By Alex Shultz American teams had a chance to sweep the gold medal games at the ASICS World Series of Beach Volleyball in Long Beach, but they were ultimately no match for their Brazilian foes. Second-seeded Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt won the men’s bracket with a hard-fought 21-16, 20-22, 15-13 victory…

By Eric Sondheimer contact the reporter Senior pitcher Grant Nechak of Calabasas has committed to Santa Clara. He was the Marmonte League player of the year as a junior. He’s a 6-foot-4 right-hander. Twitter:@LATSondheimer Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times

Last week’s stock sell-off could upend an already confusing landscape for the U.S. technology sector. For a while last week it appeared tech stocks might escape relatively unscathed, even as the broader market headed down. But Friday’s 3.5% loss for the Nasdaq composite index put the leading technology exchange into the red for the year,…

NEW YORK — It was fun while it lasted. For years, investors in U.S. stocks shrugged off threats — a government shutdown, fear of a euro collapse, a near U.S. debt default — and just kept on buying. At the sixth anniversary of the bull market in March, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index had…

By Lauren Raab contact the reporter Dozens of wildfires continued to ravage the Pacific Northwest, particularly Washington state, as more firefighting equipment and manpower arrived from across the nation over the weekend. Twelve uncontained fires in Washington covered more than 600,000 acres Sunday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Gov. Jay Inslee’s office…

Mounir Ghabrial saw his first college football game after moving from Dubai to Southern California when he was 12 — and soon found watching USC’s halftime show more entertaining than the action on the field. “The drum line,” he said, “always caught my eye.” He played the drums during games at Damien High School in…

By Pauline Repard The signs are all there, warning that the sandy, ragged edge of Sunset Cliffs in San Diego County is unstable, and that jumping from the bluff into the ocean is illegal. But social media and scorching weather last weekend combined to entice as many as 100 people to a…

The drought has compounded the harm of dams and water diversions by further reducing river flows and increasing water temperatures, driving long declining populations of California’s native fish to dangerously low levels. Source: California Department of Fish and Wildelife. Graphics reporting by Bettina Boxall @latimesgraphics Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times

By Zach Helfand contact the reporter A year ago, Matt Shoemaker was making a push for American League rookie of the year, an award for which he was the runner-up. Now, Shoemaker is marooned at triple-A Salt Lake, trying to fix a delivery that hadn’t felt right from the beginning of the season. In…

By Matt Stevens contact the reporter A wildfire burning near the Snow Summit Ski Resort in Big Bear has scorched 100 acres and forced evacuations throughout the area, authorities said. The fire erupted about 12:30 p.m. south of Big Bear Lake on U.S. Forest Service land, according to the state Department of Forestry and…