Authorities say a 719-acre fire in rural San Diego County fire is 42% contained and should be fully contained on Sunday.

The fire between Campo and Potrero, about 50 miles east of San Diego, started around 1:30 p.m. Thursday. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Battalion Chief Nick Schuler says the cause is still under investigation.

Art Fair 2010, formerly the Beyond the Border International Contemporary Art Fair, and now known as Art Fair 2010 is fast approaching: this year the four day event begins on Sept 2nd and runs through Sept 5th at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel in downtown San Diego. The objective is simple: bringing people who love art and people who love to make art together.

Included in the experience are art exhibits from about 60 galleries in the U.S., Mexico, and other international areas, in addition to panel discussions, film screenings, dinners, cocktail parties, and other performing arts events. About 5,000 guests are expected to attend this year.

A man with San Diego ties who entered the Discovery Communications building in Silver Springs, Md., with explosives strapped to himself Wednesday afternoon, then took three hostages, was killed by police later in the day, officials said.

Throughout the afternoon, law enforcement authorities talked to the man, whom they identified as James Jay Lee. The suspect was in his early 40s and was a longtime protester at the building who was sentenced to six months of supervised probation for disorderly conduct in 2008.

San Diego home prices increased 11.2 percent in June from a year ago and it was the only metro area in the country with 14 months of consecutive increases in home prices, says the latest Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index released Tuesday.

Once again, San Diego had the second highest annual price increase of the 20 metro areas surveyed. San Francisco took the top spot with an 18.3 percent increase.

But San Diego’s streak may soon come to an end.

Brain tumors have no boundaries; they affect people of all ages, ethnicities and health histories. Someone in the communities your papers serve could be facing this challenge right now. The San Diego Brain Tumor Walk is the National Brain Tumor Society’s nearest event for people in your circulation areas.

National Brain Tumor Society (NBTS) is a nonprofit organization that brings together the best in brain tumor research and supportive patient services. NBTS will host a special upcoming event in San Diego for people dealing with brain tumor disease.

Two San Diego men died Thursday when their small plane crashed at a southeastern Arizona airport, authorities said.

The men were identified as Glen B. Slagoske, 46, and Shawn Muscat, 27, by Cochise County sheriff’s officials.

Slagoske was listed in Federal Aviation Administration records as the owner of the single-engine Finney Thorp T-18, a home-built plane from a kit, but sheriff’s officials said it was not immediately clear which of the men was piloting the aircraft.

U.S. drug agents say they found about 25,000 marijuana plants worth $100 million on a farm near San Diego believed to be run by Mexican drug traffickers.

San Diego County sheriff’s helicopters repeatedly transported loads of the fully grown contraband from a remote Julian hillside, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Several homes in San Diego are to get energy efficiency retrofits and new solar panels as part of a $5 million federal program by General Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric and others.

The program, funded by the Department of Energy, is designed to figure out the best way to wring out energy savings by using new technologies.

San Diego State University’s president announced Tuesday that he would retire at the end of the academic year.

Stephen L. Weber, 67, made the announcement in a video posted on the university’s website.

San Diego Gas & Electric Co., the third-largest investor-owned gas and electric utility in California, sold 30-year bonds at the same interest rate as Johnson & Johnson, matching the lowest coupon on record for debt of that maturity.

The Sempra Energy unit, ranked five levels below drugmaker J&J by Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s, sold $500 million of 4.5 percent securities that yield 88 basis points more than similar-maturity Treasuries, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The debt, graded Aa3 by Moody’s, the fourth level of investment grade, hasn’t yet been rated by S&P.