By CARA BUCKLEY SANFORD, Fla. » Within days of becoming police chief of this small city outside Orlando, Cecil E. Smith began to see clearly the scope of the challenges he faced.
By MIREYA NAVARRO NEW YORK » Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has tried to curb soda consumption, ban smoking in parks and encourage bike-riding, is taking on a new cause: requiring New Yorkers to separate their food scraps for composting.
By DOREEN CARVAJAL GENEVA » When squads of fake police officers arrived in a whirl of blue lights, they struck with clockwork precision, plundering closely guarded packets of diamonds from the cargo hold of a parked plane and fleeing without troubling the passengers.
By DAVID E. SANGER and NICOLE PERLROTH WASHINGTON » When the United Arab Emirates wanted to create its own version of the National Security Agency, it turned to Booz Allen Hamilton to replicate the world's largest and most powerful spy agency in the sands of Abu Dhabi.
By Jennifer Steinhauer WASHINGTON » When Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan stripped a measure aimed at curbing sexual assault in the military out of a defense bill this week, it was widely seen as a trampling by a long-serving male committee chairman on female lawmakers seeking justice for victims.
By John Eligon COLUMBIA, Mo. » Brenden Heiland had breathed the vanilla lavender scented clubhouse air. He had seen the beach volleyball court, toured the game room equipped with billiards, Ping-Pong and air hockey tables, and learned with delight of the Friday pool parties with a DJ, free food and snow cones, spiked with rum for those of age.
By Kirk Semple NEW YORK » One found a job as a teacher's assistant at a center for children with autism. Another became a kitchen designer in Manhattan for an Italian company and is setting up his own general contracting firm. A third started driving a taxi to help pay for college.
By Jane Perlez BEIJING » A group of Chinese scholars, analysts and military officials convened on a recent morning in a spartan schoolroom to draw attention to China's simmering territorial dispute with Japan. Participants spoke in urgent tones. Reporters took notes. A spirit of solidarity reigned.
By C.J. CHIVERS The workers arrive by darkness, taking their stations at the vise and the lathe. Soon metal filings and sparks fly, and the stack of their creations grows at their feet: makeshift mortar shells to be fired through barrels salvaged from disabled Syrian army tanks.
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN Slowly, and largely under the radar, a growing number of local law enforcement agencies across the country have moved into what had previously been the domain of the FBI and state crime labs — amassing their own DNA databases of potential suspects, some collected with the donors' knowledge, and some without it.
By Andrew Jacobs MASANJIA, China » The cry for help, a neatly folded letter stuffed inside a package of Halloween decorations sold at Kmart, traveled 5,000 miles from China into the hands of a mother of two in Oregon.
By Katharine Q. Seelye NORTH POND, Maine - When a 200-pound black bear was pawing around David Proulx's house here a couple of years ago, Proulx went out and shot it. It was a straightforward situation compared with another kind of prowler who menaced his home for almost three decades.
By Monica Davey CHICAGO » A year after this city drew new attention for soaring gun violence and gang bloodshed, creating a political test for Mayor Rahm Emanuel in President Barack Obama's hometown, Chicago has witnessed a drop in shootings and crime. Killings this year have dipped to a level not seen since the early 1960s.
By Jessica Silver-Greenberg The pitch arrived, as so many do, with a friendly cold call. Bruno Koch, 83, told the telemarketer on the line that, yes, of course he would like to update his Medicaid card. Then Koch, of Newport News, Va., slipped up: he divulged his bank account information.