The 2012 Olympics and Paralympics ended this week with a giant parade through London, where I fled to recover from back-to-back political conventions in the United States. There are similarities between these domestic and international spectacles.

Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement in San Francisco say they plan to celebrate their first year with demonstrations.

As the deadly attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, show, sometimes armed and violent rebels who help to oust a dictatorship can later become destabilizing forces who kill with impunity.

Police say it could take weeks to determine what caused the deaths of a Pleasanton teen and a Livermore man found in a Newark motel room.

The arrest of an Orange County man suspected of peeping on his neighbors has led to drugs, cash and numerous photos showing young women and girls taken from outside their homes.

Los Angeles firefighters have fully contained a 90-acre brush fire on the mountain near the famed Getty Center art museum.

Authorities say a 53-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter in connection with a boating collision on a Northern California lake that killed two people and injured two others.

Authorities are searching the Napa River after getting reports of a possible drowning early Sunday morning.

A brush fire that came within a few hundred yards of upscale hilltop homes in Laguna Beach has been contained.

A California man accused of kidnapping his two children and taking them on a stolen yacht for three days is due back in a San Mateo County courtroom.

Thousands of Los Angeles illegal immigrants have inundated the nation's second-largest school district for copies of records that might qualify them for the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

A good Samaritan has run into a burning Southern California home and rescued an elderly woman.

A 1,200-acre fire that began during a training exercise on the Camp Pendleton Marine base is about 95 percent contained.

The family of a filmmaker linked to an anti-Islamic movie has left their California home in the middle of the night.

A hand grenade has been found in a late veteran's rented Santa Monica garage.

Coptic Christian and Muslim leaders are condemning the violence in the Middle East that was sparked by an anti-Islamic movie that has ties to a Southern California filmmaker who has since gone into hiding.

San Francisco officials on Tuesday are set to decide whether to fund an energy plan that will give city residents the option of getting 100 percent of their power from renewable sources.

The San Diego Stock Exchange Index closed lower Monday at 122.35, down 0.06 percent from Friday. Declining issues beat advancers 42 to 32, and 66 issues were unchanged.
Ligand Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: LGND) was the top dollar gainer, up 90 cents to $18.46.
AMN Healthcare Services Inc. (NYSE: AHS) was the top dollar loser, down $1.08 to $8.68.
For the complete, updated San Diego Stock Exchange Index visit sddt.com/stocks.