Ramshaw's four-parter on the rural health care condundrum and depressing take-out on sexual abuse in youth lock-ups. Ramsey on filing day follies and the untimely death of a Democratic mainstay. Aguilar on the U.S. government's detention center mea culpa. Grissom on alien deportations in the name of making our streets safer. Rapoport on the organization and association endorsement dance. Hamilton on whether coattails exist. Hu and Philpott's multimedia profile of Linda Chavez-Thompson. And Philpott on big gubernatorial campaign bucks and even bigger candidate angst over the ways journalists are using social and new media to cover them. The best of our best from January 4 to January 8, 2010.

A few days before his untimely death, Kelly Fero went Mark Katz one better.