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SpaceX/TNS

SpaceX updates Starship progress in Florida ahead of next Texas launch

ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX is set for its next Starship and Super Heavy test mission from Texas now set for Friday because of poor weather Thursday from Tropical Storm Bertha. It’s the next step on Elon Musk’s company’s path to operational launches from Florida.

Now pushed by one day, it’s targeting what would be the 13th suborbital ...Read more

Al Diaz/Miami Herald/TNS

Coral rescue efforts ramp up in Miami as researchers fear another deadly hot year

MIAMI — As underwater temperatures continue to soar in South Florida, the coral shuffle has begun.

Scientists are eyeing any coral that isn’t tied down and making plans to move them somewhere safe: to deeper waters, to a shaded spot or even to land-based aquariums. They hope to avoid the disaster of 2023, when waters got so hot that a ...Read more

Simon Lehmann/Dreamstime.com/TNS

Judge approves Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement with authors

Anthropic will pay $1.5 billion to authors whose pirated books it used to train its AI in the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history.

Federal Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin in Oakland, California, granted final approval of the settlement Monday. The record payout was a modest win for copyright holders, setting a precedent as a wave of AI-...Read more

Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel/TNS

New Fort Lauderdale plant will turn yellow drinking water clear. But experts say old pipes may discolor it again

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Fort Lauderdale officials say all that yellow water flowing from the tap will disappear when the city’s pricey new water plant is fully operational later this year.

That claim is being met with deep-seated skepticism from experts who say the city’s network of old, unlined cast-iron pipes that snake underneath Fort ...Read more

Leigh Diprose/Dreamstime/TNS

Formerly endangered ospreys bounce back in record numbers in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania may now have more ospreys than in pre-Colonial times, according to a biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

Osprey nest reports have increased 37-fold since the 1980s, according to surveys for the third Pennsylvania Bird Atlas. Unlike bald eagles, which glide as they fish, ospreys hover over the water, then dive, punching...Read more

Tom Gralish/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

Suburb is paying the feds to 'harass' geese with lasers, pyrotechnics, and boats

PHILADELPHIA -- Like many American suburbs, Abington, Pennsylvania, accidentally spent centuries building a goose paradise. Now, the feds will help the township evict the waterfowl from their ideal habitat.

Abington Township approved a contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 9 for Canada goose abatement in Alverthorpe Park, ...Read more

The spoon-billed sandpiper, a small wading bird, flies nearly 5,000 miles (8,000 km) on its annual migration. Tareq's Photography/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

More than half of Earth’s migratory bird species are declining – here’s how we can still save them

Every year, billions of migratory birds connect the world’s continents, oceans and ecosystems as they undertake epic journeys between their foraging habitats and their breeding grounds.

A bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) leaves its breeding grasslands of North America for the Pampas of South America. A Newell’s shearwater (...Read more

Sydney Brammer/The San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS

Air purifier program restarts for San Diego-area residents impacted by Tijuana River pollution

SAN DIEGO — A program that distributes air purifiers to residents of San Diego's South Bay region who are affected by the Tijuana River sewage crisis is accepting applications again after a two-month suspension due to a lack of funding, county Supervisor Paloma Aguirre said Wednesday.

Bethany Case, a 17-year resident of Imperial Beach, is one...Read more

KARL MONDON/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

They built AI. Now Silicon Valley workers protest its threat to jobs and humanity

Silicon Valley residents are increasingly trying to stop the advance of artificial intelligence, even as the region attracts hundreds of billions of dollars in investment to expand the technology's reach.

Companies and workers around San Francisco Bay sparked the global AI explosion. Now, the nation's tech hub also sits at the center of an ...Read more

Nicolaus Czarnecki/Boston Herald/TNS

EPA loosens restrictions on lobster boat diesel engines

The Environmental Protection Agency is announcing a new exemption that the Trump administration says will loosen environmental regulations on diesel engines for U.S. commercial lobstermen.

The EPA is exempting a new lobster boat model from Tier 4 engine requirements, which were adopted in 2008. It’s something the federal agency says will, for...Read more

L.E. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

Could Congress help save Lake Mead? That may require emergency cash

LAS VEGAS — As Lake Mead begins its nosedive toward historic lows, a bipartisan group of 12 Western representatives in Congress is calling for emergency funding to help fund solutions.

One of the officials who sent a letter to House leadership on Wednesday is Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., who said in a phone interview that the measure is in direct...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Clinical AI: Pittsburgh pilot will take on challenges of diabetes care

In medicine, the uses for artificial intelligence have pretty much been limited to back office stuff — notetaking and appeals to health insurers to cover special medicines and treatments, those sorts of things.

That could be ready to change as the role of AI accelerates further into direct patient care in a pilot planned at Allegheny Health ...Read more

Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Some birds defy overall plunge in bird numbers

LOS ANGELES — Bird multitudes are slipping away on a global scale, but a new study offers hope for how we can be better neighbors to feathered friends.

Researchers at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo knew, like everyone else in the bird world, that 3 billion birds have been lost in the last half century, but they ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Andy Mukherjee: Stablecoin is the wrong weapon in US-China fight

At a gathering of central bankers last month in Basel, Harvard University economist Gita Gopinath presented some unsettling data about stablecoins. Up to three-quarters of Tether’s USDT and Circle Internet Group Inc.’s USDC — the world’s most popular 1:1 dollar clones — are held in wallets where the users control the cryptographic keys...Read more

Apple/TNS/TNS

Tech review: Is Neo right for you? Probably

It finally happened — Apple released a low-priced laptop.

I didn’t think this day would ever come — really.

Apple is kind of famous for not being on the cheap end of any hardware category. Apple products are fantastic. They’re solid and they work well, but cheap has never really been in the discussion.

Until earlier this year.

Apple ...Read more

Days of heavy downpours flooded Frankfort, Ky., and other communities across the Midwest in spring 2025. Leandro Lozada/AFP via Getty Images

The National Climate Assessment is broken – appointing Matthew Wielicki to lead it won’t help

In early July 2026, the Trump administration quietly tapped Matthew Wielicki to lead the U.S. Global Change Research Program. The move places a podcaster known for downplaying the threats of climate change – and importantly, someone who has not been meaningfully involved in research on climate change or its impacts – at the top of one of ...Read more

Elbert Yazzie adjusts his air conditioning unit in Tuba City, Ariz., in 2025. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Why 78 degrees isn’t the right thermostat setting for everyone during a heat wave

Across the U.S., it’s a hot summer, and electricity prices are high. Various public officials and corporate websites suggest people set their thermostats to 78 degrees Fahrenheit (25.6 degrees Celsius), or even 81 F (27.2 C), as a way to stay relatively cool without breaking the bank. But as someone who studies energy costs, I know from ...Read more

TNS

Review: Gunnar’s ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ glasses captures the vibe of the game

One of the best parts about gamer glasses is that they’re often wilder and more adventurous than everyday eyewear. They go beyond those retro horn-rimmed glasses. The ones from Gunnar adopt a post-apocalyptic vibe or bring players closer to their favorite video game character. The company’s latest gaming efforts involve “Cyberpunk 2077,�...Read more

Anker/Anker/TNS

Gadgets: A premium charger

Satechi ChargeView 140W is one of those chargers that does what it says it does; it will charge up to four devices at the same time. This can include just about any USB-C charging device, including high-powered MacBook Pros.

The premium desktop AC-powered charger eases the charging cable clutter many of us have by eliminating the need for ...Read more

Jim Rossman/Jim Rossman/TNS

Jim Rossman: Getting your phone’s dictionary to learn your favorite words

I was helping a friend with a few small tech issues last week and he came up with one that I had to look up before I could help.

It was a nuisance, more than a problem: His iPhone was autocorrecting certain words, but from the right spelling to a wrong spelling.

There is a neighborhood in our area of town called Lakewood. Every time my ...Read more