Imagine a future where, despite efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions quickly, parts of the world have become unbearably hot. Some governments might decide to “geoengineer” the planet by spraying substances into the upper atmosphere to form fine reflective aerosols – a process known as stratospheric aerosol injection.

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LOS ANGELES — No grade level suffered a steeper enrollment drop during the COVID-19 pandemic than kindergarten, driven by what many parents saw as the futility of placing a 5-year-old in front of a computer all day.

When campuses reopened, enrollment somewhat rebounded, but an overall downward trend deeply worried educators, knowing the harm ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney on Tuesday signed an executive order banning the possession of firearms and other deadly weapons at city recreation centers and playgrounds, a move that could reignite a long-standing debate about whether the city should be able to write its own gun laws.

The action came weeks after Tiffany ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Can you get the COVID-19 booster and flu shot at the same time? For Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, the answer is simple.

“I really believe this is why God gave us two arms — one for the flu shot and the other one for the COVID shot,” he quipped during a recent briefing.

As public health ...Read more

A lawyer for Alec Baldwin called for a district attorney review of the “Rust” shooting “without unfounded speculation and innuendo” by the media following comments that the actor could be charged.

Santa Fe County District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said this month in an emergency funding request for her investigation that four ...Read more

As mandatory evacuations for Hurricane Ian began in Florida and the warnings about damaging wind and flooding intensified, I called my aging parents to check in.

Being a disaster researcher, my concern for them was already in high gear, even though they weren’t directly in an evacuation zone. My dad takes medications that require ...Read more

PITTSBURGH — Because there are no cell towers where she lives for GPS monitoring, the U.S. now wants the "pink hat lady" confined to her rural Mercer County home pending trial on charges of smashing into the Capitol on Jan. 6.

A D.C. judge last week ordered that Rachel Powell, a mother of eight originally from Sandy Lake, be on GPS ...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Hurricane Ian is strengthening as it heads toward Florida and then South Carolina, bringing with it heavy rains, potential flooding — and possibly alligators.

The scaly critters have been known to show up in spots they wouldn’t otherwise visit because of hurricane flooding. Thanks to smartphones, alligator sightings have ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — With hundreds of bills awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto or approval, dozens of undocumented immigrant workers and allies are crossing the state in a two-day vehicle caravan to pressure him to sign legislation that would extend unemployment benefits to all Californians regardless of immigration status.

The caravan is ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA made the call Monday to guard against Hurricane Ian and got the slow gears rolling before midnight to send its Artemis I mission hardware back to the garage at Kennedy Space Center.

The 5.75 million-pound, 322-foot-tall combination of Space Launch System rocket, mobile launcher and Orion spacecraft endured yet another 4-...Read more

ATLANTA — The home of an Alabama construction executive was targeted and vandalized last week, authorities said, apparently due to his company’s ties to Atlanta’s planned police and fire training center.

Vandals targeted the Birmingham-area home of M. Miller Gorrie, the chairman of Brasfield & Gorrie, which is a primary contractor for the...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — The arrest of a prominent Catholic activist on charges he assaulted a Planned Parenthood volunteer outside a Philadelphia clinic has sparked a standoff between the antiabortion movement and the federal government, and battle lines are being drawn over the wider significance of the case.

Federal prosecutors have charged Mark ...Read more

Like the Waffle House, Walt Disney World rarely closes.

With the threat of Hurricane Ian to Central Florida, will Disney shut things down for now?

As of Tuesday, the theme park resort plans to be up and running with the exception of a few attractions and accommodations.

What’s open

The major theme parks, including Magic Kingdom, Animal ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ message on Hurricane Ian was clear on Tuesday morning: “It is now a major hurricane.”

That was his first message during a Tuesday morning briefing in Tallahassee as the storm churned roughly 200 miles south of the Florida Keys, and slowly moved north at about 12 miles per hour into the Gulf...Read more

MIAMI — Hurricane Ian’s project path shifted slightly Tuesday, on a track that would push the powerful storm’s to an earlier potential landfall south of the Tampa Bay area — a small but significant change for a Gulf Coast vulnerable to storm surge.

If the track holds — and forecasts stress that it may still change — it could reduce ...Read more

BALTIMORE — At trial more than two decades ago, DNA analysis didn’t help Baltimore prosecutors convince a jury to find Adnan Syed guilty in the killing of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee.

Twenty-two years later, the results of new DNA analysis on evidence collected in the 1999 homicide could be the last bit of information Baltimore State’s...Read more

LOS ANGELES — California is entering the fall with coronavirus in retreat.

Cases have fallen significantly from the height of the omicron wave this spring and summer, and that has allowed government officials to ease both mask rules and recommendations.

But health experts are warning these conditions could change as the weather cools, people...Read more

In a world first, NASA has crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in an attempt to push the rocky traveler off its trajectory. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test – or DART – is meant to test one potential approach that could prevent an asteroid from colliding with Earth. David Barnhart is a professor of astronautics at the University of ...Read more

Cuba’s westernmost province has been battered by Category 3 Hurricane Ian during the early hours of Tuesday, leaving destruction and uncertainty among the residents of small towns and the city of Pinar del Río.

“Desolation and destruction, we lived hours of terror; nothing is left here,” said the father of state journalist Lazaro Manuel ...Read more