The wildfire smoke that blankets much of the American West each summer is likely more harmful than previously understood, especially to older people, scientists found.

Research announced this week, and led by scientists at the University of Washington, discovered that prolonged exposure to the ultrafine particles in wildfire smoke heightens the...Read more

CHONBURI PROVINCE, Thailand — Like most babies, Moo Deng spends a lot of her time sleeping.

But for a few hours a day, the 4-month-old pygmy hippo springs to life, gumming on leaves, zooming around the compound and tossing her head in a silent, open-mouthed roar.

These moments, captured by her zookeeper at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo, a two-...Read more

MIAMI — A bright searchlight pierces the darkness as the 18-foot airboat glides across the Everglades, the beam igniting small sparkling shimmers in the ink-black water dotted with lily pads.

Glowing gator eyes — the tell-tale reflections of lurking reptiles.

Alligators like to hunt in the dark but tonight they’re the creatures being ...Read more

BALTIMORE — When Donald Trump first considered longtime wrestling executive Linda McMahon for a Cabinet role, the team behind the president-elect’s vetting process wrote out a series of questions she might address under a headline titled “political vulnerabilities.”

The document, obtained and published by the news organization Axios in ...Read more

Trevor Hawkins, an attorney at Legal Aid of Arkansas, remembers how busy his job got when the state for a time imposed work requirements on Medicaid recipients: His office was swamped with frantic phone calls from people who said they couldn’t comply with the new rule because they weren’t healthy enough to work or had to care for sick ...Read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — Months after an alarmist review from NASA’s Office of the Inspector General, hundreds of construction workers seem out to prove their critics wrong as progress picks up steam on the Artemis program’s mobile launcher 2, the platform atop which future versions of the powerful Space Launch System rocket will launch.

...Read more

LOS ANGELES — When Heather Hoff took a job at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, she was skeptical of nuclear energy — so much so that she resolved to report anything questionable to the anti-nuclear group Mothers for Peace.

Instead, after working at the plant for over a decade and asking every question she could think of about operations ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Rachel Harrison and Marcell Johnson were elated to have a baby. It would be the first for the couple, who have been together nearly 10 years and were looking forward to starting a family.

In September, when she was a little more than 17 weeks pregnant, Harrison was at home when she felt a gush of fluid. As the couple, ...Read more

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump will go up against a familiar adversary as he prepares to fulfill campaign promises of a swift rollback of Biden-era policies and an aggressive execution of his own agenda: The grind of the U.S. legal system.

The stubborn realities of litigation stymied Trump’s ability to carry out quick changes ...Read more

Americans celebrate the winter holidays in many ways, which typically include an abundance of food, drinks, desserts – and waste. Food waste is receiving increasing attention from managers, activists, policymakers and scholars, who call it a global social problem. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, wealthy nations ...Read more

Donald Trump had dinner with Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg met with Trump and members of his team, according to a Meta representative, who added that the session took place at a crucial time for U.S. innovation. The representative didn...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Being the center of the political universe comes at a cost.

The Philadelphia Police Department spent more than $4 million in overtime providing protection for the presidential and vice presidential candidates who visited the city this year vying for votes, city records show.

Across the 22 days in which candidates came to town ...Read more

The death toll for Florida’s iconic state animal has now hit 30 after a male panther was found dead from a recent suspected vehicle strike.

The latest death marks the fifth panther killed by a vehicle in the last month in the deadliest year for the endangered species since 2018, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation ...Read more

President Joe Biden has flown north to the Nantucket home of Orioles owner David Rubenstein for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The president arrived at the island off Massachusetts on Tuesday night in front of a small crowd eager to get a view of the motorcade.

A source confirmed to The Baltimore Sun that Biden was staying at Rubenstein’s ...Read more

Sean "Diddy" Combs won't be released on bail before Thanksgiving, a federal judge ruled Wednesday while accusing the hip-hop mogul of violating and looking for ways to skirt prison rules since he was arrested.

In a five-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian ruled Combs should not be released on the $50-million bail proposed by his ...Read more

Poland will propose a maritime policing program in the Baltic Sea similar to air-monitoring missions carried out by NATO members, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.

Tusk called the plan “a joint venture of countries located at the Baltic Sea, which have the same sense of threat posed by Russia” in comments in Warsaw on Wednesday before ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A South Bay school district is tightening its grip on how educators can discuss gender and sexuality with young students after a transitional kindergarten teacher was placed on leave last month for discussions about gender identity in class, entangling the district in a local and national debate over how such topics should ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The day before Thanksgiving, California Gov. Gavin Newsom granted pardons for 19 people, including award-winning San Quentin podcaster Earlonne Woods.

“Ear Hustle,” the popular and critically acclaimed podcast that Woods co-founded from inside San Quentin State Prison in 2017, was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The White House said Ukraine must recruit more soldiers for the war against Russia, including by lowering the draft age, as a lack of manpower rather than weapons is the country’s most pressing need.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government should consider lowering the recruitment age to 18 from 25 to create a much-needed ...Read more

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors are opposing Mayor Eric Adams’ request for an early start to his criminal trial on corruption charges, citing a shift in his stance on whether he should be able to review classified material gathered by investigators as part of his case.

Adams, who’s under indictment on charges alleging he took bribes and ...Read more