How do you find breaking news stories?

Bookmark AP, Reuters, NewsCorp, and other primary news sources. Get topic news alerts from NY Times, CNN, and other reputable sites, including English language sites in other countries. Add relevant sites to your favorites list, including some of the underground sites, who usually have the rebuttals to the mainstream news. The net is full of counter stories, too. Topic searches can become a lot easier if you practice a bit and get used to finding specific items. Be patient, you will wind up with a lot of info. Names are also good. People in the public eye generally have a fair bit of background, and that can be particularly useful in establishing how they happen to be involved in news. It also helps when the media mud is flying, and people are accused of associating with others, etc. All of this takes a bit of setting up. Suggest you create a folder for each topic, and set up your sources accordingly. Keep the general news sources separate, so you can get them quickly.

Just being on the internet is all the heads up and leads you need, unlike news programs and newspapers but the internet is real time and updates almost instantly, jsut run a search for whatever breaking story you are looking for and you will find several links with all you need