New Year’s revelers headed home from the Lake Tahoe area faced dangerous driving conditions Friday.

A trail of popcorn on New Year’s Day led Sacramento police to a man wanted on a warrant, authorities say.

An armed former firefighter was shot and killed by police early Thursday during a chase, authorities say.

Exactly three weeks before Barack Obama is sworn in as president, a local man is trying to make sure God is not included in the inauguration.
Michael Newdow, a self-proclaimed atheist, is most known for his fight to change the Pledge of Allegiance to remove the phrase “under God.”
On Tuesday, Newdow and 17 other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C. The lawsuit says that a pastor should not be allowed to say prayers at Obama’s swearing-in ceremony and the chief justice of the Supreme Court should not …

A 15-year-old boy was beaten on the head with a hammer on Monday morning, Woodland police said.
The victim and a friend, who were visiting from Sacramento, told police they were walking near West Beamer and California streets when a suspect contacted them, then said something in Spanish. The victim said something in Spanish back.
The pair later heard footsteps behind them on Buckeye Street, police said, and the friend saw the suspect hitting the victim several times in the head with a hammer.
The teen was taken to the UC Davis …

Sacramento police say an at-risk missing man has been found.

The 17-year-old survivor of a fatal Christmas Eve home explosion has improved to good condition at a Sacramento burn center. Shriners Hospital for Children spokeswoman Catherine Curran said the hospital upgraded Sunny Dickson from critical to good condition Saturday.
Her mother, 44-year-old Kim Dickson, remained in critical condition Saturday at the UC Davis Burn Center in Sacramento, hospital representative Phyllis Brown said. Wilbert “Bill” Paana, 72, died Wednesday after the suspected natural gas explosion leveled the home on Paiute Way in Rancho Cordova where the three were living. Paana …

An 18-year-old Stockton man is in San Joaquin County Jail on suspicion of biting off a piece of his neighbor’s cheek during a drunken Christmas fight.
Jose Espinoza was being held Saturday in lieu of $112,000 bail on suspicion of felony mayhem, battery, resisting arrest, disturbing the peace by fighting and being drunk in public.
Stockton police say they had to use a stun gun on Espinoza after he refused to stop fighting with the injured neighbor.
Jail records show he faces a Monday court appearance. They do not show that he has …

A mother was killed and her son was injured by a train while hiking on Christmas along snowy railroad tracks near Soda Springs, police said.
Authorities were called at about 3:30 p.m. Thursday after the duo was hit by a train that had been plowing the tracks, Lt. John Kropp of the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said Friday in a news release.
Upon arrival, deputies and paramedics found two victims on the north side of the tracks. Sydney Parks, 59, of Petaluma, was pronounced dead at the scene. Her 22-year-old son, …

An explosion that authorities believe was caused by a natural gas leak leveled a home in a Sacramento suburb on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring five others.
Charred remnants were all that remained of the house, which sat at the end of a cul-de-sac beside a busy highway. Debris littered the street. Homes on either side of the leveled one also were damaged.
“One house is completely destroyed, just devastated. Both the other ones have major, major damage,” Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District spokesman Christian Pebbles said.
The explosion sent six people …