To the list of personal problems that have become political, those living in Dallas County, Iowa, and Colville, Washington, can add cracked windshields and flat tires.

If transit managers have their way, fare card machines may go the way of the onboard conductor. Transit systems around the country are examining ways to phase out station card sales by linking ride purchases to banks.

Drive-home cars can be a legitimate employee benefit--or a big luxury.

"Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee." The poet John Donne may have extolled the virtues of nudity, but the Institute in Basic Life Principles doesn't buy it. When the Christian home-schooling group arrived in Sacramento and saw an unclad statue of Poseidon outside the convention center where its week-long meeting was to be held, attendees recoiled in dismay.

Caffeine has created quite a quandary in the land of Starbucks. The drug has become so prevalent in the Seattle-area water supply that officials have had to change the way they track pollution.