Ed West for years for years followed politics in American Canyon. After all, it’s the community where he grew up and has spent most of his life.

Calistoga serves up a heaping helping of holiday cheer this weekend as residents put the finishing touches on crafts for the Christmas Bazaar or gussy up their old tractors and trucks for the Napa County Lighted Tractor Parade in Calistoga.

It was a scary moment for a convenience store clerk when in the early hours Thursday, three men — one toting a shotgun — entered the 7-Eleven in American Canyon and demanded cash.

Final election results released Thursday by Napa County Registrar of Voters John Tuteur show the race for American Canyon City Council has changed, but not much.

A California appeals court delivered more bad news Thursday for the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter in American Canyon, extending an order barring further construction of the store.

American Canyon’s got a new mayor, but he’s a familiar face, both in the city and all around Napa County.

Don Callison has been involved in American Canyon city government for many years, but he still spent recent weeks doing some homework.

Napa Valley College police officers are on the move. The college is conducting a test program to see if the two-wheeled, self-balancing Segway transporters are the way to patrol the campus.

Bette Ghidotti had hoped to spend some time on the beach while at her Sarasota, Fla., vacation home, but fatigue from her cancer treatment was keeping her indoors.

HACKENSACK, N.J. — Rose Mattus, who launched Haagen-Dazs ice cream with her husband, peddling the super-premium treat in grocery stores, has died. She was 90.

PALO ALTO — Esther Lederberg, a pioneering Stanford University microbiologist whose research helped her first husband win a Nobel Prize, died Nov. 11 of pneumonia and congestive heart failure, the school said. She was 83.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Researchers have found soils in an old-growth forest in southern China are storing carbon at a rapid rate.

LONDON — Circumcision, microbicides and microfinance. These are some of the most promising options being examined as potential ways to prevent AIDS.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Fewer than half of South Africa’s 15-year-olds will live to see their 60th birthday because of HIV/AIDS, according to a new report.

WASHINGTON — Alicia Bowers, a Panamanian immigrant, can easily recall that George Washington was the first U.S. president. She knows the three branches of government are legislative, executive and judicial.

WEST SACRAMENTO — A UC Davis bus carrying medical students and health workers overturned on a busy freeway interchange Thursday morning, injuring 20 people and snarling rush-hour traffic around the state capital.

CASPER, Wyo. — Sixteen-year-old Kaytie Christopherson was getting ready to do her homework on a Friday when she got a call that made a big improvement in her life: She had won a brand-new pickup truck for near-perfect school attendance.

Some examples of draft questions and acceptable answers to be tried out in 10 cities on volunteers seeking American citizenship:

LOS ANGELES — An extremely rare and well-preserved dinosaur nest containing fossil eggs with the embryos exposed goes up for auction this weekend, but at least one scientist is demanding the artifact be returned to a museum.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faced a widening revolt within his divided government as two senior Sunni politicians joined prominent Shiite lawmakers and Cabinet members in criticizing his policies.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration, looking at the prospect of stronger oversight from a Democratic-led Congress, is withdrawing a proposal to let big polluters report less often on what they spew from their smokestacks.

CAIRO, Egypt — Iraq’s Shiite leader was firm, his aides say — he would not talk to President Bush with Jordan’s Sunni king listening in.

The American Canyon firefighters are in full swing with their Toys for Tots program.

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