Asked to referee between two apartment projects seeking to convert to condominiums, the Napa City Council may declare both winners.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to shift thousands of state prison inmates back to county jails could cost Napa County up to $8 million in operating costs, according to county jail officials.

City residents will be getting notices in the mail in early February alerting them to a planned water rate increase, to take effect in October.

In Tuesday’s page-one story about a Napan foiling a carjacking, the suspect ran across Imola Avenue to try and avoid capture.

If someone told you they could spin eight basketballs on their body — all at once — would you believe them?

In Michigan, adultery has long been a felony.

WASHINGTON — In a calculated snub of President Bush, the Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed plans for a troop buildup in Iraq on Wednesday as “not in the national interest” of the United States.

JACKSON, Miss. — A white former sheriff’s deputy who was once thought to be dead was arrested on federal charges Wednesday in one of the last major unsolved crimes of the civil rights era — the 1964 killings of two black men who were beaten and dumped alive into the Mississippi River.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Emiliano Mercado del Toro was born when Puerto Rico was still a Spanish colony and trained as a soldier the year World War I ended.

WARSAW, Poland — Ryszard Kapuscinski, a Polish writer and journalist who gained international acclaim for his books chronicling wars, coups and revolutions in Africa, the Middle East and other parts of the world, died of a heart attack, his literary agent said. He was 74.

PLACENTIA — A former bassist for the punk rock group Social Distortion was struck and killed by a big rig while riding a bicycle, authorities said.

CLEVELAND — Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio’s most populous county.

MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. — The military calls its new weapon an “active denial system,” but that’s an understatement. It’s a ray gun that shoots a beam that makes people feel as if they are about to catch fire.

HERZLIYA, Israel — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert devoted one of his most important policy speeches of the year Wednesday to a single topic — Iran — saying Israel will respond to a nuclear threat “with all the means at our disposal.”

JERUSALEM — Shaking with fury, Israeli President Moshe Katsav rebuffed growing calls for his resignation Wednesday, saying accusations he committed rape and other crimes were “poisonous, horrible lies” that were part of a broad conspiracy against him.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. John Kerry, who fell 118,601 Ohio votes short of the White House in 2004, said Wednesday he will not run for president in 2008.

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Fearing a dam break that could cause catastrophic flooding in Kentucky and Tennessee, the Army Corps of Engineers began lowering the water level on Lake Cumberland on Monday.

SHIPROCK, N.M. — Navajo Code Talker David Tsosie has died at age 83.

SAN FRANCISCO — The hunt for the killers of Sgt. John V. Young seemed plagued by stops and starts before authorities arrested eight men with ties to a militant black power group nearly 36 years after the slaying.

7 a.m. WASHINGTON -- Sales of existing homes fell in December, closing out a year in which demand for homes slumped by the largest amount in 24 years.