A year after the Chicago Police Department cracked down on gangs, its efforts crashed into reality when a 17-year-old was shot and killed in front of a memorial for a slain friend.

The senior adviser to President Obama maintains a rumpled modesty and his Chicago roots, despite doing the world’s business.

Coach Lovie Smith’s stoicism once was firm, quiet leadership when the Bears were winning, but now it smacks of cluelessness.

Damian Cooksey, the owner of Bridges Rock Gym in El Cerrito, enjoys slacklining, which resembles tightrope walking, on the east peak of Mount Tamalpais.

More people have sought out chant at Zen meditation centers, Buddhist retreats, plainsong-infused candlelit church services, and yoga studios, and it is also growing as an artistic pursuit.

Jim Wunderman is largely responsible for the fact that Californians are increasingly talking about changing the way the state elects its politicians and manages its finances.

The Senate voted along strict party lines Saturday night to proceed with a floor debate on Majority Leader Harry Reid's $848 billion health care bill.

The Senate hopes to spend December debating the health care bill, but time is running out on other difficult and significant issues that must be resolved by the end of the year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said flu activity was declining in all regions of the country.

The Pentagon is considering providing more planes for flight tests to try to reduce the possibility of large cost overruns over the next several years.

Test prep companies are catering to a new demographic: 3- and 4-year-olds.

A variety of economists say that stimulus legislation is helping the economy to grow again.

Private messages hacked from a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics.

Students occupied campus buildings at Berkeley and Santa Cruz on Friday, the day after a 32 percent increase in tuition was approved by the University of California Board of Regents.

A crude word is in the title of “Spic Up, Speak Out,” a poetry series that opens at El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem, on Saturday.

Traditional Senate decorum yielded to brass-knuckle politicking before a key procedural vote.

When an Atlanta hospital closed its dialysis unit, many illegal immigrants had to scramble to find treatment.

A report released by Republicans in Congress said that a school chancellor in Washington intervened on behalf of her fiancé, who was under investigation by AmeriCorps.

A committee found that Senator Roland W. Burris had been less than candid in statements on his dealings with associates of the Illinois governor, who was later forced from office.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’s statement echoed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s recent warning to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.