A deputy spotted a car parked at the dead end of Ranch Lane around 8 a.m., Tuesday, and decided to check it out.

Fearing they could be axed by the next city budget, members of Napa’s Cultural Heritage Commission appeared before the City Council Tuesday to tout the commission’s work.

Two car crashes have taken the lives of three Calistoga residents, including a teenager.

In the wake of controversial reports of substandard conditions facing returning Iraq war veterans at Walter Reed Medical Center, a top official at the Veterans Home of California at Yountville said he still believes Walter Reed overall to be a “solid operation.”

An autopsy performed on the Calistoga woman who died Tuesday afternoon in a crash on Highway 29 revealed she was four months pregnant, according to the county’s coroner’s office.

Separate bills before the California Legislature aim to upgrade the Veterans Home of California at Yountville’s hospital administration and improve care and accommodations for the blind across state-run veterans homes.

Local environmentalists are likely to win their first battle in the general plan process — the bid for more time to respond to Napa County’s massive planning proposal — but the fight to get the county to take on global warming as a planning issue is more in doubt.

Napa’s water rates will be going up by the Bay Area’s Consumer Price Index in coming years as the city embarks on a program to nearly double the capacity of its main treatment plant.