The 27th annual Auction Napa Valley kicks off today as bidders, guests, vintners and members of the media team up at a variety of open houses and parties in what the sponsoring Napa Valley Vintners is calling a “30-mile-long, five-mile-wide block party.”

After attending three years at a traditional high school, Nick Zarcone knew another year wouldn’t be the right idea for him.

American Canyon police officers looking for several runaways not only accomplished their mission, but also arrested a man wanted on an outstanding warrant.

Police responded Tuesday afternoon to a report of a youth at Alta Heights School in east Napa who didn’t belong there, according to Napa police.

The Napa County Transportation and Planning Agency is seeking applications for two vacancies on its Paratransit Coordinating Council.

Rejecting the protests of affordable housing advocates, the Napa City Council gave itself the authority Tuesday to approve two condo conversion projects, not just one.

Pleasures Unlimited owner Ed Hayman said people in Napa have been very supportive of his adult-oriented store, and that he’s considered opening another location in American Canyon.

John Woodrow Aldine

Mary Elizabeth Victoria Abalo

Brenda Aguilar: Shearer School PTA

Aimee B. Abadilla

Angela Abboud; Greg Thomson Memorial

Margaret Alexander-Short: Doyle; Sonoma Valley Parents Fund

*Asterisk denotes honors

A.A. General Education

Amar Abbott: NVC Classified Senate

Jennifer Alcantar: Cinco De Mayo Committee; Napa Valley College Foundation Lola M. Thorburn; Betty Wood Memorial

Lisa Bobst

Enrique Alfaro Morales

Scott Berardi: New Tech Foundation   

*Asterisk denotes honors

Birch Bliss

Tadd Aberson

Jennifer Alcantar

Christopher Pace

Darius Aghaie-Gray

Anthony Michael Ayala

Mauricio Alonzo-Leon

David A. Alvarez

A.S.

The Napa County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 Tuesday to send the largest development proposal the county has ever seen down a public path of inquiry, setting in motion environmental studies for the residential and commercial development of the 152-acre Napa Pipe site.

A bill allowing Napa County the right to purchase the state-owned Skyline Park passed the state Senate Wednesday by the narrowest of margins.

WASHINGTON — Ruth Bader Ginsburg has no need any longer for her “I’m Ruth, Not Sandra” T-shirt. She could, however, use Sandra Day O’Connor’s vote.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.  — Police on Wednesday arrested a man in the abduction and death of a teenager who disappeared four days ago from a store parking lot.

SAN JOSE — A man with a machete attacked a pizza parlor manager because he was angry about how long his pizza took to arrive, police said.

BLOOMFIELD, Conn. — Police looking for clues in the yearlong disappearance of a 15-year-old girl said they found her Wednesday, pale but alive, locked in a hidden room in a home owned by an acquaintance of her parents.

CLEVELAND — Doctors began the first in a series of high-risk surgeries Wednesday to separate 3-year-old twin girls joined at the head.

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney blocked the promotion of a Justice Department official involved in a standoff over President Bush’s eavesdropping program, a Senate committee learned Wednesday.

MUSCAT, Oman — Cyclone Gonu battered Oman’s coast Wednesday with fierce winds and torrential rains, forcing thousands from their homes and shutting down oil installations before heading toward the world’s most important crude oil tanker route.

WASHINGTON — Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, picked by President Bush as his White House war adviser, said Wednesday he had been skeptical of Bush’s decision to send thousands more U.S. troops into Iraq.

WASHINGTON — A proposed immigration overhaul narrowly survived several strong Senate challenges Wednesday, but it suffered a potentially deal-breaking setback early Thursday.

PLEASANT HILL — A scheme to change grades for money also affected a second Contra Costa County community college, administrators said.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A lawyer who claims White House aide Karl Rove may have given assurances that federal authorities were investigating a former Alabama governor said Wednesday that she spoke up because she feared justice had not been served.

NEW DELHI — Meena discovered she had been sold by her boss while riding in an auto-rickshaw headed to New Delhi’s red-light district.

LOS ANGELES — Authorities on Wednesday announced the arrest of 124 gang members who are also illegal immigrants, saying many had been indicted for illegally entering the United States after being repeatedly deported.

WASHINGTON — The head of a Republican environmental advocacy group is set to plead guilty in the Jack Abramoff scandal and is cooperating with an FBI investigation into corruption involving Congress and the Bush administration, two people close to the case said Wednesday.

COLEVILLE — More than 200 residents were allowed to return to their homes Wednesday as cooler temperatures, calmer winds and reinforcements helped firefighters work to contain a wildfire along the eastern Sierra.

WASHINGTON — U.S. doctors are beginning a dramatic experiment this month to try to save patients dying from congestive heart failure — by temporarily resting their hearts and then boosting them with a drug long abused for bodybuilding.

PHILADELPHIA — Martin Meyerson, who served as president of the University of Pennsylvania for a decade and briefly led the University of California at Berkeley during the tumult of the 1960s, has died. He was 84.

BURBANK — The hoopla over Bob Barker retiring as host of “The Price Is Right” has Alex Trebek thinking about his own future.