Here’s my idea… Now, can WPress do it?

Dear WordPressers,

I have been designing websites for sometime now. However, I always did self updates. I have been working on two large scale site ideas now for a little while and I need to find myself an easier way to run things… hence WordPress!

However, I had a few burning questions:

1.) One of the sites is a news/resource website where I’d be having multiple user levels and multiple areas to post news on the front page, tutorials in a predetermined section, news articles in different sections… basically I would need the user to be able to select his/her “department” when they were inputting a new post so it would be posted on the correct pages. Is this possible within WordPress with or even without plugins?

2.) I know that I can use bbPress for an intergrated web forum for one of the sites (which is great) but is there a way I can display “Lastest Threads” on the front page of my site? Basically, I want to know what WordPresses limits are with its display commands. I want my visitors to be able to see from a “latest posts” display on the front page if anything has been posted on the forums or other sections since their last visit. Is this possible?

Both of these questions need to be answer for me before I can continue with the design and launch of the sites. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.