NEW YORK — A Manhattan judge on Tuesday denied Ghislaine Maxwell’s self-represented, Hail Mary bid to get out of prison, finding the “rambling petition” brought by Jeffrey Epstein’s madame meritless.

The Manhattan Federal Court petition filed by the British former socialite in December argued that new information arising in related ...Read more

LANSING, Mich. — President Donald Trump floated the idea of changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in a social media post Tuesday 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

The grieving family of Alex Pretti broke their silence Tuesday on his killing by federal immigration agents on the streets of Minneapolis last winter, demanding answers about the shooting death and justice for their slain son.

The ICU nurse’s parents and sister said Pretti was documenting President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte-based triathlete and coach was attacked by an alligator while training in the Savannah River along the border between South Carolina and Georgia, according to police.

The victim has been identified as 31-year-old Jonathan Bruney of Charlotte, and his injuries were not life-threatening, officials said.

The attack...Read more

BALTIMORE — The death of a 31-year-old man whose body was found at a ground-floor apartment fire in Baltimore’s Cherry Hill neighborhood has been ruled a homicide, the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed to The Baltimore Sun on Tuesday.

The ruling provides the first official determination of the manner of death for ...Read more

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