SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Legislature passed a bill Wednesday that would require the state to track the use of pesticides that contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS chemicals, which can be harmful to humans.

The bill, by Assembly member Nick Schultz, a Democrat, heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who can ...Read more

Vape pens and other disposable e-cigarettes could soon be illegal in California.

On Wednesday, the state assembly approved Assembly Bill 762, which if signed by the governor, will make the battery-powered disposable devices illegal to manufacture, distribute or sell in the state. The bill passed the state Senate on Tuesday.

“We are hopeful ...Read more

Temperatures have warmed dramatically across the equatorial Pacific Ocean in 2026, signaling the onset of a strong and potentially historic El Niño. These events can affect weather around the world, and the intensity of recent El Niño events is raising alarm that, as global temperatures rise, these natural events are becoming stronger and ...Read more

For much of the last year, Alphabet Inc. has been the Big Tech stock to beat as investors bet that it was the most-likely winner from the artificial intelligence boom.

Alphabet shares hit an all-time high on May 13 after soaring more than 150% in the previous 12 months, putting them among the 25 best performers in the S&P 500 Index over that ...Read more

When a wildfire threatens a community, most people don’t think to ask whether the firefighters coming to help slept enough the night before, recovered from the previous day’s shift or have enough energy left for another day on the fire line. They simply expect firefighters to show up.

But that workforce is increasingly being ...Read more

DENVER -- Between the Artemis II moon mission in April, the recent cosmic light shows from solar and lunar eclipses, and the Perseid meteor shower, excitement for real-life astronomy is soaring among kids.

All you have to do, really, is look up. Star-driven, Hollywood blockbusters such as Matt Damon’s “The Martian” and Ryan Gosling’s �...Read more

LOS ANGELES — In the last few years, multiple studies have shown that global warming is intensifying drought and worsening water scarcity in California and the western United States.

Now, scientists have found that a group of polluters is responsible for a large share of this drying.

In their study, published this week in the journal ...Read more

Over 368,000 miles of roads wind through U.S. national forests, eight times more than the entire interstate highway system. Many are heavily eroded and prone to landslides, and driving vehicles on them can spread invasive species. They need billions of dollars in repairs.

Yet the Trump administration wants to build more roads in ...Read more

Florida gets a lot of attention for its sinkholes, especially when they swallow cars and entire houses. But its sinkhole risk has nothing on Alaska’s.

Much of Alaska’s soil is permafrost – ground that remains below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) for at least two consecutive years. It is often rich with ice, but when ...Read more

Meta Platforms Inc. agreed to implement a raft of restrictions for teens on its Facebook and Instagram apps as part of a multibillion-dollar settlement with multiple U.S. states on Wednesday. The landmark agreement requires the company to put new guardrails on Facebook and Instagram, including limits on how much time youths can spend scrolling ...Read more

Bill Gates wants to tax robots.

Specifically, Gates is calling for a tax on artificial intelligence automated systems, like tokens and robots, that employers may use to slowly replace human workers as the technology evolves.

The idea might sound absurd on its face, which the Microsoft co-founder acknowledges in a memo released Wednesday on his...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX drove the Space Coast’s record 109 launches last year with a frenetic pace of missions dedicated to its Starlink internet constellation.

That spigot has been turned off, the company’s vice president of launch said after a Starlink mission that launched early Tuesday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

“This ...Read more

Choosing the right over-the-head headphones comes down to this: how you'll use them, how much you want to spend, and the headphones’ features: size, portability, and, most importantly, sound.

The choices are endless, and I often use this as a reference: type “over the head headphones” into Amazon's search bar, and you’ll see results ...Read more

This week, a reader writes, “Do you know why and how to fix problems that I am experiencing on some of my annual calendar alerts? For instance, I did not get either yesterday’s 1 day before or today’s 1 hour alert to give my dog his heartworm medication nor did I get the alerts I had set up to remind me of my adult son’s July birthday....Read more

When the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or Eniac, was first built by the University of Pennsylvania for the U.S. Army in 1946, it weighed about 30 tons and had 18,000 vacuum tubes that filled an expansive room. The speed of that first programmable, general-purpose digital computer was about 5,000 hertz, which means it could ...Read more

A new nonprofit founded by former Google researchers wants to keep humans at the center of AI development to ensure that the powerful technology is safe and less likely to escape its creators.

It’s a kind of riposte to what tech companies are currently doing in many cases: using artificial intelligence to oversee artificial intelligence. ...Read more

Remember when the toilet on NASA’s manned, moon-bound rocket ship malfunctioned this spring?

Well, the astronauts who were there do. NC State students got the full, behind-the-scenes story on Tuesday from mission specialist Christina Koch, who dealt with the toilet malfunction firsthand.

Koch, who flew to the dark side of the moon on the ...Read more

A former data scientist at Meta Platforms Inc. testified that less than 1% of teenagers were early adopters of a feature designed to get them to take a break from scrolling on Instagram.

George Volichenko — who worked on the platform’s mental well-being team from April 2022 to February 2023 — told a jury that the tool’s initial impact ...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