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Capt. Sean Malinowski of the Los Angeles Police Department does his crime-fighting in front of a computer screen.

He's in the LAPD's Real Time Analysis and Critical Response Division, located in a new crime data and analysis center in downtown Los Angeles. Malinowski is tracking two crimes that just occurred in south Los Angeles. Patrol cars are already on the scene. He says this facility is state of the art in real-time policing. He wants the force to be the best in predicting where criminals will strike.

Part of a monthlong series

Every Monday, Mario Barela heads to a domestic violence shelter on the west side of Phoenix to teach children of abused women how to drum. Their instruments are old paint buckets. They circle up in the cafeteria of the shelter as Barela leads.

(For the safety of families residing there, NPR can't name or share the location of the unmarked shelter or disclose the names of any of the children there.)

After nearly two years of bickering, NBA players and owners are back on the same side.

"We want to play basketball," Commissioner David Stern said.

Come Christmas Day, they should be.

The sides reached a tentative agreement early Saturday to end the 149-day lockout and hope to begin the delayed season with a marquee triple-header Dec. 25. Most of a season that seemed in jeopardy of being lost entirely will be salvaged if both sides approve the handshake deal.

Shoppers flooded stores across the country today as the holiday shopping season officially got under way and people rushed to grab Black Friday deals on electronics, toys and other merchandise.

More than 9,000 people waited outside Macy's Herald Square in New York City on Thursday night ahead of the midnight opening, according to The Associated Press. A Best Buy in St. Petersburg, Fla., had a line nearly 2,000 shoppers deep.