Sarah Harris

It's a rite of passage for American teenagers: parents hand over the keys, and newly licensed drivers hit the road. Sarah Rivers is a high school junior, and she enjoys driving herself to school.

Homelessness is not just an urban phenomenon. Desiree Wieczorek spent five months living in a makeshift camp with her family near the New York-Canada border. Then her school stepped in to help.

In Canada's capital city of Ottawa, winter is something to celebrate. Every year, the city's frozen canals are transformed into an urban, outdoor ice rink at an annual winter festival.

Scientists and citizens are filling up a database on dead critters with their smartphones. The EpiCollect app pulls data such as location, speed limit and the carcass's condition. Wildlife ecologist Danielle Garneau says the project tracks animal movement and may help protect species in the future.

A Canadian Supreme Court case has the potential to change marriage across the country. In the province of Quebec, partners in a common-law marriage have no legal obligation to support each other if they separate. But that law's validity came into question when the long time de-facto spouse of a Canadian billionaire demanded alimony payments.

Stock car racing is one of America's favorite spectator sports. For the drivers at Airborne Park Speedway in Plattsburgh, N.Y., racing's an all-consuming passion that defines them and their families. Drivers from the Adirondacks, Vermont and southern Quebec head to the track on Saturdays to race cars they've built themselves.

Alburgh, Vt., is on a remote peninsula near the Canadian border. But even though the town is rural, it's always had a bank. So when its citizens learned the People's United Bank branch on Main Street was closing, they feared their community would turn into a ghost town.

Imagine racing over a frozen lake on a wind-powered sled, hitting speeds that top 40 miles an hour. That's what ice sailors all around the world do just about anywhere water freezes. In the U.S., Lake Champlain has emerged as one of the country's best ice sailing venues.