The City Council of Pueblo, Colorado, voted to ban the distribution of syringes through syringe service programs starting in May 2024.

Also called needle exchanges, these programs are run by community organizations that provide healthcare services. The impetus for the ban, as council members noted, was syringe litter in public spaces....Read more

If being outside in the heat for even a few minutes felt miserable this summer, imagine what it’s like for herders who are always out walking with their livestock and rarely get a break.

“We have never experienced such hot days,” a woman herder in northern Kenya told our research team in 2024. “It is difficult to [do things] ...Read more

As wildfire smoke plumes travel thousands of miles, sunlight and atmospheric chemistry bleach their color, strip away their campfire aroma and add them to the mix of urban smog.

Smoky skies plagued the East Coast and Midwest again in summer 2026, as wildfires hundreds of miles away forced people to cancel sports practices and run air ...Read more

Standing in your local retail store, it can be mind-boggling to try to weigh the pros and cons of all the packaging options. Take shampoo, for example. Shampoo can come in a rigid plastic bottle, a flexible squeeze tube, a refillable metal canister or a solid bar in a paperboard box.

Trying to make environmentally friendly or socially...Read more

On Election Day in 2024, as voters cast their ballots, Elon Musk posted a campaign music video supporting Donald Trump’s bid for president.

Set to Van Halen’s “Jump,” with a montage of 1980s cultural references and images of Trump in various strongman poses, the video includes a line about “PATRIOTS” in which the “O” ...Read more

In the lead-up to the 2026 midterm elections, how is the U.S. government performing in terms of human rights? Listening to politicians, it can be difficult to know.

On one hand, some have pointed to a number of potential human rights abuses committed by the U.S. government inside and outside its borders in the past two years.

...Read more

Lactose intolerance makes drinking milk or eating ice cream a literal pain. For some people, eating a dairy treat can lead to bloating, nausea and diarrhea. You might’ve experienced its effects yourself. If so, you may think of lactose intolerance as a defect rather than the norm.

But did you know that most people in the world today...Read more

LANSING, Mich. — President Donald Trump floated the idea of changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in an Aug. 25 social media post, amid an intensifying feud with Canada.

The Republican president posted about the possibility of the name switch at about 7 a.m. Last year, he issued an order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — The National Hurricane Center on Tuesday increased the odds one system in the Atlantic could become the next tropical depression or storm, while dropping chances on a second Atlantic system it had been tracking.

As of the NHC’s 8 a.m. tropical advisory, the more likely of the two, and the one of more concern to Florida, was ...Read more

Beijing threatened to retaliate against the U.S. and signaled it won’t back away from its cooperation with Iran after the Trump administration’s latest sanctions targeted businesses in China and Hong Kong.

Speaking on Tuesday at a regular press briefing in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian gave China’s first official reaction ...Read more

Andy Burnham sits on a bench in Kyiv with three Ukrainian soldiers who are being treated for serious injuries suffered on the frontline. Their conversation, through a translator, is not easy: what do you say to a young man whose body is covered in deep wounds and held together by metal pins?

One tells his story. A Russian attack sprayed ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — With scorching temperatures forecast this week across Southern California, L.A. city and county agencies are preparing for worst-case scenarios.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department said in a statement Monday that the county was "augmenting staffing and pre-positioning personnel and resources" to ensure a rapid response to ...Read more

The national debt now exceeds $40 trillion. That equals roughly $117,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

The number is shocking, but the direction should worry us even more. Washington no longer borrows only during wars, recessions or national emergencies. The federal government now runs huge structural deficits every year....Read more

CHICAGO — The search for the next leader of the Chicago Police Department entered a new phase last week as the city agency responsible for vetting candidates retained an executive search firm to winnow down future applicants.

Despite a plea from a police oversight commissioner to amend a city ordinance, Mayor Brandon Johnson is expected to ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If you haven’t seen one, you’ve probably at least heard of the controversial camera system that snaps photos of license plates and shares a name with groups of birds: Flock.

An Atlanta-based company, Flock cameras have been touted by law enforcement officers for helping solve crimes like thefts and missing people.

They ...Read more

The new mission for casino operators: Look less like casinos.

New developments, including one planned by New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, tout their outdoor spaces and amenities. Older gaming halls are remodeling to add natural light, upscale restaurants and gathering places like bowling alleys.

The new options are designed to shed local ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The United States is set to impose a 7.5% tariff on Chinese goods over allegations of excess manufacturing capacity before a planned summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump next month, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move would restore Trump’s second-term duties on China to around 20%, a level Beijing has ...Read more

Aimee Bock, the convicted ringleader of the massive Feeding Our Future scheme, said the U.S. government failed to prove she knew the scope of the fraud passing through her nonprofit in asking an appeals court to overturn her conviction.

Bock, 45, was sentenced in May to 41 years in prison for using Feeding Our Future to steal millions from a ...Read more

The Department of Homeland Security said Monday several people with serious criminal records, including gang members and men convicted of sex crimes involving minors, were among more than 160 people deported to Haiti last week.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flight was the first deportation flight to Haiti since the U.S. ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — California Supreme Court justices hammered Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco over his seizure of hundreds of thousands of Proposition 50 ballots in a pair of back-to-back hearings on Monday, appearing poised to order the ballots returned and sharply limit the sheriff’s power to snatch similar election materials in the future...Read more