Over the past few decades, Halloween celebrations have gained in popularity, not only with children and families, but with all those fascinated with the spooky and scary.

As a scholar of myth and religion in popular culture, I look at Halloween with particular interest – especially the ways in which today’s Halloween tradition ...Read more

People often joke that their favorite snack is “like crack” or call themselves “chocoholics” in jest.

But can someone really be addicted to food in the same way they could be hooked on substances such as alcohol or nicotine?

As an addiction psychiatrist and researcher with experience in treating eating disorders and ...Read more

BOISE, Idaho — It’s been over a year since Idaho ended a program that allowed parents and spouses to be paid for care they provided to their family members with disabilities.

The Department of Health and Welfare terminated the Family Personal Care Services program in July 2025 after the agency said it found fraud and abuse, and didn’t ...Read more

At the top of Grassy Mountain, some 6,700 feet above sea level, seams of coal are baked into the mountainside, visible through mining in this stretch of the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Alberta from the early to mid-1900s. This and other former mines dot the picturesque mountain towns on the eastern side of the continental divide, the ...Read more

The year 2026 has been an expensive one for social media platforms.

Since March, YouTube and Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, have settled or paid out in multiple lawsuits to the tune of more than US$17 billion for allegedly acting negligently, deliberately designing their platforms to hook kids and misleading the ...Read more

Within three months of the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, the average price of gasoline for American drivers climbed from US$2.94 to $4.35 a gallon. If there was ever a moment for Americans to switch to electric vehicles, this was it.

From March to May 2026, in fact, sales of hybrid electric vehicles were 18% ...Read more

For more than 2,000 years, scientists have scratched their heads over one of the most basic mysteries of the natural world: Where do birds go?

Billions of birds appear and disappear with the seasons every year. Early naturalists offered explanations for the disappearances that today seem fantastical: Birds transformed into other ...Read more

From Alaska to Florida, there once was an important job in government that most Americans rarely thought about: the secretary of state.

That changed after the 2020 presidential election, when secretaries of state in places such as Arizona, Georgia and Michigan were thrust into battles over election results, certification and false ...Read more

When outdoor temperatures spike to 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius), or drop to -9 F (-23 C), like they did across Pennsylvania last year, people locked up in jails and prisons cannot simply turn on the air conditioning or find a public warming center.

For several years, people in custody, advocates and local media have ...Read more

Treating pregnant women’s depression with a short course of talk therapy doesn’t just improve their health – it can also shape how their babies’ brains develop before birth. That’s the finding of a new study we co-authored, published in the journal Nature Communications.

The study is part of an ongoing research project that ...Read more

In October 2024, right before the presidential election, I had coffee with Kim, a Congolese asylum-seeker living in southern Maine. Our conversation quickly turned to politics, and I cautiously asked about her views, although she could not vote.

During his campaign, Donald Trump had vowed mass deportations, and I assumed immigration ...Read more

A fast-moving wildfire in Orange County burned homes and forced evacuations Friday as powerful Santa Ana winds fueled a growing outbreak of blazes across Southern California.

The Norte Fire emerged Friday morning, prompting evacuation orders in San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano and burning 465 acres (188 hectares) as of 6:30 p.m. local time...Read more

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump waived massive tariffs linked to Russian energy exports mandated in a law that he signed last month, as the measures complicated his push to lower diesel prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.

Trump invoked a waiver clause under the law, which was championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham as a way to ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Fierce Santa Ana winds caused a chaotic afternoon as a fast-moving fire burned through multiple hillside homes in south Orange County while a nearby blaze in San Onofre shut down the 5 Freeway for hours.

Hot, smoky conditions forced residents in San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano to flee and created traffic gridlock from ...Read more

Sean "Diddy" Combs has been relocated to a new prison, following reports of lavish prison perks and a head injury that saw him hospitalized.

The 56-year-old was transferred on Friday from FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey to FCI Allenwood, a low-security prison in Pennsylvania, a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson confirmed with the Los Angeles Times.

...Read more

AURORA, Ill. — Weeks before his gun jammed outside a Hindu temple in Aurora, Alexandros Paporakis, 19, of Palatine, etched his name at the bottom of a guardianship petition filed by a close family friend. At the same time, prosecutors say, the self-identified white supremacist’s rhetoric toward Indian people was growing more frequent and ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Hackers have stolen the data — including names, addresses and disability records — of millions of current and former California public school students who took the state’s mandated standardized tests that annually assess their academic proficiency, education officials announced Friday.

The compromised information affects ...Read more

CALGARY, Canada — More than 1 million people have already cast their ballots in Alberta’s referendum on separation from Canada, signaling strong voter turnout that pollsters say may favor the “remain” side.

A spokesperson for the province’s election agency said more than 525,000 people voted in the first three days of in-person ...Read more

A judge threatened to sanction President Donald Trump for failing to sit for a mandatory deposition in the $10 billion defamation suit he filed against the British Broadcasting Corp.

“The court has admonished plaintiff for his lack of participation to no avail,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjolique A. Lett said in a brief order in Miami. “...Read more

DETROIT — Michigan State University broke the law by taking 17 months to notify the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs that one of its medical resident physicians was removed from patient care following allegations of sexual assault.

MSU was alerted to allegations of sexual assault when a patient called the university police...Read more