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Food stamp changes will cost states billions, raising fears about SNAP's future

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Upcoming funding shifts in the federal food stamp program are poised to cost states billions of dollars, heightening fears that more Americans will lose access to the nation’s largest food assistance program.

Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act made major changes to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, including new ...Read more

Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Even in the heart of LA, they still rely on old-fashioned landlines and don't want to lose them

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LOS ANGELES — Living high up in the Hollywood Hills, Peter and Nanci Ellis think of their landline as a lifeline.

Most days, cellphone service in their Los Feliz Oaks home near Griffith Park is so spotty that they rely on their traditional phone for medical consultations, job interviews or any call with long wait times.

But the landline is ...Read more

DANIEL SLIM/Getty Images North America/TNS

Supreme Court could end 6-person juries. For Florida, it would be a seismic shift

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Four years ago, Palm Beach County prosecutors charged a local chiropractor with practicing medicine with a suspended license amid allegations of inappropriate contact with patients.

The chiropractor, Hamed Kian, pleaded not guilty and took his case to trial. Like thousands of similarly charged defendants, he went before a jury of six people.

...Read more

Pedja Milosavljevic/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Editorial: Should the fear of soccer-based violence qualify you for asylum in the US?

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The World Cup has been an amazing spectacle and, mercifully, the sport’s notorious hooligans have been largely absent.

As soccer fans well know, hooligans are rowdy gangs that engage in violent behavior on game days. In some soccer-mad countries, they’re not just a nuisance but part of organized crime networks with ties to law-enforcement ...Read more

Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Castro's grandson's role in talks with the US divides government supporters in Cuba

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Cubans who self-describe as revolutionaries have been turning to social media to question the rapid ascent of Raúl Castro’s grandson and his role in negotiations with the Trump administration, in an unusual sign of divisions among core government supporters.

Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro has no formal government position but, as a direct...Read more

CRAIG KOHLRUSS/The Fresno Bee/TNS

A 'super' El Niño is brewing. Experts fear historic dangers from extreme weather

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LOS ANGELES — Predicting the weather is always tricky, with even the most solid forecasts sometimes not living up to the hype.

But over the last few months, the world's weather experts have become more united in the belief that we were going to be hit by a new El Niño climate pattern, and the consensus of computer models suggests it will ...Read more

Initial concerns about the cancer risk of GLP-1 drugs have made an about-face. Roberto Pfeil/Picture Alliance via Getty Images

Can Ozempic prevent cancer? A doctor explains why the headlines are easy to misread

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In the weeks around the 2026 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, my phone kept buzzing with alerts about GLP-1 drugs and cancer. The headlines were everywhere – from NPR and The Washington Post to Substack and heated exchanges on social media – all circling the same claim: Ozempic might lower the risk of cancer....Read more

Fast-moving floodwater from a storm damaged bridges and homes and broke apart Million Bible Church in Richmond, Ky., in late June 2026. Jon Cherry/Getty Images

When disaster recovery becomes a way of life: Community disaster fatigue is on the rise with more frequent floods

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Flash flooding has been tearing up communities across the U.S., with heavy downpours sending creeks and rivers rushing over their banks from Texas to Kentucky, across the Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic states and the Northeast. In Missouri, floodwater swept away a home, and National Guard helicopters had to rescue and evacuate dozens of ...Read more

In John Magee’s print, Preston Brooks wields a cane against Charles Sumner, who is clutching a pen and a rolled-up speech. John L. Magee, The New York Public Library

When a congressman beat a senator unconscious, America confronted the limits of free speech

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On May 22, 1856, Preston Brooks strode into the United States Senate chamber and beat Sen. Charles Sumner unconscious with a cane. Brooks, a South Carolina congressman, was retaliating for a speech Sumner had given condemning slavery and personally insulting a relative of Brooks.

Though lasting only a minute, the beating had far-...Read more

A statue of Francisco de Miranda stands in Cuba. Riccardo Lombardo/REDA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

For nearly 250 years, the US has had eyes on Latin America – but interventions then looked rather different

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Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, the United States has ramped up military, economic and political interventions in Latin America.

Nowhere were those three factors more clear than the U.S. abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January 2026. Since then, the Trump administration has used a mix of ...Read more

Interruptions in health insurance coverage can interfere with care and leave people with medical bills they can't pay. Pressmaster/iStock via Getty Images Plus

2.6 million Americans lost health insurance in 2025 after ACA subsidies expired, leading to real health consequences

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Millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces faced a stark choice this year: pay more than twice as much to keep the same plan or go without. Many did not keep their coverage.

Federal data released on June 26, 2026, shows that marketplace enrollment fell from 21.8 ...Read more

Delaware is appointing its first surgeon general

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Delaware became the seventh state to appoint a surgeon general with the appointment Monday of a physician to serve as the state's "principal public health communicator" and advise Gov. Matt Meyer on health matters.

Neil Hockstein, an otolaryngologist who chairs Delaware's Health Care Commission, will helm public health measures.

Meyer, a ...Read more

Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

DMV bill, with controversial data sharing, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom

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After months of back-and-forth with lawmakers, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s controversial transportation bill has been signed into law.

Newsom said it makes the state Department of Motor Vehicles more efficient and introduces provisions meant to “modernize” the agency’s function, including a provision that allows Californians to carry a digital ...Read more

Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group/TNS

Federal government pauses construction on ICE detention facility near Gilroy

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The federal government on Monday said it paused construction of U.S. Immigration and Customs detention facility near Gilroy, in a deal with Santa Clara County and the State of California.

ICE and its umbrella agency the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have declined to officially acknowledge the project, which was revealed through news ...Read more

AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

US hits Iran with strikes, blockade as Trump plans Hormuz charge

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President Donald Trump reinstated the U.S. blockade of Iranian ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz and demanded a 20% reimbursement on all other cargo shipped through the waterway.

Trump’s announcement Monday, in which he asserted the U.S. would become the waterway’s “GUARDIAN,” intensifies an ongoing spat between Washington and ...Read more

Elephant fire becomes California's second biggest of the year

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A wildfire that started Saturday has become California’s second largest of the season.

As of Monday evening, the Elephant fire had burned 12,303 acres (19 square miles) about 25 miles north of Truckee, said fire managers for the Tahoe National Forest. It was 5% contained.

An evacuation order in Lassen County that had been in place for 24 ...Read more

Igor Ivanko/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump to back Graham's Russia sanctions bill, White House says

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President Donald Trump plans to support a Russia sanctions bill championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham, according to a White House official, a move that would intensify pressure on the Kremlin to end its war in Ukraine.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. Trump’s backing would be a major win for Ukraine,...Read more

ZBIGNIEW BZDAK/Chicago Tribune/TNS

West Nile virus detected in Yuba County for the first time this year

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The West Nile virus has been detected in Yuba County for the first time this year, according to a Monday news release from the Sutter-Yuba Mosquito and Vector Control District.

Two mosquito samples collected on July 7 tested positive for the virus — one from the Hallwood area east of Marysville and another from near Wheatland.

West Nile ...Read more

Win McNamee/Getty Images North America/TNS

Judge rules Trump IRS immunity deal has no 'basis in law'

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A judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service was a “bad faith” attempt to manipulate the judicial process and barred him and his administration from citing its supposed settlement in any future regulatory or judicial proceedings.

Monday’s 56-page decision by U.S. District Judge Kathleen ...Read more

Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Feds quietly share evidence in Good and Pretti shootings with Minnesota investigators

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After months of refusing to do so, the Justice Department has turned over a substantial amount of evidence from its investigations into the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during Operation Metro Surge to state investigators, a person familiar with the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly about the details confirmed to the ...Read more