An initial ruling to suspend the high school exit exam has left thousands of California students' lives in limbo. Earlier this month, after local schools spent months offering weekend seminars and other programs to help students pass the exam, a judge has deemed the test unfair and unnecessary.

Napa cousins critically hurt in a crash in Idaho last month continue their slow road to recovery.

Just as local lawmakers are going to the voters next month for transportation funds, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers are planning to seek $20 billion for highway and road projects on the November ballot.

Are you a Gulf War veteran? The Register would like to talk with you for an upcoming story about Memorial Day. Contact Register reporter Pat Stanley by Monday at 256-2220 or e-mail pstanley@napanews.com./Register

A Napa woman has been booked in county jail on felony criminal charges related to the death of a Napa motorcyclist on Wednesday morning.

WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage Thursday, after a shouting match that ended when one Democrat strode out and the Republican chairman bid him "good riddance."

MILFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- In one of the most intensive searches for Jimmy Hoffa in decades, the FBI summoned archaeologists and anthropologists and brought in heavy equipment to scour a horse farm Thursday for the body of the former Teamsters boss who vanished in 1975.

WASHINGTON -- A vaccine with the potential to slash worldwide deaths from cervical cancer, the No. 2 cancer killer in women, should be approved for sales in the United States, a federal panel said Thursday.

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- A former gym teacher pleaded guilty to taking $1-a-day bribes from middle school students who didn't want to change their clothes for class.

SPOKANE, Wash. -- A federal judge rejected a $45.7-million settlement Thursday for 75 people who have filed sex abuse claims against the bankrupt Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane.

WASHINGTON -- The House rejected an attempt late Thursday to end a quarter-century ban on oil and natural gas drilling in 85 percent of the country's coastal waters despite arguments that the new supplies are needed to lower energy costs.

Regents back embattled UC president

SAN DIEGO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday sounded more conciliatory toward President Bush's plan to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the Mexican border, but the governor's advisers said he still has not decided whether to participate.

SACRAMENTO -- Adopting a new tactic in a fight over the minimum wage, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked a dormant state commission Thursday to raise the wage by $1 an hour without the annual cost-of-living increases sought by Democrats.

BEIJING -- Faced with traffic and pollution problems as they prepare for the 2008 Summer Olympics, officials in the Chinese capital are drafting contingency plans that include an extended holiday for the city's huge government work force during the games or limiting the days residents can drive.

SANTIAGO, Chile -- A smiling Alberto Fujimori left jail Thursday after almost seven months when Chile's Supreme Court granted the former Peruvian president bail as he fights extradition to face corruption and human rights charges.

NOGALES, Mexico -- Mexicans say it will take more than three layers of fence and 6,000 National Guard troops to keep them out of the United States.

GENEVA -- The United States proposed a treaty Thursday it said would curb proliferation of nuclear weapons and improve the world's leverage against "hard cases" like Iran and North Korea by banning production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Islamic militants, some armed with machine guns, battled Afghan, U.S. and Canadian forces and exploded two suicide car bombs Thursday, some of the deadliest violence in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban.

CAIRO, Egypt -- Despite U.S. criticism, police beat pro-reform protesters in the streets and arrested more than 300 for the second week in a row Thursday as Egyptian courts dealt new setbacks to activists seeking greater democracy.