Sometimes more than one level will appear. We don't link sidebars to some very common slugwords. You can track a standing story by looking for its slug. They established just over a dozen categories in which to place news. These generally correspond to the major sections of newspapers.
Most stories are in the financial, international, sports, usa, or washington categories.
These are usually assigned by the newswires and intended for use by newspaper editors, so some of the priority items may seem odd. Most people wouldn't consider that urgent news, but newspaper editors and reporters, who are often eligible for Pulitzer prizes, are quite interested. Each priority has its own newsgroup so that you can track the biggest stories directly. The number of urgent stories varies quite a bit. Most of the top news stories of the day fall into this category.