Following recent union pickets at Napa State Hospital, workers here and at other California mental health institutions celebrated a victory last week.

Napa County Sheriff’s detectives have wrapped up their investigation into the death of a 10-month-old Angwin girl who was left in the back seat of her mother’s car for at least six hours.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently appointed Napan Thomas Powers, former executive director for Napa’s Wolfe Center, to the position of chief deputy director for the Division of Addiction and Recovery Services with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

A Southern California man lost his life in the Napa Valley Thursday evening when he lost control of his sedan on Conn Creek Road south of Highway 128 near Rutherford.

Jose Orozco Mendoza was arrested after witnesses told police they saw him take a purse from an unlocked vehicle in the 2700 block of Jefferson Street on Wednesday morning.

After more than a month’s surveillance, drug agents made their move and arrested a suspected drug trafficker in Napa.

Authorities have identified the victim of an Upvalley fatal crash that happened Thursday night on Conn Creek Road, south of Highway 128.

If Napa wants to get serious about combating global warming, it should be approving higher density developments that mix housing with stores and jobs, a transportation expert recommends.

Unlike neighboring Napa and Vallejo, American Canyon will continue to operate in the black next year, even without sales tax revenues from the Wal-Mart Supercenter, according to the city's preliminary budget for 2007-08.

Historic war planes

The Napa County Coroner's Office has released the name of the Napa man who died early Wednesday morning after slamming his car into a tree on Main Street, just north of Central Avenue.

Chris Vecera, 18, walked onto the Justin-Siena High School Campus Thursday with his two younger brothers in tow to show them how high school graduation gets done.

WASHINGTON -- Maybe walking upright on two legs isn't such a defining human feature after all.

SEATTLE -- Starbucks Corp. said Thursday it will replace whole milk with 2 percent for espresso drinks in all of its U.S. and Canadian stores by the end of the year.

CONCORD, N.H. -- Gov. John Lynch signed a law Thursday establishing civil unions for same-sex couples in New Hampshire, allowing them to apply for the same rights as married people as early as January.

NEW YORK -- Junk e-mail continued to land in mailboxes around the world Thursday, despite the arrest a day earlier of a man described as one of the world's most prolific spammers.

MIAMI -- Many people along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts still lack a hurricane survival plan and don't feel vulnerable to storms, despite Katrina's dramatic damage and pleas from emergency officials for residents to prepare before the season starts, according to a poll released Thursday.

Once a year or so, Roy Tialavea is summoned from his classes at Oceanside High School to report to the athletic director's office bathroom. He receives a urine specimen cup and heads for a stall.

BAGHDAD -- When truck driver Said Abdul-Wahab al-Obeidi needed to find a new career after the roads of Iraq grew too dangerous, he looked for a business with a bright future.

BEIJING -- Fast-spreading, foul-smelling blue-green algae smothered a lake in eastern China, contaminating the drinking water for millions of people and sparking panic-buying of bottled water, state media said Thursday.

WASHINGTON -- Detailed plans for the new U.S. Embassy under construction in Baghdad appeared online Thursday in a breach of the tight security surrounding the sensitive project.