Foreign high school students are scheduled to arrive in Napa soon for the academic semester and year, and the Pacific Intercultural Exchange program is looking for a few more host families. The students are all between the ages of 15 and 18, speak English, and have their own spending money. Students also have their own accident and health insurance. Host families will be matched with students based on common interests and lifestyles through an informal in-home meeting. P.I.E. hosts students from Germany, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, Korea, Australia and more. Local Napa families who are interested can call P.I.E. at (800) 631-1818 for more information./Register

The Register is beginning to compile its annual list of houses in the Valley with not-to-be missed holiday decorations. If you would like to recommend a house for this list, send the address to Features Editor Sasha Paulsen at spaulsen@napanews.com. Please include any special details and, for houses in Napa, the area of the city where the address is. The list will be published Dec. 17./Register

DUI records for November 2005

Remember unwrapping that Hula-hoop or your first Barbie on Christmas? Was it captured on film as you unwrapped it under the Christmas tree? Or, was it getting your first Tonka dump truck or possibly that HO-scale race car set? Maybe it was that little red piano you wanted so badly so you could pursue a career in music. For our hip reader, maybe was getting that cool iPod.

Light up our pages

It's 10:30 a.m. An unknown number of shoppers, litigants and other downtown visitors have overstayed their parking limits. It's Martha Manriquez's job to find them.

Significant changes are coming to Napa's elementary schools.

Higher fines for parking violations are in the works, with Napa proposing to use "the boot" to immobilize vehicles belonging to parking scofflaws.

St. Helena Hospital has been ranked by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the top 10 percent of U.S. hospitals it reviewed for care of patients who have had a heart attack, undergone bypass surgery, suffered pneumonia, or undergone hip or knee replacement surgery.

Friends and family of elders may one day get county compensation to drive their loved ones to medical appointments and shopping outings.

An early morning mobile home fire on Monday has left three people homeless.

In a front page article on Nov. 29, a photo caption incorrectly identified the name of a child being examined by Dr. Robert Moore. The child is Edgar Rodriguez.

A Napa woman narrowly escaped death Monday after her boyfriend shot her in the head during an early morning argument.

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Housing Administration is launching a program to pay the mortgages of up to 20,000 victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma for as much as a year.

CONCORD, N.H. -- The mother of two children who were shot to death and buried by their father 2 1/2 years ago plans to visit the shallow Ohio grave where their bodies were finally found last week.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court confronts a gay rights issue this week, in a case that asks whether law schools can bar military recruiters because of the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

WASHINGTON -- How hard can states make it for criminal defendants to prove insanity?

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A judge dismissed a conspiracy charge Monday against Rep. Tom DeLay but refused to throw out the far more serious allegations of money-laundering, dashing the congressman's hopes for now of reclaiming his post as House majority leader.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Archdiocese of Portland, the first in the country to file for bankruptcy because of abuse settlements, is at the heart of a debate that could affect future claims by alleged victims of priest sex abuse.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Both directions of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge were temporarily closed twice Sunday, after a suspicious package was found on the bottom deck.

LOS ANGELES -- Federal immigration officials are recalling 60,000 permanent residency cards because of errors, creating worry among immigrants who need the documents to work, get a driver's license and apply for credit.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An angry crowd confronted Iraq's former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi at a Shiite shrine south of Baghdad on Sunday, forcing him to flee in a hail of stones and shoes. Allawi called the attack an assassination attempt.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The first witnesses in the Saddam Hussein trial offered chilling accounts Monday of killings and torture using electric shocks and a meat grinder during a 1982 crackdown against Shiites, as the defiant ex-president threatened the judge and tried to intimidate a survivor