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Scores help give us a sense of how we're doing – but they're not always neutral. Dilok Klaisataporn/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Moral metrics: Are corporate algorithms becoming our new moral authorities?

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You check your credit score before applying for an apartment. Your fitness watch tells you whether you slept well enough. A workplace dashboard measures your productivity. Parents can buy devices that track their baby’s breathing and heart rate while they sleep.

Increasingly, numbers tell us how we are doing.

These systems ...Read more

Sorting through the nuances of copays, deductibles, premiums and other jargon can be frustrating. Tfilm/Moment via Getty Images

Health insurance jargon can be frustrating and confusing – here’s how to navigate it

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Since the Affordable Care Act subsidies expired at the end of 2025, Americans have undoubtedly been encountering a great deal of confusing information surrounding health care costs and insurance plans.

From five-figure deductibles to premiums higher than people’s mortgages, costs are rising across the board.

With this comes ...Read more

Pittsburgh's air pollution not only led to increased deaths, but it also had other negative effects, from lowered IQ in children to adverse birth outcomes.  G Fiume/Getty Images Sport via Getty Images

Pittsburgh’s air pollution estimated to claim 3,000+ lives per year − and EPA rollbacks aren’t helping

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In October 1948, a thick haze rolled into Donora, Pennsylvania, a steel town in the Monongahela Valley, south of Pittsburgh. For five days, toxic fumes from a zinc smelter – a plant that turns zinc ore into pure zinc metal – poured out of the factory’s stacks, became trapped in the valley and thus blanketed Donora. The air was filled ...Read more

Capstone Copper's Pinto Valley Mine in Miami, Arizona. Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Global copper demand outstrips supply, threatening electrification and industrial growth

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Demand for copper is surging because of demand from new technologies, but suppliers are struggling to keep up, and they are likely to fall further behind in the coming years, resulting in shortfalls globally. Even though copper prices are at historically high levels, the financial risk involved in mining means that prices will need to go much...Read more

Staff members watch as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon on March 2, 2026.  AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

Information is a battlefield: 4 questions you can ask to judge the reliability of news reports and social posts about the US-Iran war

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Historically, when the U.S. has undertaken military action against foreign governments, journalists have relied heavily on government sources and rallied “’round the flag,” often uncritically sharing official narratives about U.S involvement. This has been evident during periods of U.S. military engagements in Vietnam, Iraq and ...Read more

Theodore Parisienne/New York Daily News/TNS

NYC Mayor Mamdani announcing Office of Community Safety to help deal with mental health crises

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NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to announce a new Office of Community Safety on Thursday, a step toward fulfilling his campaign pledge to install a new city department to handle responses to mental health crises rather than leave that largely to the NYPD.

The mayor is slated to announce Renita Francois, a former city official under ...Read more

Daniel Heuer/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

California speaker announces effort to change Cesar Chavez Day to Farmworker Day

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Legislature will move to change the name of state holiday Cesar Chavez Day following allegations of rape against the legendary labor leader, including from two women who said the assaults occurred when they were minors.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Hollister Democrat, took to the floor of his chamber ...Read more

Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Family of Minnesota 5-year-old detained by ICE 'very disappointed' after losing asylum case

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MINNEAPOLIS — An immigration judge has denied the asylum claims of a Columbia Heights family whose 5-year-old son became a national symbol of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, the attorney representing the family confirmed Thursday.

Liam Conejo Ramos — the preschooler photographed in a blue bunny hat and ...Read more

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images North America/TNS

Sen. John Fetterman casts deciding vote to advance Trump's pick to replace Kristi Noem, criticizes fellow Democrats

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U.S. Sen. John Fetterman on Thursday cast the deciding vote to advance President Donald Trump’s nominee to helm the Department of Homeland Security — joining Republicans while other Democrats raised doubts that U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R- Okla., would reform the administration’s aggressive and increasingly unpopular immigration ...Read more

Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times/TNS

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says 'not really a need' for new cruise port in Manatee County

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TAMPA, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday spoke against a proposed cruise port in Manatee County that a leading cruise terminal operator has been floating to the Tampa Bay community since mid-January.

SSA Marine has said it’s eyeing a roughly 328-acre coastal property just south of the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge as a ...Read more

RICHARD DARBY/Fresno Bee file/Fresno Bee/TNS

'We're in shock': Farmworkers grapple with Cesar Chavez sex abuse allegations

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FRESNO, Calif. — Explosive allegations that Cesar Chavez abused girls and sexually assaulted his fellow labor activist Dolores Huerta decades ago are roiling the farmworker community, leaving many stunned at the revelations.

Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers, condemned the acts that Chavez was accused of committing in the 1960s...Read more

Washington County Sheriff/Washington County Sheriff/TNS

'19 Kids and Counting' star Joseph Duggar accused of molesting 9-year-old girl

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Joseph Duggar, who starred on the TLC reality show, “19 Kids and Counting,” has been arrested over allegations that he molested a 9-year-old girl six years ago during a vacation in Florida, according to authorities.

Duggar was charged with lewd and lascivious molestation of a victim less than 12 years old and lewd and lascivious behavior ...Read more

Nancy Lane/Boston Herald/TNS

19-year-old dies in South Florida immigration detention center

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A 19-year-old from Mexico died Monday at a South Florida immigration detention center, according to a release from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

Royer Perez-Jimenez was found unresponsive by a detention officer at the Glades County Detention Facility in Moore Haven a little after 2:30 a.m., the release said, ...Read more

Department of Justice/Department of Justice/TNS

Miami-Dade police, Florida Highway Patrol and others contracted with tech startup funded by Epstein

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MIAMI — Roughly seven years after Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to two prostitution charges in Palm Beach County in 2008, he secretly invested $1 million in an Israeli security technology startup that had signed deals with multiple law enforcement agencies in Florida, including the Miami-Dade Police Department.

The Florida Highway Patrol, ...Read more

Oliver Contreras/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

Oz says California's not fighting health care fraud, but data shows it's part of a larger battle

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — For weeks, Mehmet Oz has been waging a public feud with California leaders over health care fraud, accusing the blue state of failing to adequately combat such abuse.

Oz, who heads the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, alleged that there was approximately $3.5 billion of fraud in the hospice and home health ...Read more

Matt Stone/Boston Herald/TNS

Boston City Hall unions fire back at Mayor Michelle Wu after 'ultimatum' on dropping GLP-1 coverage amid budget crunch

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BOSTON — The Public Employee Committee, which bargains health insurance benefits on behalf of City of Boston unions, is firing back at the Wu administration after its “ultimatum” over dropping GLP-1 weight loss coverage to cut costs.

Elissa Cadillic, PEC co-chair, said a “majority” of city unions considered the city’s offer to ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Many ACA customers are paying higher premiums. Most Blame Trump and Republicans, poll finds

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Most people who get their health coverage through the Affordable Care Act say they face sharply higher costs, with many worried they will have to pare back other expenses to cover them, according to a poll released Thursday. Some are uncertain whether they will be able to continue paying their premiums all year.

Still, 69% of those enrolled ...Read more

C.W. Griffin/Miami Herald/TNS

Miami police betrayed moms of murdered teens, then sent $1,831 bill, lawsuit says

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MIAMI — Two moms who agonized for years about the unsolved 2009 murder of their teenage sons in Liberty City are suing the Miami Police Department for not telling them that the killer had secretly confessed and been granted immunity from prosecution.

Adding insult to injury, they say, the department won’t release the case file to them ...Read more

Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/Antonio Perez

Democrats tee up energy affordability debate with new bill

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WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition have introduced a lengthy bill aimed at navigating rising energy costs for American consumers.

Reps. Sean Casten of Illinois and Mike Levin of California are leading the charge on the 419-page legislative effort unveiled Wednesday that they’ve dubbed ...Read more

Wildfire evacuates nearly 100 homes in southern Colorado

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DENVER — Mandatory evacuations remained in place for nearly 100 homes in southern Colorado on Thursday after a wildfire sparked the day before, according to the Custer County Sheriff’s Office.

The Buttermilk fire, which was last estimated to be burning on 60 to 80 acres northwest of Westcliffe, was first reported at 2:38 p.m. Wednesday, ...Read more