Amid a national educator shortage, the number of Philadelphia School District teachers hired who lack full certification has surged.

Nine years ago, 9.2% of Philadelphia teachers held emergency certification.

In the 2022-23 school year, the last year for which state data are available, that percentage more than doubled, to 22.4%. That means ...Read more

The dead zone in the Chesapeake Bay, where there’s low oxygen for underwater life, was near its average size in 2024, according to new data from the Chesapeake Bay Program.

The dead zone is the area in which there is a relatively low amount of oxygen, a condition known as hypoxia. Typically, this means that polluted runoff has brought in ...Read more

He got out on good behavior.

Then Ramon Rivera, a troubled, homeless man with a history of arrests and mental problems, went on a vicious daytime stabbing spree across Manhattan on Monday, killing three people at random using a pair of large kitchen knives, authorities said.

Almost immediately, Rivera became every New Yorker’s nightmare ...Read more

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the U.S. intelligence community is likely to face tough questions during confirmation hearings, including over her meeting with Syria’s leader, Republican Senator James Lankford said.

Tulsi Gabbard, the nominee for director of national intelligence, is a Trump loyalist and former Democratic ...Read more

For a two-year period, an extreme drought across Colorado and much of the West dried farmers’ fields, lowered water levels in reservoirs, fueled extreme wildfires and left streams dangerously low.

Historically, an exceptional drought like the one that plagued the Western U.S. from 2020 to 2022 happened less than once every 1,000 years.

But ...Read more

Jeremy Barousse is trying to keep everyone calm.

The head of an East San Jose immigrant rights nonprofit remembers the last time Donald Trump threatened mass deportations: distraught parents choosing relatives or friends to care for their children if they were swept up in ICE raids; school principals reporting classrooms half empty as terrified...Read more

NEW YORK — A push to digitize the entrance exam to New York City’s specialized high schools is reigniting a long-standing debate over a process that relies on a single test to admit students.

Ahead of the next round of testing, the city has proposed ditching bubble sheets to develop a computer-based version of the Specialized High Schools ...Read more

A new Gold Rush is taking shape on a quiet stretch of Kansas prairie. There, a clutch of startups backed by the likes of Bill Gates are searching below the surface for naturally occurring hydrogen, a fuel that can generate power without adding to climate change.

Finding it in vast quantities would revolutionize the energy transition. But the ...Read more

Indiana residents and federal officials are urging state health regulators to stop two rival hospitals in Terre Haute from merging. The deal, if approved, would leave residents with a hospital monopoly.

Union Health, a nonprofit whose main hospital is licensed as a 341-bed facility, would buy the county’s only other acute care hospital, the ...Read more

LAS VEGAS — Hanging on Judy Reiber’s kitchen wall is a photo of a particularly bad snowstorm that finally convinced her it was time to leave Colorado. What she didn’t know then was that the Nevada heat would kill her.

Reiber is only one of at least 402 people who have died from heat-related illnesses this summer, marking the deadliest ...Read more

Mexico is looking beyond the incoming Trump administration’s threats of tariffs, betting on a bright future for global merchandise trade no matter what actions its northern neighbor and biggest trading partner takes.

While Donald Trump promises 60% levies on goods imported from China and 20% on the rest of the world, Mexico is making a ...Read more

The Australian government won’t proceed with legislation that would have forced social media sites to crack down on misinformation on their platforms after failing to win enough cross-party support.

“Based on public statements and engagements with Senators, it is clear that there is no pathway to legislate this proposal through the Senate,�...Read more

CHICAGO — During her arrest earlier this month for driving under the influence of alcohol after crashing a car in Uptown, Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele repeatedly told police officers she was an elected official, made crude comments about one of the arresting officers and refused to cooperate with officer requests, ...Read more

BOSTON — Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley says a bill that would eliminate federal DEI programs is an “utter disgrace,” demanding Republicans who back the legislation not to quote Martin Luther King, Jr.

If approved, the “Dismantle DEI Act of 2024” would ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government and ...Read more

Nearly 200 countries agreed to triple the amount of money available to help developing countries confront rapidly warming temperatures.

But the deal reached at the close of the two-week COP29 summit in Azerbaijan resulted from fractious and at times openly hostile negotiations, producing an agreement that even its supporters may see as ...Read more

Donald Trump is returning to the White House after one of the most remarkable political comebacks in U.S. history. His side hustle as the frontman for a fledgling high-end watch brand, however, is less of a success so far.

The majority of the $100,000 wristwatches endorsed by and featuring the name of the U.S. president-elect have yet to be ...Read more

SEATTLE — More than 95,000 customers in the region remained without power Saturday, four days after a deadly bomb cyclone battered Western Washington.

Deadly, easterly winds of up to 74 mph hit Tuesday, leaving more than half a million customers without power, injuring dozens and killing two people.

The storm’s aftermath has left ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Sunny skies on Saturday morning gave Bay Area residents a break from the two days of heavy rains that pounded the region, breaking daily rainfall records in cities from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

“We still are going to have rain these next few days, but it’s nothing like what we went through,” said meteorologist Dylan ...Read more