Every four years, we get to choose our own president. But every two years, we have other elections, where we choose all 435 members of the House of Representatives, and a third of our Senators, and a whole lot of governors. This is a midterm elections year, our chance to steer the direction of the…
As a mist of rain sprinkled the fields around him in Homestead, Florida, Ford bemoaned how expensive it had been running a fossil fuel-powered irrigation system on his five-acre farm — and how bad it was for the planet. Earlier this month, Ford installed an automated underground system that uses a solar-powered pump to periodically saturate…
Page, Arizona — Doug Herrera still lives in the house his father built, though his dad died some time ago from cancer. Herrera wonders if that illness could have been linked to pollutants from nearby uranium mining. Now, he worries that a possible new neighbor — a proposed $10 billion mega data center — could imperil…
From AI chatbots to lifestyle trends, the concept of optimizing one’s life came sharply into focus in 2026. That’s why Dictionary.com picked “maxxing,” a reflection of our increasingly online society, as its latest Word of the Year. “Maxxing (sometimes -maxxing) is short for ‘maximizing,’” says Dictionary.com. “This trendy term can be used on its own…
Washington — As President Trump boasts about how much money the U.S. oil and gas industry is making from the war with Iran, the president’s personal holdings in oil and gas are now worth between $22.5 million and $81.6 million, compared with $12.6 million to $46 million at the end of 2025, according to a…
Cybersecurity researchers used an advanced OpenAI artificial intelligence model to identify a longstanding internet vulnerability before hackers could exploit it. That security weakness affects a programming language called PHP, short for “Personal Home Page,” which powers up to 70% of the world’s websites and web applications, including those used by government agencies and social media…
Zane Shah arrives at school at 8:45 a.m., greets his friends and stores his backpack in the assigned cubby. It could be any middle school morning. But one thing about Shah’s school is different: There are no traditional teachers. Shah, 13, is an eighth grader at Alpha School, a network of private, for-profit institutions that…
A group of Democratic senators is demanding that the federal agency overseeing Medicaid — the health coverage program for people with low incomes or disabilities — institute tougher standards for government contractors running complex computer systems that millions of people rely on to get benefits. Three Democratic senators issued recommendations a year after launching an…
The gun used by a 16-year-old who shot and killed three children and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, last week was a birthday gift from the shooter’s mom, sources told CBS News. The Maverick 88 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun was purchased legally in August 2026 by Shauntai Nickerson, the mother of…
Cybersecurity expert Hed Kovetz would love to have a personal AI agent handle some of his administrative tasks and lighten his workload. But he doesn’t trust any of the commercially available agents, like Meta’s Muse or OpenAI’s Dots, with access to his email accounts, banking details, health records and other sensitive information. “It’s tempting to…
