Acclaimed Afro-Peruvian singer unearths a hidden history

In this village that still bears the name of the old Santa Barbara sugar plantation, Susana Baca is trudging through a field of sweet...

Alabama tornado team scours paths of killer storms

The Mobile Meteorological Measurement Vehicle — a worn-looking '90s-model Dodge Intrepid with classic rock on the radio, a tower of...

Saving his best for laughs

The first time the Chinese biochemist performed stand-up at an open mike was at a sports bar in Somerville, Mass., where he struggled to...

Egyptians race to capture the spirit of Tahrir Square

The questioner reads evenly from a script.

Locke High School graduation: A Locke High milestone

L.A.'s shrines to the Virgen de Guadalupe

Every Friday, Margarita Jimenez comes to see the virgin in the parking lot, where kids scream, cars honk and the air stinks of exhaust.

In South Africa's black townships, being gay can be fatal

A feather of acrid smoke drifts across an open drain choked with bulrushes and plastic bottles beside a muddy lane. It's a forlorn place...

Japanese retirees volunteer to work in stricken nuclear plant

They were two old friends catching up over coffee, retirees swapping stories and gasping at the unfolding nuclear nightmare at the Fukushima...

Flooding doesn't dampen North Dakotans' resilience

Forty-two years ago, Rae Schobinger's neighbors pitched in to lay sandbags and the city of Minot erected massive levees to try to hold...

Latin American baseball players train hard to build English skills

Reporting from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. — In a stuffy meeting room of a budget hotel, 10 young men in jeans and polo shirts slump...

Making ends meet in a fragile Egypt

He walks the streets of the rich with a grindstone on his back and his son at his side.

French travel back to simpler time

A few feet from an overgrown path that hugs the banks of the still, green Marne River, two fishermen doze in a small wooden boat under the...

China wrestles with food safety problems

It was a wedding the guests would never forget. Everybody of consequence in the village had been invited to a banquet to celebrate the...

Old lumber town balks at independence

The Wall Street investors who own the last company town in California want to return it to the people.

L.A. County sheriff's deputies tell their bosses what they really think of them

James Hellmold got the call from a fellow captain in the middle of the workday.

Trying to find beauty in the darkness of Iraq

The hit man burns photos of the past in a copper bowl on his terrace as he waits, quiet as a ghost. His fixer arrives with a bag of...

Jelly Belly creator sour over lost legacy but sees sweet future

His hair is disheveled; his red polo shirt stained. He's prone to shuffling when he walks and wears an oversized cowboy hat embroidered with...

Between the sacred and the mundane

The first step when digging a grave at Mountain View Cemetery is to measure the plot and calculate the spacing. Scraping an adjacent...

Congress turns bill titles into acts of exaggeration

It wasn't enough to introduce HR 145 this year. Instead, the Republican-sponsored bill became the Revoke Excessive Policies that Encroach on...

Silicon Valley status symbols emphasize mind over material

Aaron Patzer lives in a 600-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto with an old couch and TV. His favorite shoes are hand-me-down...

Egyptian revolution's unsung heroes languish in hospitals

When Rahma Mohamed steps out of her son's line of sight, he begins to tremble. She rushes to cradle the 23-year-old's thin frame, kissing...

Bartenders can be combat veterans' first line of defense

The minute one of her regulars comes through the canteen door at VFW Post 1503, Dori Keys starts to pour. Captain Morgan and Diet Coke for...

Iraqi widow finds solace in school

Sarah cries less now. The tears lurk just beneath the surface and anything can prick the memories. It can be a word that tugs her back, a...

Law student clinic in Mexico aims high

Beneath a crown of black curls, Benjamin Salinas offers his clients encouraging words about past courtroom victories and the chance to...

Selling bean pies — and maintaining a tradition

Iowa takes its role as first presidential vetter very seriously

The memo leaked in the spring of 2007. A deputy campaign manager for Hillary Rodham Clinton urged her to skip the Iowa caucuses in her quest...

For Alzheimer's and dementia patients, pingpong is a game — and therapy

On TV screens around the room, Chinese table tennis players are whirling and vaulting, but Betty Stein isn't watching them.

Blasting winter away at Yosemite

Reporting from Yosemite National Park -- It's nearly summer, and swarms of cars, buses and RVs breeze through Yosemite Valley as if on...

A search for truth brings justice to WWII Japanese American internees

Every morning, she climbed the wide marble steps of the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

For Mars rovers, a friendly rivalry

NASA's newest Mars rover — or a replica of it, anyway — sat expectantly at the bottom of a hill. After years in design and...