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Why wildfires started by human activities can be more destructive and harder to contain

Current News / News & Features /

Wildfires are becoming increasingly destructive across the U.S., as the country is seeing in 2024. Firefighters were battling large blazes in several states from California to North Dakota in early October 2024, including fires burning near homes and communities.

Research shows wildfires are up to four times larger and three times ...Read more

Swing state voters along the Great Lakes love cleaner water and beaches − and candidates from both parties have long fished for support there

Current News / News & Features /

If history holds true to form, I expect the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to begin touting their support for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative as Election Day approaches.

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, or GLRI, is a federal program that funds water and habitat protection and restoration for the...Read more

Kamala Harris has spoken of her racial backgrounds − but a shared identity isn’t enough to attract supporters

Current News / News & Features /

In one of the most memorable moments of the current presidential campaign, Donald Trump in July 2024 contended that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris recently stopped identifying as Indian and “happened to turn Black.”

With these false remarks, Trump implied that Harris emphasized one part of her background to appeal to voters and ...Read more

No antidote for bad polls: Recalling the New York Times’ 1956 election experiment in shoe-leather reporting

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In response to national pollsters’ failure in forecasting election outcomes in 1948 and 1952, The New York Times pursued in 1956 a weekslong, multistate exercise in on-the-ground reporting to assess public opinion about the presidential race.

The Times’ experiment, which these days would be recognized as “shoe-leather reporting,...Read more

Can Montana’s ‘last rural Democrat’ survive another election?

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Jon Tester has never had it easy.

The three-term Democratic senator from Montana has scored more than 50% of the vote only once in his three runs for the U.S. Senate, attracting 50.3% of the vote in 2018 against state auditor and future U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale.

This year, Tester’s always-perilous path to reelection seems ...Read more

Handout/NOAA/TNS

Hurricane Milton takes turn to target Florida with 'destructive' path ahead

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ORLANDO, Fla. — Hurricane Milton began its turn toward Florida on Tuesday still a powerful Category 4 hurricane with a forecast landfall near Tampa Bay and projected path that will cut through Central Florida.

The powerful hurricane surged Monday into a monster Category 5 storm with 180 mph winds in the Gulf of Mexico, but lost some steam ...Read more

Housing nonprofit alleges widespread discrimination against Section 8 tenants in California

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LOS ANGELES — A national investigative nonprofit on Monday lodged discrimination complaints against more than 200 California landlords and their representatives — including major real estate brokerages — alleging they illegally refused to rent to Section 8 voucher holders.

The Housing Rights Initiative filed the complaints, based upon an ...Read more

Colleen Shalby/Los Angeles Times/TNS

'I want to hug my daughter': Jewish leaders, lawmakers mourn at Oct. 7 event in California

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LOS ANGELES — Local and state lawmakers and Jewish community leaders and advocates addressed a crowd of about 2,000 in Beverly Hills on the Oct. 7 anniversary of the attack on Israel, honoring those who died while repeatedly calling for the release of those still held hostage.

"I want to simply hug my daughter," said Eitan Gonen, recounting ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Need to go to the hospital? Texas and Florida want to know your immigration status

Current News / News & Features /

State Sen. Victor Torres represents predominantly Hispanic Osceola County in central Florida. At Sunday Mass at his local church, immigrants often tell him they are scared to seek health care.

“They say, ‘My mother is ill, or my kid is sick, but I don’t have insurance,’’’ the Democrat said in an interview. “And I tell them, ‘You...Read more

IVAN MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

At the epicenter of the Mexican drug trade, a deadly power struggle shuts down a city

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CULIACÁN, Mexico — In this city built from the spoils of Mexico's richest drug-trafficking empire, they're calling it the "narco-pandemia'' — not a virus but a deadly reckoning inside the Sinaloa cartel that has left businesses shuttered, schools empty and the streets nearly deserted.

Even the glitzy bars, exclusive car dealerships and ...Read more

Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News/TNS

Utilities' extreme plan to stop wildfires: shut off the power

Current News / News & Features /

A growing number of utilities are resorting to an extreme measure to prevent their equipment from sparking catastrophic wildfires: turning off the power.

Electric companies serving about 24 million homes and businesses across the fire-prone U.S. West now have plans to preemptively cut electricity during dangerous fire conditions, according to ...Read more

Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun/TNS

Will Baltimore County meet its 2027 housing mandate? County, civic leaders are split.

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BALTIMORE — In June 2022, Angela Coleman filed an application with the Baltimore County Department of Housing and Community Development. The Owings Mills nonprofit executive wanted financial help building 22 apartment units after buying a single-acre property on Eastern Avenue near Beasley Lane in Bengies-Chase, a historically Black village in...Read more

Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/TNS

OnlyFans, trafficking and drug dealers: How a jaguar cub wound up in a California suburb

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LOS ANGELES — At less than a month old, unsteady on his small paws, the jaguar cub was already working.

While others born in the Amazon rainforest were still being nursed by their mothers, he was rented out to do a photo op in a Texas hotel room for $1,000 an hour.

People snapped their fingers to get the cub’s attention and held him on ...Read more

Natrice Miller/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS

Swing voters in this competitive Georgia district have candidates campaigning from the middle

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PEACHTREE CORNERS, Ga. — Almost as soon as state Rep. Scott Hilton sat down at Darlene Penner’s dining room table, he was faced with a question that has dogged him and fellow Republicans even before news that a 14-year-old had allegedly used an assault-style rifle to kill four people at a Barrow County high school 45 minutes away.

“There ...Read more

Mario Tama/Getty Images North America/TNS

Back-to-back hurricanes set to strain FEMA as its funds run low

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WASHINGTON — The cash-strapped U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency is set to be tested by back-to-back major disasters as Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida’s Gulf Coast less than two weeks after Helene devastated the Southeast.

“This could result in a significant strain on FEMA’s resources,” said Daniel Kaniewski, a former ...Read more

Mindy Schauer/The Orange County Register/TNS

On anniversary of Oct. 7 attack, UC Irvine campus sees protests, prayers

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IRVINE, Calif. — On the first anniversary of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks against Israel that have precipitated a wider war in the Middle East, a couple hundred University of California, Irvine, students and faculty marched around the campus Monday calling for an end to the war, an end to the Jewish state and UC divestment from companies ...Read more

Lauren Peace/Tampa Bay Times/TNS

Debris from Helene remains on Tampa Bay doorsteps as Hurricane Milton approaches

Current News / News & Features /

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida — Refrigerators, couches, dressers, bookshelves and desk chairs are among the destroyed possessions found piled high in the front yards of almost every single home in Shore Acres.

“It’s like you’re driving through a canyon of people’s lives on the curb,” said Kevin Batdorf, president of the neighborhood ...Read more

Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/TNS

4 aides of NYC Mayor Eric Adams out in dramatic day of departures

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NEW YORK — Four more aides to Mayor Adams have left his administration in the past week — a dramatic set of City Hall departures that comes on the heels of multiple other high-level resignations and the mayor’s indictment on federal corruption charges, sources told the Daily News on Monday.

Among those leaving are two longtime aides ...Read more

Mario Tama/Getty Images North America/TNS

Harris says she'll weigh Ukraine NATO membership at later point

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Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris declined to say if she would support Ukraine’s push to join NATO if elected, but vowed she would insist Kyiv’s leaders were part of any U.S. negotiation with Vladimir Putin over ending the ongoing conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sought to secure an invitation from the U.S...Read more

DOUGLAS HANKS/Miami Herald/TNS

Category 5 Hurricane Milton 'ferocious' with 180 mph winds; 15-foot storm surge projected for Florida

Current News / News & Features /

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hurricane Milton surged Monday into a monster Category 5 storm with 180 mph winds in the Gulf of Mexico, and is forecast to remain a dangerous major hurricane ahead of landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

“Milton is a potentially catastrophic Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale,” the NHC alerted,...Read more