Foreclosures keep rising despite government efforts to prevent them. RealtyTrac reports that filings in July were up 32 percent from a year ago.

Local activists have scored a victory in their fight to make the Port of San Diego follow through with plans to build a large park on the Embarcadero. The Coastal Commission today agreed to hold a public hearing in San Diego on the issue.

In this special two-hour presentation from the United Kingdom’s groundbreaking archaeology series, "Time Team" takes viewers on an expedition to Jamestown, where a British company’s commercial enterprise planted the seeds of the United States. There have been nearly a million finds from the site’s trenches, but this anniversary special is far more than just an excavation. The team retrieves piles of perfectly preserved 17th-century pieces, traces the names and life stories of the early American pioneers, and learns why a third of them died within months of arrival. The colonists at Jamestown went looking for gold and silver. Instead, they found fertile soil, tough conditions and the beginnings of the world’s most powerful nation.

What do movie special effects, the stock market, heart attacks and the rings of Saturn have in common? They're all connected by a revolutionary new branch of math called fractals, which has changed the way we see the world and opened up a vast new territory to scientific analysis and understanding. "NOVA" tells the dramatic story of a group of pioneering mathematicians who developed fractals from a curiosity that few took seriously to an approach that is touching nearly every branch of understanding - including what happened after the Big Bang and the ultimate fate of our universe.

Wow! What a week. I screened three movies that all have a shot of making my ten best list. The week began with Hayo Miyazaki’s “Ponyo,” continued with Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” (the misspelling is deliberate), and finished with the Peter Jackson produced “District 9” (opening August 14 throughout San Diego).

President Barack Obama's education team visits San Diego Mesa College this weekend to talk about reforms that could help Latino students in school.

Many servicemen brought back souvenirs from World War II, but did the uncle of a Reno, Nevada, man score a dagger from Fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini? The dagger bears the symbols of Italian Fascism, and the initial “M” hangs from the belt clip. A family letter says the uncle had orders to pick up Mussolini, but when he arrived, Mussolini was already dead and hanging in the town square.

INSIDE follows the team of more than 120 cast, crew and creatives as they puzzle over how to make Middle Earth — a fictional world of kingdoms, mountain ranges and enchanted forests — come alive on a London stage. From the complex revolving stage to actors walking on stilts, the cast and crew have a huge number of risky elements to contend with to make the show work.

California deployed more fire crews across the state Friday to gain control of growing wildfires that have forced hundreds of people to flee their homes in Santa Cruz County.

The company AstroTurf has agreed to strictly limit the amount of lead in it's artificial turf in a settlement with the California Attorney General.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words I thought some footage about how Hayao Miyazaki created the fabulous images for "Ponyo" (now in San Diego Theaters) might entice more people to see the film than anything I could say.

Thousands of California kids will start losing their state provided health care this fall thanks to the state’s cash crunch. The board that oversees “Healthy Families” says it doesn’t have enough money to provide services much longer.

There was nothing short about the “short-sale” Paul Ordonez and his wife went through to buy their first home. Fourteen months after first seeing a 1,600-square-foot townhouse in East Lake, he and his wife of three years were finally handed the keys by their agent.

See a video of producer Peter Jackson at Comic-Con talking about how his project to bring "Halo" to the screen morphed into the new sci-fi film "District 9" (opening August 14 in San Diego). And look for my review and the Teen Critic reviews coming up.

The state Public Utilities Commission essentially rejected SDG&E's controversial emergency power shut-off plan earlier this week. The PUC said it will make a final decision on the plan in September.

The San Diego Union-Tribune announced 112 jobs are being cut from the newspaper. As part of the downsizing, the paper laid off one of its most polarizing figures, long-time Editorial Page Editor Bob Kittle.

President Barack Obama will make his latest pitch to the public on health care reform at two town hall meetings in Montana and Colorado, seeking to overcome opposition to the $1 trillion overhaul plan.

Girl sleuth Nancy Drew may be a hero to the likes of new Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But she was never a radio heroine, until now.

Citizen activists accuse the San Diego Port District of reneging on a promise to build an oval waterfront public park on the Embarcadero downtown. They take their appeal to the California Coastal Commission today.

San Diego law enforcement authorities are searching for eight men who are allegedly part of a Mexican drug ring that tortured, kidnapped and killed nine people in San Diego County. The 17 members of the group were indicted Thursday.

Several wildfires burning throughout California have forced people from their homes. They've burned tens of thousands of acres in Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Shasta Counties.