Guevarra, 55, was killed just before 10 p.m. Friday as he tried to cross Santa Fe Avenue in Long Beach.

Guevarra's family says they can't understand how the driver could live with what they did.

"I hope he has a conscious and that he will come forward," said the victim's brother, James Guevarra.

Guevarra, the oldest of seven siblings, was diabetic. His family said he had snuck out to satisfy a craving for sweets.

Surveillance video captured by a camera at a nearby 76 gas station shows Guevarra stopping in to get a soda. He leaves, then a dark sedan strikes him before he makes it to the other side of the street.

Police say the driver fled, dragging Guevarra's wheelchair for a few blocks and leaving him lifeless in the street.

"Please come forward," said the victim's sister, Jennifer Guevarra. "We want closure, we want justice for our brother's death."

His family made the difficult decision to take him off life support Sunday, but not before she made a promise.

"I promised him before he took his last breath that we would find justice," Jennifer Guevarra said. "We will find this person that did this to him."

The car that struck Guevarra was believed to be a green sedan, possibly a BMW.

Anyone with information was urged to contact police.

Correction: A previous version of this report incorrectly identified the victim as Joe Guevarra.

A NBC 7 reporter following a story on a boat dumping unwittingly became part of the story when a man claiming to work for the boat owner accosted her.

Reporter Vanessa Herrera was at the spot where a boat was abandoned on the side of a busy road in Mission Valley on Tuesday afternoon. There, she was attacked by a man who said he worked for the owner.

She was trying to track down the owner and find out why the boat was there, as were San Diego environmental crews.

Herrera was on Camino Del Rio when a man and woman approached her and told her to stop rolling her camera. As she was on a public sidewalk, she refused and called 911.

Video footage of the incident shows the man curse at her while she’s on the phone, relaying information to a 911 dispatcher. He then smacks the camera she’s holding.

“This guy just hit my camera, man,” she’s heard telling the dispatcher.

Police responded and diffused the situation.

“It became a police matter when the incident occurred out here involving your reporter,” said Jose Ysea, spokesman for the City of San Diego.

An hour and a half after the ordeal, San Diego police sent a tow truck to tow the boat. Environmental Services officials said they’ll continue to investigate who owns the boat and why it was left on the side of the road.

Residents were in shock Wednesday after a 90-year-old water main busted in Hollywood, sending 100,000 gallons of water into the streets, submerging vehicles and buckling sidewalks.

The break occurred about 2 a.m. in the 6400 block of Dix Street, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. Water continued to flow from the pipe, installed in 1926, just north of Franklin Avenue near the Hollywood (101) Freeway at 7 a.m.

Austin Wood looked out his window and saw his and his roommate's car completely submerged in water.

"It's really surreal," he said.

Daniel Boror was in shock. His dad couldn't go to work and his sister couldn't go to college.

"We have to find ways to cope with the situation," he said.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power workers were shutting the water down in phases in an effort to avoid damaging or destroying pipes. Sudden and strong pressure changes in pipes can cause more damage to the system.

When the water is completely shut off, crews will dig into the ground to begin making repairs. Breaks sometimes occur in winter months when pipes contract due to water temperature changes.

The main that broke Wednesday hadn't had a leak in a decade, officials said.

Repair work was expected to continue into Wednesday afternoon.

The LADWP reports about three water main breaks or leaks per day across its 7,200-mile network of pipes. Several significant failures occurred last year in the city's aging pipe system, including a break that sent 20 million gallons of water onto the UCLA campus and surrounding area, flooding buildings and parking structures. 

If your car is flooded during a water main break, here are some tips on what to do:

• Call your insurance agent and confirm that you have comprehensive coverage, which protects you in these kinds of events.
• Your agent should get the ball rolling when it comes to filing a claim with the city, and letting you know what kind of paperwork you need to submit.
• Document everything: Take pictures of your car at the scene, any damage, keep receipts if you visited any shops or restaurants in the area. The goal is to be able to prove you were there when the break happened, to support your claim.
   

NBC4's Jonathan Lloyd and Jason Kandel contributed to this report.

A father defended his son as a "hero" for bringing his gun on a hunt with his mother for a driver in an apparent road rage incident that turned deadly.

Tammy Meyers, originally from Glendora, California, ended up being gunned down outside her family's house in Las Vegas last Thursday after she and her son, Brandon, attempted to track down a man who was involved in an earlier altercation.

"My son is not an animal, my son is a hero in my book," Tammy's husband, Robert Meyers, said at a vigil Tuesday. "There were mistakes made like every one of us have made in our life, but this particular mistake was made to keep a bigger mistake from happening."

Before the fatal shooting, Tammy had been teaching her 15-year-old daughter how to drive in a nearby school parking lot, Las Vegas police Lt. Ray Steiber told reporters Tuesday. The girl didn't have a learner's permit.

The 44-year-old had been behind the wheel and driving slowly when she was involved in a near-collision with a vehicle that led to a verbal confrontation between her and the other male driver, police said in a statement.

In a change from earlier accounts, Steiber said Tammy Meyers had her teenage daughter run into their house to get her armed son, who then drove with her in the back seat to find the car involved in the near-collision. It was initially reported the victim had been followed after the initial road rage incident.

They tailed the car for 10 minutes before deciding to head home, though they ended up being followed and "there was a volley of rounds fired from that vehicle," Steiber said. Brandon shot back and after the gunfire was over he discovered his mother had been shot.

Police said they believe she was struck by a gunman in the other car, which had three occupants total, according to NBC affiliate KSNV.

Brandon insisted he had only gone along on the trip to make sure his mother would be safe.

"I did what I had to do to protect my family. Everyone can think what they have to think; I did it for a reason. And I'd do it for anyone I love," Brandon said.

At a candlelight memorial for the nurse, mother and grandmother, relatives said the new information does not change the important facts of the case.

"She didn't go out on a hunt like they said. She took her daughter home to safety, she got her son, she took the chaos away from her home like any mother would," her cousin Susan Ramos said.

The family of Tammy Meyers is now offering a 1965 Chevrolet El Camino to anyone provides information that leads to an arrest, according to KSNV.

Tammy Meyers lived in the San Gabriel Valley and then Victorville before she and her family moved to Vegas.
 

The State Department said on Feb. 17 that it is changing its export rules covering unmanned aircraft.

The Associated Press interpreted the announcement as a loosening of rules covering the export of unmanned aircraft able to carry weapons, when the export is to countries friendly to the United States.

There is a good chance the change would affect San Diego businesses that supply aircraft to the U.S. military and close allies such as those in NATO.

The new State Department policy states, among other things, that armed and other advanced unmanned aircraft are to be used in military operations “only when there is a lawful basis for use of force under international law, such as national self-defense.”

The department guidelines also prohibit unlawful surveillance of populations.

Officers called to a Carmel Valley scene Tuesday found it hard to cuff this jaywalking perpetrator.

A sea lion was discovered walking down the center island of El Camino Real, just south of San Dieguito Road, according San Diego Police Officer Tracey Williams. The location was more than two miles from the nearest beach.

Williams posted pictures of the stranded marine mammal on the Nextdoor app.

He joked that the seal surrendered peacefully to officers and was held in custody until SeaWorld caretakers could pick it up.

"Some days on this job you get what you don't expect. The police academy definitely didn't mention detaining seals in our training," Williams said in his post.

It's unclear how the lost soul wandered so far from sea.

On this Ash Wednesday, Star of the Sea Catholic Church and School in San Francisco finds itself embroiled in another controversy, the second in a matter of weeks.

Father Joseph Illo handed a pamphlet to students called “The Examination of Conscience and Catholic Doctrine.” The pamphlet talks about topics that are sexual in nature, such as sodomy and masturbation, and very adult issues, like mercy killing and infidelity.

Eva Kuo has a fifth grade girl attending the school and is angry. She’s also thankful her daughter’s teacher stepped in and did not distribute it.

“Several of the teachers are very vigilant, and they probably confiscated everything before the children saw it,” Kuo said. “I don’t know if she saw it or not. I haven’t asked her.”

Last month, Illo banned girls from being altar servers.

Reached Wednesday morning, Illo said that he's handed this pamphlet out before without any problems. But in hindsight, he said it was probably in appropriate to hand out the material to such young children, in grades two through six. Still, he added, there's nothing in the pamphlet that the Catholic Church doesn't teach.

Parishioners are beginning to wonder if the new priest, who’s only been on the job a few months, is a good fit.

“We’ve had a wonderful community here for many, many years,” Kuo said. “It’s what brought us to the school. We have a wonderful principal, wonderful teachers, wonderful parents, wonderful families of all kinds.”

And should the person creating these school controversies be let go?

“Yes, because we have a love-based caring community here,” Kuo said.

In a separate but related matter, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has also recently come under protests for introducing a new “morality document" for Catholic high school faculty and staff that would require them to “affirm and believe” that sex outside of marriage and homosexual relations are “gravely evil.”

As it relates to the pamphlet, some parents on Sunday plan to wear black to Mass, and instead of putting money in the donation basket they will be putting in notes of opposition instead.