A Sacramento software startup has launched an iPhone application for runners that picks music to go with a workout and can add customized coaching instructions along with the beat. When users pay to download the coaching data, a donation goes to a nonprofit of the coach’s choice.

Somebody stole Derek Finstad’s backpack.

He left it in the locker room at a gym in Yuba City, where he works. But when he went to retrieve it, the backpack — with his keys, checkbook and other materials — was gone. Finstad wasn’t happy.

After 19 years of struggling to belong, Juanita Nicolas found the students at Wilson Riles Middle School. As a youth aid, the teenager tutored 40 students, many in the foster care system just as she had been before emancipation a year earlier.

Sometimes small things can make big differences. Whether it’s a dry towel, a warm hat or advice on how to create a budget, a little bit of time can have a positive impact on one of Sacramento County’s 4,000 foster youth, many of whom don’t have anyone to provide these basics.

When a mangy white cat wandered out of the oak woodland and into the lap of Lynne Powlesland, the Folsom resident knew immediately that she had made a new friend.

Financial donations to the 83-year-old Stockton Symphony are down sharply, yet shows are selling out.