In the mornings/afternoons I listen to the local news broadcast for weather and traffic. These affect my daily activities, I live in a commuter region of Tornado Alley and own a house that involves outdoor maintenance.
I skim my local newspaper and local feeds, sometimes there are items that directly impact my community/household that I need to consider/deal with. (Local elections, West Nile, etc...) My spouse keeps up with the more entertaining items, so I've outsourced the fluff consumption. I use a RSS reader to stay current in my work and hobbies. It allows my to filter out the cruft in a timely manner.
If I need to be knowledgable on a political, economic or other topic, I have a wide range of resources available on the web and through the local libraries. I don't often dig deeply into the serious macro-issues, the truth is very disturbing, most people can't handle it or deny it, there's little change I can make, so I limit my "briefings" to a couple of times a year.
Knowing the "true" national/global situation and being powerless, is damn depressing. Maybe I should be a sociopath, but unfortunately I'm not wired that way.