SACRAMENTO, Calif. — During his State of the State address earlier this year Gov. Gavin Newsom said an issue required urgent attention: Investment companies scooping up hundreds of homes and turning them into rentals.

He vowed to work with legislators to combat the “monopolistic behavior, and strengthen accountability, level the playing ...Read more

U.S. President Donald Trump’s interim peace deal with Iran is starting to take effect, with focus shifting to the resumption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and a complex 60-day negotiating period over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Trump signed the so-called memorandum of understanding at the Palace of Versailles near Paris on ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood silent and stone-faced behind Donald Trump on Wednesday as the president joked of passing the buck if his deal with Iran, under increasingly withering criticism and scrutiny, ultimately falls apart.

The blame, Trump said, would likely fall on his vice president, JD Vance, who led the ...Read more

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Four new members of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board began work Monday on a panel whose controversial early-release decisions have repeatedly tested Gov. JB Pritzker politically and whose most consequential decision led to the homicide of an 11-year-old Chicago boy.

The new members of the 15-member board, now occupied ...Read more

As the race to build data centers across the United States accelerates, local governments worry that the tech industry mantra of “move fast and break things” means their communities are at risk of being broken.

I’m a Harvard researcher studying the relationship between data centers and energy. I’ve closely monitored how local ...Read more

As summer in the U.S. heats up, people become more diligent about protecting their skin from the Sun. Another option for doing so will soon be available.

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first new sunscreen ingredient to be permitted for over-the-counter consumer use in the U.S. since 1999 – a ...Read more

If you walk into a Costco, Home Depot or Lowe’s and order a countertop for your kitchen renovation, the store will likely contract with a local fabrication shop, instructing them to make one from a material called engineered stone.

Often marketed as “quartz,” engineered stone is a synthetic product that contains up to 95% finely...Read more

Part of soccer’s beauty lies in its unpredictability.

Already in World Cup 2026, we have seen Morocco tie with five-time champion Brazil and Australia overturn the odds by beating Turkey. But few surprises will top a Cabo Verde team ranked 67th at the start of the tournament holding Spain – many pundits’ pick for the title – ...Read more

Every election cycle sees its share of controversial, scandal-plagued candidates running for office. But the 2026 midterm elections will feature two such candidates – one from each party – in two of the highest-profile U.S. Senate races.

In Texas, the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, recently secured the Republican Party’...Read more

In a victory speech delivered from behind a bulletproof screen, on a barge in a Caribbean river estuary, Abelardo de la Espriella vowed to hunt down Colombia’s worst criminals.

“Here is a tiger who defends the law with claws and teeth,” he told cheering supporters last month in Barranquilla, many dressed like him in the national soccer ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A bill to tighten California's rules on mental health diversion — a process that allows certain criminal defendants to avoid prison for arrests linked to mental illness — is now on the verge of being signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Assembly Bill 46, authored by Stephanie Nguyen, D-Elk Grove, gives judges much wider ...Read more

CHICAGO — The threads connecting the Obama Presidential Center to Hyde Park and the South Side began with a hopeful want ad from a Chicago organizer and piqued interest from a recent college graduate searching for something more. It was 1985 and Jerry Kellman needed help. Barack Obama needed a deeper purpose.

And so began a chain of events ...Read more

The United States has a shortage of the only first-line medication recommended for pregnant women with syphilis to prevent passing it to their baby, even as congenital syphilis rates have been skyrocketing.

Last July, drug manufacturer Pfizer issued a voluntary recall of brand name Bicillin L-A, or penicillin G benzathine — a long-acting ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — In early 2022, around the time the Omicron variant started driving a new surge in COVID-19 cases, researchers at James DeGregori's University of Colorado Anschutz lab noticed something unusual: When lab mice with dormant breast cancer cells were infected with either influenza or SARS-CoV-2, the animals were significantly more ...Read more

DENVER -- As a teenager, Jennifer Gutierrez Marquez sat in federal immigration court in Denver translating the proceedings from English to Spanish to help her undocumented parents along their path to becoming permanent U.S. residents.

Now, the 25-year-old University of Denver graduate student frequents those same courtrooms, hoping the research...Read more

SUGAR GROVE, N.C. — Year after year, Ross and Rebecca Tobiassen saw their healthcare costs rise, having relied on the Affordable Care Act for federally subsidized health insurance since its start in 2014. Year after year, the couple in western North Carolina kept their coverage, believing the peace of mind was worth the cost.

But in December,...Read more