A jury has completed its first full day of deliberations in the murder trial of a woman accused of strangling an aspiring model and actress in her Santa Monica apartment.

U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Doug Burns was on a night reconnaissance mission searching for enemy trucks when he was shot down by anti-aircraft fire and taken prisoner during the Vietnam War.

The San Diego Stock Exchange Index closed higher Thursday at 155.63, up 0.21 percent from Wednesday. Advancing issues beat decliners 55 to 39, and 139 issues were unchanged.
BofI Holding Inc. (Nasdaq: BOFI) was the top dollar gainer, up $1.74 to $40.99.
Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE) was the top dollar loser, down $2.18 to $79.47.
For the complete, updated San Diego Stock Exchange Index visit sddt.com/stocks.

Cold-case investigators say they've found nothing yet as they dig in a Southern California backyard for clues to the disappearance of a woman 35 years ago.

The state's largest health insurers, including Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield and Kaiser Permanente, will be among 13 plans competing to provide coverage to millions of Californians through the state's new health exchange, officials announced Thursday.

In the last month, there has been a lot of talk about whether American presidents face a second-term curse. It’s not clear that such a thing exists, but any second-term president is likely to have to deal with some real or apparent scandals. The reason isn’t arrogance, distraction or hubris. It’s a matter of arithmetic.

The Champions League final, the biggest soccer match of the year — and, for that matter, the most watched sporting event on the planet — will be played this weekend at Wembley Stadium in London. In a sense, though, the winner has already been declared: Germany.

Gov. Jerry Brown kept crusading Thursday for climate change, joining scientists who released a 20-page call to action on environmental problems such as pollution, extinctions and population growth.

Officials say a woman in a Los Angeles suburb found a bear cub sitting on her kitchen counter.

A lawsuit accuses state and federal regulators of causing the death of dozens of migratory cliff swallows by placing nets on a Sonoma County bridge during a highway widening project.

Orange County has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit by a former sheriff's lieutenant who was demoted after running against ex-Sheriff Mike Carona.

Managers at the San Onofre nuclear generating plant made a “Star Trek”-themed safety video two years before the plant was shut down because of damaged water pipes.

The nation's two largest firefighting planes are moving out of California.

Three Bakersfield High School students have been arrested in connection with three small explosions on the school's campus this week.

A San Francisco State University professor is drawing scrutiny for a class assignment that asked students to create a political campaign ad.

Hearst Corp. has named a new publisher and president for the San Francisco Chronicle.

The jury in Jodi Arias' trial was dismissed Thursday after failing to reach a unanimous decision on whether the woman they convicted of murdering her one-time boyfriend should be sentenced to life or death in a case that has captured headlines worldwide with its sex, lies, violence.

Four officers who fatally shot a man suspected of killing two Santa Cruz police detectives likely saved additional lives, the police chief said Thursday when new details of the deadly encounter were revealed.

Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica, Calif-based environmental organization, released its annual beach report card of best and worst California beaches based on water quality. The following beaches listed by county each received an A-plus in 2012-2013, indicating they had excellent water quality year-round:

Put aside the politics, and the question of who-knew-what-when. There are two policy problems highlighted by the controversies at the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice. The first is the growth of 501(c)(4) groups into vehicles for anonymous and unlimited political spending. The second is the Barack Obama administration’s overzealous prosecution of leaks.