Despite a soggy, sometimes pain-staking growing season, the 2006 winegrape harvest produced what growers and industry analysts say are more “normal” crop yields, which helped boost wine grape prices in Napa County and around the state.

The Napa Valley is often a traveler's destination, but Bill Savidge recently used it as a jumping-off point for a wild, two-month jaunt across two continents in a small airplane with his friend, Dean Stahr.

Phone scam involving St. Helena fire dept.

The leak earlier this year of a detailed report on the killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha in 2005 may have a wide-ranging impact on the prosecutions of eight Camp Pendleton-based troops charged in the incident, according to a longtime military attorney.

Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, visited Napa Friday to let vintners and leaders of local nonprofit organizations know that she is working on legislation to enable all wine producers to pour wines at charitable events without risk of citation by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

A St. Helena man was arrested Thursday when a co-worker at a construction site recognized him as the person who beat him up last year, according to police.