Daylight

Since she was hired two years ago as a medical assistant, Jennifer Simonsis has come to an agreement with her employer: During the winter, she gets time off to see her doctor, frequent breaks and help in setting up a light-therapy lamp at her desk. Simonsis gets workplace accommodations for seasonal affective disorder, or SAD -- depression triggered by limited daylight in winter. Pointing to a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against the disabled, some SAD sufferers say they are entitled to schedule changes, access to windows and other modifications.

It didn't take long for the Minnesota Vikings to figure out Brett Favre 's best play. Walk up to the line. Take the snap. Hand it to Adrian Peterson . After two weeks, Peterson leads all NFL rushers with 272 yards and four touchdowns, and has been the driving factor in Minnesota's 2-0 start. Sunday, the showdown: The Vikings play host to the surprising San Francisco 49ers, also 2-0, who have the NFC's No. 2 rusher in Frank Gore . Against Seattle on Sunday, Gore rushed for 207 yards, with the two longest touchdown runs of his career, 79 and 80 yards.

The residents of this city of cafes, culture and good food always thought they were different. Even when a few suicide bombers targeted the metropolis starting a couple of years back, most considered themselves relatively insulated from the worst of Pakistan's problems, the violence over the horizon in outlaw country near the Afghan border. Residents consider Lahore the arts capital of Pakistan and feel proud of its free, open atmosphere, its tolerance, sense of fun and vibrant street life.

A masked assassin with a silencer on his gun crept up behind Stanislav Markelov, a human rights lawyer with an insurgent spirit and a penchant for underdogs, and shot him dead in broad daylight on Monday. A freelance reporter with Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper was also killed in the attack.

His name rhymed with Al Capone and he came to a bad end behind the wheel of a rented white Volkswagen. Until the moment a bomb planted on his car exploded on a Tel Aviv street, mob boss Yaakov Alperon was living large. He and his Carmela Soprano-blond wife, Ahuva, were media darlings who even took part in a 2006 reality show in which a famous Israeli model moved in with their family.

Daylight Saving reminder: Turn clocks back at 2 a.m. Sunday.

The dispatcher's voice splintered the stillness of the fire station at Van Nuys Airport at 12:51 a.m. Thursday -- abruptly squelching the pilots' hopes for a night's sleep. "Reported brush. 405 Freeway south of Skirball." In less than nine minutes -- at 1 a.m. -- Glenn Smith was circling over the fire in his Bell 206 helicopter, trying to assess the situation. It looked bad.

In the land of the rising sun, no one can seem to agree on when it does. Rise, that is. Or set, for that matter. This summer, thousands of people here on Hokkaido island switched to daylight saving time, with the idea that they'd start work an hour earlier and get off in time to enjoy the long summer evenings. (More on why that didn't work out later.) But thousands of others here didn't make the switch.

Gunmen shot 12 people to death in broad daylight near the center of Culiacan on Thursday, marking one of the more bloody and brazen recent attacks in the capital of a state beset by drug trafficking and violence. The Sinaloa state prosecutor's office said armed men opened fire in an auto repair shop about 11:20 a.m., killing six people inside and three more just outside the doors.