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The Clintons are about to testify on Epstein ties. Here's what to know

Current News / News & Features /

WASHINGTON — For the first time in more than 40 years, a former president will appeal directly before Congress to fend off criminal allegations.

Former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify before the House Oversight Committee this week in its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ...Read more

Handout/James Coleman/TNS

Some states are helping to make Obamacare plans more affordable

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Ten Democratic-leaning states are using their own money to help people buy Obamacare health plans, at least partially replacing the federal tax credits that expired at the end of last year.

The state assistance, some of it offered through programs that existed before the federal subsidies expired, is helping hundreds of thousands of people ...Read more

Olivier Touron/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

School choice programs grow in popularity -- and cost

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States are scrambling to meet rising demand for newly expanded school choice initiatives, pouring more money into the programs as waiting lists — and budget concerns — grow.

A further boost is expected next year, when the federal government rolls out a new policy allowing taxpayers to claim a tax credit for up to $1,700 in donations to ...Read more

Al Drago/Getty Images North America/TNS

Editorial: Getting serious … sort of … on the national debt

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Is reality finally settling in on Capitol Hill? The nation can only hope.

As the national debt rushes toward $39 trillion, and Social Security and Medicare get nearer to insolvency with each tick of the clock, pressure mounts on the White House and Congress to craft a more sustainable path forward. After decades of apathy — which has pushed ...Read more

Mario Tama/Getty Images North America/TNS

The Mojave Desert is a hot spot for off-roading. Here's why a judge shut down more than 2,200 miles of trails

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MOJAVE DESERT — The desert tortoise, a once-resilient reptile, is a keystone species in the Mojave Desert, where other animals depend for their survival on the burrows it digs.

But it is imperiled in California thanks in part to an unusual predator: off-road vehicles that race through thousands of miles of trails — official and unofficial �...Read more

(Jackie Molloy for KFF Health News)/KFF Health News/TNS

As more Americans embrace anxiety treatment, MAHA derides medications

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After a grueling year of chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation to treat breast cancer, Sadia Zapp was anxious — not the manageable hum that had long been part of her life, but something deeper, more distracting.

“Every little ache, like my knee hurts,” she said, made her worry that “this is the end of the road for me.”

So Zapp, a 40-...Read more

Pratchaya Leelapatchayanont/Dreamstime/TNS

When it comes to health insurance, federal dollars support more than ACA plans

Current News / News & Features /

Subsidies. Love ’em or hate them, they dominated the news during the Affordable Care Act’s sign-up season, and their reduction is now hitting many enrollees in the pocketbook.

While lawmakers continue to disagree on a way forward, and the politics of affordability keeps the issue front and center, it would be understandable to think these ...Read more

New York nurses went on strike in January 2026, protesting unsafe staffing levels while demanding better patient safety, increased wages, improved working conditions and fairer contracts. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

Pittsburgh nurses are fighting for better staffing ratios — and the research backs them up

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Since nursing contract negotiations heated up in January 2026 at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh and at UPMC Altoona, the debate shifted from standard wage disputes to a more fundamental question of patient safety: the nurse-to-patient ratio.

The New York State Nurses Association’s approach has become a primary blueprint ...Read more

Climate models are systems of differential equations based on the basic laws of physics, fluid motion and chemistry. They divide the planet into a 3D grid, apply the equations and evaluate the results. Within these models, the atmosphere component, for example, calculates winds, heat transfer, radiation, relative humidity and surface hydrology.
              NOAA

Making sense of a chaotic planet: How understanding weather and climate risks depends on supercomputers like NCAR’s

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Have you ever stopped to wonder how forecasters can predict the weather days in advance, or how scientists figure out how the climate might evolve under different policies?

The Earth system is a vast web of intertwined processes, from microscopic chemical reactions to towering storms. Ocean currents circulating deep in the Atlantic, ...Read more

How protecting wilderness could mean purposefully tending it, not just leaving it alone

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More than 110 million acres of land across the U.S. are protected in 806 federally designated wilderness areas – together an area slightly larger than the state of California. For the most part, these places have been left alone for decades, in keeping with the 1964 Wilderness Act’s directive that they be “untrammeled by man.”

...Read more

When species are described as 'destructive' or 'harmful' without sufficient context, it can shape how people perceive and treat them. Beata Whitehead/Moment via Getty Images

The cost of casting animals as heroes and villains in conservation science

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Scientists are philosophers, explorers, data collectors and number crunchers. They are also storytellers, placing data within a broader scientific and societal context. How they tell these stories matters.

In our work as ecologists, we find that the “hero-villain” narrative trope is a popular tool in ecology and conservation ...Read more

Participants in the annual March for Life protests in Washington call for an end to all abortions, on Jan. 23, 2026.  CQ-Roll Call/Tom Williams via Getty Images

Abortion laws show that public policy doesn’t always line up with public opinion

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Representational government rests on a simple idea: that the laws the nation lives under generally reflect what the public wants. In the United States, few issues test that idea more than abortion.

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the Constitution does not guarantee a right ...Read more

Hugh McTavish is running as the Independence-Alliance Party candidate for governor of Minnesota in 2026. UCG via Getty Images

Why US third parties perform best in the Northeast

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A majority of Americans say they are “frustrated” or “angry” – or both – with Republicans and Democrats, according to the Pew Research Center. But that rarely translates into support for independent or third-party candidates.

One exception has been in the Northeast. Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont are the...Read more

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Cuba labels intercepted Florida speedboat a 'terrorist infiltration' after deadly clash

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Cuban authorities said Wednesday a Florida-registered speedboat intercepted in its territorial waters was carrying 10 armed people who planned “a terrorist infiltration” of the island and identified some of the people who were injured or killed in a gunfire exchange with a Cuban coast guard vessel.

In a new statement, the Interior Ministry ...Read more

California Department of Fish and Wildlife/TNS/TNS

State-protected hawk given a joint, fed a BuzzBall on video by California man, officials say

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Not only is it a bad idea to feed birds alcohol, but to then record it and have it posted online as evidence? Well, that could get you a jail sentence.

That was the lesson a Los Angeles man learned last week when he was sentenced to 45 days in jail after he gave a Cooper's hawk a BuzzBall, a type of ready-to-serve cocktail known for its fruity ...Read more

YAMIL LAGE/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

Cuba says those killed in US boat encounter planned uprising

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Cuba says a boat with 10 people near its coast early Wednesday was carrying weapons, and its occupants — Cubans living in the U.S. — were intent on entering the country to fight against the government.

The Cuban Coast Guard shot and killed four of the passengers while another six were injured and detained after the Florida-registered boat ...Read more

Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

States are told ICE won't target polling stations in November

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Two Democratic secretaries of state said they were told the Trump administration isn’t planning to send federal immigration enforcement agents to polling locations during November’s congressional elections.

State officials were told during a call Wednesday with federal authorities that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents won’t be ...Read more

Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/TNS

3,500-acre grass fire in eastern Colorado ignited by motor vehicle crash

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Residents in a small town on Colorado’s Eastern Plains were ordered to evacuate Wednesday afternoon after a grass fire sparked from a vehicle crash nearby, fueled by strong winds and dry vegetation, according to fire officials.

The fire burned between 3,500 to 4,000 acres and drew responses from departments in eastern Colorado and Nebraska.

...Read more

Anthony Souffle/Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

White House to pause quarter-billion in Minnesota Medicaid dollars as part of fraud crackdown

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The Trump administration announced Wednesday it plans to halt $259 million in Medicaid payments to Minnesota over concerns about fraud in the state’s social services programs, the latest chapter in the federal government’s crackdown on the state.

The announcement comes one day after President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, ...Read more

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump repeats $19 billion Minnesota fraud claim during State of the Union address. Here's what the numbers show

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MINNEAPOLIS — President Donald Trump re-aired an allegation in his State of the Union address that $19 billion has been stolen from Minnesota programs, a demonstration of what he called “the corruption that is plundering” the nation’s tax dollars.

Trump has on several earlier occasions presented the eye-popping number to the public ...Read more