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Friday's Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics will mark the start of a two-week series of dreams-come-true for athletes from around the world. But only once they have gone home will another U.S. athlete, Scott Winkler, get his chance for glory in Beijing.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Two drunken bootleggers who were intercepted on the Kuskokwim River repeatedly tried to ram an Alaska State Troopers vessel as they led officers on a high-speed, 25-mile boat chase that ended with them in handcuffs, according to troopers.

California forestry officials have rejected an emergency petition to protect coho salmon in coastal streams, even though federal fisheries regulators said it would help the imperiled fish.

The petition before the state Board of Forestry comes as California salmon are at historic lows, requiring regulators to suspend all salmon fishing on the coast this year -- a first.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The state's largest school bus operator has agreed to renovate more than 2,000 buses in California to run cleaner, settling a lawsuit that accused it of exposing children to diesel exhaust in leaky passenger cabins.

BEIJING -- Don't wear white socks with black leather shoes. Shake hands for only three seconds. Maintain eye contact for 30 to 60 percent of the conversation. Don't wear more than three colors in your clothing. And above all, please stop spitting.

A California appeals court upheld the state's 12-year-old medical marijuana law this week, rejecting two counties' arguments that allowing patients to use the drug with their doctor's approval condones violations of federal narcotics laws.

NAPLES, Fla. -- After years of waiting, Steven Mielke and his wife Monique celebrated in February upon learning they would finally have a bundle of joy to call their own.

For nearly three years the Naples couple had been working with Heart of Adoptions Inc. to adopt a baby, a process Steven originally thought would be much easier than it was.

SALT LAKE CITY -- For years, Veronica Diaz-Guerra had told her mother that she was going to join the military.

But when Diaz, still a few weeks shy of her 18th birthday, finally asked her mom to sign the papers permitting her enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps, Ofelia Guerra was hesitant.

Add this to the list of issues vexing California's state government: It's getting a reputation as a lousy boss.

Certainly the pay and benefits are pretty good if you can stick with it long enough. Civil service can be a noble calling. Where would we be without state-employed firefighters this summer?

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- It almost cost Vancouver the 2010 Olympic Games five years ago.

Now, the narrow and precarious cliff-side Sea to Sky Highway is coming back to haunt the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee a year and a half before the big event.