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Maryland church fined $1,000 a day by city over homeless shelter

Current News / News & Features /

BALTIMORE — An Ocean City church is now facing daily $1,000 fines for operating an indoor homeless shelter that town officials say violates local zoning regulations, escalating a months-long dispute over how the resort should address homelessness.

Church officials said the first daily citation was delivered by Ocean City’s planning director...Read more

Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader/TNS

Kentucky State expects 20% drop in undergrads due to program cuts, strict enrollment rules

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — The number of undergraduate students at Kentucky’s only historically Black university is expected to shrink by 20% by spring 2027, officials said Monday.

Students will be required to meet tougher academic and financial requirements, and some academic programs will be cut by the Fall semester due to a law passed by ...Read more

Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel/TNS

NASA to unveil 4 astronauts to fly on Artemis III mission

Current News / News & Features /

They won’t be flying to the moon, but will be paving the way. NASA is set to announce today the four astronauts assigned to Artemis III, a mission targeting launch from Kennedy Space Center next year.

The agency will reveal the crew during an event slated for 11:30 a.m. from Johnson Space Center in Houston, which will stream on NASA’s ...Read more

How Epstein tried exploiting Haiti aid efforts for ulterior motives

Current News / News & Features /

For Jeffrey Epstein, the relief efforts following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and devastated the Caribbean nation’s economy were just another opportunity to promote himself.

The earthquake struck about six months after Epstein had finished his jail sentence in Palm Beach County on solicitation ...Read more

Nancy Lane/Boston Herald/TNS

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's financial chief warns City Council off further budget changes that would lead to layoffs

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BOSTON — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s financial chief urged the City Council to stick to an $8-9 million budget amendment package proposed by the Council’s Ways and Means chair, warning that further changes would lead to city layoffs.

Chief Financial Officer Ashley Groffenberger said amendments proposed by councilors other than Ways and ...Read more

Costa Mesa/TNS

Push to install license plate readers comes amid questions about how data are shared

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LOS ANGELES — Since its creation more than a century ago, the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting has been in the lamppost business and little else.

But in recent months, the little-known city agency has found itself pulled into a fierce debate over L.A.'s relationship with Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company that has been ...Read more

Pedro Portal/Miami Herald/TNS

Miami police investigating online threats against city commissioner

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MIAMI — The Miami Police Department is investigating threats against City Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela that appeared in the comment section of a recent video posted to Instagram by filmmaker Billy Corben.

The investigation lands amid ongoing tensions between Gabela and Corben, who has posted several videos to Instagram in recent weeks ...Read more

John Lamparski/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul extends bar hours for FIFA World Cup

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NEW YORK — When the games are on, the bars will be open.

With the FIFA World Cup just around the corner, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday signed a bill allowing bars across New York to stay open until 4 a.m. for the duration of the tournament. The competition runs from June 11 through July 20 and will feature more than 100 matches across the ...Read more

Smoke and ash contain chemicals that can harm wildland firefighters, and not just when they breathe it in. White River National Forest/BLM via Flickr

Firefighters face a higher risk of skin cancer – nano fabrics with tiny, rough fibers can help keep them safer

Current News / News & Features /

Wildland firefighters are exposed to a mix of harmful chemicals in the smoke they breathe and the ash and soot that gets on their clothing. Over long assignments fighting fires that can last for days to weeks, those chemicals can be absorbed by their skin.

Some of those chemicals are carcinogens. A 2025 study found that firefighters ...Read more

Teens experience newfound freedoms as they enter college. FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images

Summer between high school graduation and college is a critical time for preventing risky behaviors – here’s how parents can play a key role

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Early summer is a valuable time for parents and young people to prepare for the transition to college in the fall.

As first-year college students arrive on campus every fall, a predictable pattern unfolds. Rates of heavy drinking spike, social pressures intensify, and the risk of sexual assault, injury and other harms increases.

...Read more

In fall 2024, Tampa and other Florida cities on the Gulf coast were hit by hurricanes Helene and Milton within 13 days of each other. Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images

Home insurance and the unraveling of Florida communities

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While visiting family in St. Petersburg, Florida, in November 2024, I found myself walking down a quiet residential street in Shore Acres, a low-lying, bayfront neighborhood not far from where I grew up.

Two months earlier, Hurricane Helene had sent several feet of water into homes here, even though the center of the storm had stayed ...Read more

Are you allowed to walk on the beach? Maybe Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

Who is allowed to walk on the beach? It depends on where you live

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Summer is here – the perfect time to take a walk on a beach. But doing so is not always as simple as it might sound.

In Wisconsin, for instance, a legal case has stretched for months over whether Paul Florsheim may keep walking on a Lake Michigan beach he has walked for over 50 years.

In July 2025, Florsheim, a retired ...Read more

Xi cements sway over North Korea as Kim names China top priority

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Kim Jong Un feted Chinese President Xi Jinping with two days of lavish celebrations in Pyongyang, calling ties with China a “top priority” in a clear message that Beijing, not Moscow, remains North Korea’s most important partner.

Kim’s description of the relationship as “the most important top-priority strategic work” goes beyond ...Read more

Trump says peace talks on track after Israel-Iran clash ends

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U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his claims of momentum toward ending the conflict with Iran, after brokering a halt to hostilities between Israel and the Islamic Republic and easing tensions that had threatened to derail broader peace efforts.

“We’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal,” Trump told reporters in ...Read more

NYC could be facing massive $8.8 billion budget gap next year, comptroller says

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NEW YORK – A dark cloud could be looming over the city’s fiscal situation, City Comptroller Mark Levine says — with a massive massive budget gap of $8.8 billion projected for next year.

That gap exceeds the mayor’s projected outer budget gap of $7.1 billion by almost two billion.

“In plain English, this all means that we are kicking ...Read more

New evidence confirms Edison's idle line ignited Eaton fire, lawyers say

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LOS ANGELES — New surveillance footage and other evidence from Southern California Edison confirms that a century-old, idle transmission line that the utility failed to remove ignited last year's deadly Eaton wildfire, lawyers for insurers said in a court filing.

Video obtained from a surveillance camera at Gerrish Swim & Tennis Club in ...Read more

Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group/TNS

When evacuation fails, should wildfire communities have a backup refuge?

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As wildfire researchers warn that some communities do not have enough roads to evacuate safely, they are also raising a fraught question: Should fire-risk neighborhoods have designated refuge areas for people who cannot get out?

A new study that found wildfire deaths in California and across the U.S. between 2008 and 2024 were concentrated in ...Read more

Xavier Mascareñas/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

Animal welfare rules might be rolled back by Congress

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Congress is looking to roll back state animal welfare laws as it wrangles over reauthorization of the federal farm bill.

The farm bill, which Congress generally reworks every five years, includes money and federal rules for food assistance programs, farm subsidies, and other ag-related programs.

A pending version of the legislation includes ...Read more

Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times/TNS

Florida's international students are graduating. Travel bans put them in limbo

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TAMPA, Fla. — Arshia Esmaeilian had dreamed of coming to America as long as he could remember.

Esmaeilian and his brother were born in Iran but raised in Dubai, their parents believing the move could pave a more direct path to higher education in the West.

And it did. Esmaeilian graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry last month ...Read more

Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News/TNS

A Trump stronghold grapples with health risks of ICE detention sites

Current News / News & Features /

SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. — Until recently, this rural city about 45 minutes east of Atlanta was best known for its Blue Willow Inn cookbooks featuring recipes for Southern dishes such as baked pineapple casserole and kudzu blossom jelly.

Lately, however, the community has been trying to stave off a new identity of "prison town" as it fights the ...Read more