More than 300 people gathered to remember Larry Lattman for his tireless service to veterans and his zest for life and laughter during a memorial service Thursday at the Veterans Home of California at Yountville.

A fire ripped through a prestigious Oakville winery early Thursday, destroying the historic winemaking building and injuring a firefighter.

In times of disaster, the Napa community pulls together to help victims who have suffered losses.

A fire ripped through a prestigious Oakville winery early Thursday, destroying the historic winemaking building and injuring a firefighter.

The search is on for

American Canyon Vice Mayor Lori Luporini ended weeks of speculation about her future in AmCan politics when she tendered her resignation at Thursday's city council meeting.

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- A funeral home provided the caskets, the city supplied the burial plots, a Baptist minister volunteered to recite the prayers, and sheriff's deputies served as pallbearers.

BOSTON -- Boston University won final federal approval Thursday for a controversial plan to build a research laboratory in the city's South End that would handle some of the world's most dangerous and exotic germs.

SALEM, Ore. -- The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a $79.5 million punitive damages award to the family of an Oregon smoker who died of lung cancer, saying the amount isn't excessive given the "reprehensible" conduct of tobacco giant Philip Morris in marketing cigarettes. Philip Morris called the award "grossly excessive" and said it would appeal further.

VIENNA, Austria -- Iran threatened to retaliate Thursday in the face of almost certain referral to the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear activities, and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said the dispute was "reaching a critical phase."

WASHINGTON -- Rep. John Boehner of Ohio is the new leader of House Republicans. And the new target of House Democrats.

NEW ORLEANS -- It was bad enough when Rose Christina's home was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

WASHINGTON -- Military leaders angrily denounced as "beyond tasteless" a Washington Post editorial cartoon featuring a likeness of a severely wounded soldier and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as an attending doctor who says, "I'm listing your condition as 'battle hardened."'

WASHINGTON -- President Bush next week will request a $439.3 billion Defense Department budget for 2007, a nearly 5 percent increase over this year, according to senior Pentagon officials and documents obtained Thursday by the Associated Press.

HOUSTON -- A man suspected of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter opened fire on a crowded freeway Thursday, shooting repeatedly at motorists as he fled from police.

IMPERIAL BEACH -- Six years after suicide bombers killed 17 sailors on the USS Cole in Yemen, the Navy on Thursday commissioned its first active-duty unit with the job of thwarting a repeat of the attack.

BRIDGEPORT -- An avalanche in the Sierra Nevada mountains killed a skier and injured two others, authorities said Thursday.

LIVERMORE -- Officials at Lawrence Livermore National laboratory have added a new weapon to their armory, a high-powered gun that can fire 3,000 rounds a minute.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Guerrilla attacks in Iraq have forced the cancellation of more than 60 percent of water and sanitation projects, in part because American intelligence failed to predict the brutal insurgency, a U.S. government audit said.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi efforts to form a government are only now beginning in earnest nearly two months after key elections, and the hard bargaining could take weeks -- if not months -- to produce a new leadership. That could delay the eventual drawdown of U.S. forces.