PHILADELPHIA – He found masses of pollen as thick as “oatmeal,” and once discovered that grains from palm trees had ridden the winds for hundreds of miles to reach his front porch.

For 17 years, Timothy Craig intercepted the airborne gametes of trees, grasses, and weeds with a whirling trap, assiduously examined the captives with a ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Less than 24 hours before the Florida Legislature passed the state’s first medical marijuana law in May 2014, Matt Gaetz and other members of the state House of Representatives rewrote the bill to limit who would be able to get in on the ground floor of what has since become a billion-dollar business.

A number of Gaetz’s ...Read more

More states are moving to extend Medicaid benefits to new mothers up to a full year after giving birth, far beyond the 60 days required by federal law.

That development, promoted by numerous medical groups as well as official state medical boards that focus on maternal health, reflects increasing alarm over the United States’ maternal ...Read more

Rob Wohl, a COVID-19 vaccine outreach worker in Northern Virginia, said his best day on the job was when he walked into a white-tablecloth Chinese restaurant in Falls Church, Virginia, in April to see whether he could sign up employees for vaccinations.

He arrived right before the lunch rush, which turned out to be perfect timing. “The ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Carlos Gauna surveys the wind-blown waves off a popular Santa Barbara County beach. It is a cold, gray afternoon and only a few people are in the water: a father teaching his son to surf, a lone man wading in the whitewash.

Gauna launches his video drone, hoping to spy what might be moving stealthily among them — great white ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Across the Bay Area, vaccinated people are venturing onto breezy restaurant patios, visiting with small groups of inoculated friends and hitting hiking trails unmasked. The science says the risk of getting or transmitting the coronavirus in such scenarios is very low.

But there’s another group of residents who, even after...Read more

WASHINGTON — Republicans across the U.S. can thank the Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Roberts as they enact the country’s most significant voting restrictions in generations.

The court’s watershed 2013 Shelby County ruling created a glide path for many of election changes GOP-controlled legislatures are pushing this year. The ...Read more

LOS ANGELES – Chrystal Bougon cried after the needle went into her arm. Not because her first dose of the Moderna vaccine hurt. But because, finally, being fat actually paid off.

The 53-year-old was inoculated in the parking lot of Kaiser Permanente in San José on a rainy Friday in March, four days after eligibility in California was ...Read more

LaKeith Stanfield apologized Friday for participating in an anti-Semitic social media conversation.

Stanfield, 29, did not say anything anti-Semitic himself, but was a moderator of a Clubhouse room in which other people spewed Jewish hatred Wednesday night, The Daily Beast reported.

“At some point during the dialogue the discussion took a ...Read more

More than 1.7 million people traveled on airplanes Friday in the U.S., the highest single-day passenger total since March 12, 2020.

No day had topped 1.7 million passengers in the previous 14 months, according to Transportation Security Administration data.

The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic on March 11, 2020, the ...Read more

LOS ANGELES —It was the late 1980s, and “Bachelor Party” actress Tawny Kitaen wasn’t necessarily looking for small-screen stardom. But the U.K. hard-rock band Whitesnake was shooting a promo, and its director decided it needed a star. Kitaen, who would later marry frontman David Coverdale, agreed to lend her fierce looks, fiery mane and...Read more

LOS ANGELES — At Los Angeles City Hall, everything is suddenly up in the air.

With Mayor Eric Garcetti again in the running for a post in the Biden administration — this time as U.S. ambassador to India — politicians, bureaucrats, activists and others are trying to figure out what a mayoral departure would mean for the city and its most ...Read more

NEW YORK — The New York State Attorney General’s Office is expanding its investigation into Gov. Andrew Cuomo, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The probe, focused on sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo, will now look at whether one of the governor’s top advisers linked support ...Read more

LONDON — Sadiq Khan was re-elected as Mayor of London but only after an unexpected surge in support for his main rival threatened to give Boris Johnson’s Conservatives their biggest prize of this week’s British elections.

As the incumbent Labour Party candidate, Khan was the runaway favorite to win the contest and keep his job but Shaun ...Read more

Former President Barack Obama Saturday mourned the loss of his family’s pet dog, Bo, who lived in the White House with the first family for nearly all eight years of his presidency.

“Our family lost a true friend and loyal companion,” Obama wrote on Twitter. “Bo was a constant, gentle presence in our lives — happy to see us on our ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s latest population estimates show that Paradise — the Northern California town ravaged by the Camp Fire in 2018 — has seen the fastest population growth in the state in the last year.

Fueled by housing construction, the population of Paradise rose from 4,608 people as of Jan. 1, 2020, up to 6,046 a year ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s ambitious $400 billion plan to improve in-home care for the elderly and lift wages for millions of workers may be limited by states’ ability to opt out, based on early proposals from Congress.

The leading legislative draft in discussion would channel the funds through the U.S. government health-insurance...Read more