WESTPORT, Conn. (AP) — Kate Bulkeley’s pledge to stay off social media in high school worked at first. She watched the benefits pile up: She was getting excellent grades. She read lots of books. The family had lively conversations around the dinner table and gathered for movie nights on weekends. Then, as sophomore year got underwa...

It’s dangerous. It’s addictive. Get off your phone. Kids constantly hear about the downsides of social media from the adults in their lives, often in the form of dire warnings and commands. But these adults did not grow up with social media themselves. They didn’t get a phone handed to them as toddlers, just to keep them quiet in a...

When she was in fifth grade, Anna Goddard’s daughter started to worry about getting wrinkles. She used adult skin care products she saw on social media and the harm was more than skin deep. SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — When she was in fifth grade, Scarlett Goddard Strahan started to worry about getting wrinkles. By the time she turned...

Coco loved being the life of the party — cracking jokes, doing pranks and making people laugh, her mom, Julianna Arnold, recalled recently. “Her favorite pastime was fashion,” Arnold said. “She didn’t like looking at magazines or going to fancy stores, but preferred to make her own creations from used clothing she would find at thr...

LONDON (AP) — Is it The Velvet Underground or Velvet Sundown? The fictitious rock group, Velvet Sundown, which comes complete with AI-generated music, lyrics and album art, is stoking debate about how the new technology is blurring the line between the real and synthetic in the music industry, and whether creators should be transpa...

LONDON (AP) — The summer holidays are here and many of us will heading off on trips to hot and sunny destinations, and bringing our electronic devices along. But don’t forget that phones, tablets and other electronics are vulnerable to extreme heat. Southern European nations like Spain, Italy and Greece have been baking under the s...

I didn’t notice the scarlet tanager until the alert appeared on my phone: “Merlin heard a new bird!” Despite its brilliant plumage — jet-black wings on a crimson body — the songbird can be a hard one to spot in a forest because it prefers to stay high in the canopy. It sounds a little like a robin to an untrained ear. But the free...

There are a variety of reasons to change music providers. But if you’re thinking about it, and you’re worried about losing your library of saved songs and personalized playlists, fear not: there are ways to bring all of it with you. Many music streaming services don’t make it obvious — often burying instructions deep in FAQs and ma...

OpenAI has named labor leader Dolores Huerta and three others to a temporary advisory board that will help guide the artificial intelligence company’s philanthropy as it attempts to shift itself into a for-profit business. Huerta, who turned 95 last week, formed the first farmworkers union with Cesar Chavez in the early 1960s and w...

Former employees of OpenAI are asking the top law enforcement officers in California and Delaware to stop the company from shifting control of its artificial intelligence technology from a nonprofit charity to a for-profit business. They’re concerned about what happens if the ChatGPT maker fulfills its ambition to build AI that out...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — After retreating from their workplace diversity, equity and inclusion programs, tech companies could now face a second reckoning over their DEI work in AI products. In the White House and the Republican-led Congress, “woke AI” has replaced harmful algorithmic discrimination as a problem that needs fixing. Pa...

MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — Working to differentiate itself in the crowded field of artificial intelligence, Meta Platforms has launched a standalone AI app — with a social media component — to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The Meta AI app, built with the company’s Llama 4 AI system. It includes a “discover” feed that lets users see...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists say they have at last solved the mystery of what killed more than 5 billion sea stars off the Pacific coast of North America in a decade-long epidemic. Sea stars – often known as starfish – typically have five arms and some species sport up to 24 arms. They range in color from solid orange to tapestries...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — One of NASA’s two previously stuck astronauts has retired from the space agency, less than five months after his unexpectedly long spaceflight came to an end. NASA announced Butch Wilmore’s departure on Wednesday. Wilmore and Suni Williams launched last summer as test pilots on Boeing’s first astronaut f...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the best picture yet of a high-speed comet visiting our solar system from another star. NASA and the European Space Agency released the latest photos Thursday. Discovered last month by a telescope in Chile, the comet known as 3I-Atlas is only the third known inters...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Summer’s most dazzling meteor shower, the Perseids, peaks early Wednesday. At the same time, Venus and Jupiter will converge in the sky — overlapping like a very bright star. If your focus is the meteor shower, it’s worth knowing that this year a bright moon will dampen viewing during the pre-dawn peak, so some ex...

NEW YORK (AP) — An executive order signed by President Donald Trump late Thursday aims to give political appointees power over the billions of dollars in grants awarded by federal agencies. Scientists say it threatens to undermine the process that has helped make the U.S. the world leader in research and development. The order requ...

NEW YORK (AP) — After a summer of vacations and late nights, it’s time to set those back-to-school alarms. A good night’s sleep helps students stay focused and attentive in class. Experts say it’s worth easing kids back into a routine with the start of a new school year. “We don’t say ‘ get good sleep ’ just because,” said pediatri...

Four astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after hustling to the International Space Station five months ago to relieve the stuck test pilots of Boeing’s Starliner. Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab. “Welcome home,” SpaceX Mission Control rad...

NEW YORK (AP) — Six planets are hanging out in the sky this month in what’s known as a planetary parade. Catch the spectacle while you can because it’s the last one of the year. These linkups happen when several planets appear to line up in the night sky at once. Such parades are fairly common, happening around every year depending...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Early human ancestors during the Old Stone Age were more picky about the rocks they used for making tools than previously known, according to research published Friday. Not only did these early people make tools, they had a mental picture of where suitable raw materials were located and planned ahead to use them,...

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists for the first time have spotted the insides of a dying star as it exploded, offering a rare peek into stellar evolution. Stars can live for millions to trillions of years until they run out of fuel. The most massive ones go out with a bang in an explosion called a supernova. Using telescopes that peer dee...

NEW YORK (AP) — The Webb Space Telescope has spotted a new tiny moon orbiting Uranus. The new member of the lunar gang, announced Tuesday by NASA, appears to be just six miles (10 kilometers) wide. It was spotted by the telescope’s near-infrared camera during observations in February. Scientists think it hid for so long — even elud...

NEW YORK (AP) — When the court lights flicker on at the U.S. Open, tennis stars shine under illumination designed to cut light pollution. The wedge-shaped lamps around the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows direct light onto the players without spewing it into the surrounding skies. The stadium complex...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Giraffes are a majestic sight in Africa with their long necks and distinctive spots. Now it turns out there are four different giraffe species on the continent, according to a new scientific analysis released Thursday. Researchers previously considered all giraffes across Africa to belong to a single species. New...

SpaceX launched the latest test of its mega rocket Starship on Tuesday night and completed the first-ever deployment of a test payload — eight dummy satellites — into space. After just over an hour coasting through space, Starship splashed down as planned in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship launches during a test fli...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists revealed Wednesday that Mars’ innermost core appears to be a solid hunk of metal just like Earth’s. The Chinese-led research team based their findings on seismic readings from NASA’s InSight lander on Mars, which recorded more than 1,300 marsquakes before shutting down in 2022. The spacecraft...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Telescope observations reveal a growing tail on the comet that’s visiting from another star. Released Thursday, the pictures taken by the Gemini South telescope in Chile late last month are the most detailed yet of the recently discovered comet. They show a wide coma of dust and gas around the ice ball a...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The year’s second total lunar eclipse is coming up fast, and this time Asia will have the best seats in the cosmos. Earth’s shadow will obscure this weekend’s full moon as the home planet lines up perfectly between the moon and the sun. Totality will last a lengthy one hour and 22 minutes. The entire sho...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Thousands of newborn stars sparkle and dazzle in the latest snapshot by NASA’s Webb Space Telescope. Released this week, the picture provides a breathtaking view of a nearby star-birthing center, 5,500 light-years away. A single light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. Besides baby stars in a variety of sizes a...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists have discovered a gamma ray explosion outside our galaxy that’s not only exceptionally powerful, but also long-lasting. Telescopes on Earth and in space — including Hubble — have teamed up to study the unique explosion of high-energy radiation first observed in July. Astronomers reported Tuesd...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has uncovered rocks in a dry river channel that may hold potential signs of ancient microscopic life, scientists reported Wednesday. They stressed that in-depth analysis is needed of the sample gathered there by Perseverance — ideally in labs on Earth — before reaching any...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Humans may be right-handed or left-handed. It turns out octopuses don’t have a dominant arm, but they do tend to perform some tasks more often with their front arms, new research shows. Scientists studied a series of short videos of wild octopuses crawling, swimming, standing, fetching, and groping -- among other...

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have identified the origins of the blue color in one of Jackson Pollock’s paintings with a little help from chemistry, confirming for the first time that the abstract expressionist used a vibrant, synthetic pigment known as manganese blue. “Number 1A, 1948,” showcases Pollock’s classic style: paint has be...

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have discovered what’s thought to be the oldest known mummies in the world in southeastern Asia dating back up to 12,000 years. Mummification prevents decay by preserving dead bodies. The process can happen naturally in places like the sands of Chile’s Atacama Desert or the bogs of Ireland where condition...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have discovered prehistoric insects preserved in amber for the first time in South America, providing a fresh glimpse into life on Earth at a time when flowering plants were just beginning to diversify and spread around the world. Many of the specimens found at a sandstone quarry in Ecuador date to 112...

NEW YORK (AP) — Preston Cabral eats meat nearly every day at home, but his favorite meals at school are served on “Meatless Mondays” and “Vegan Fridays.” “Today I ate chips, tangerines and this thing that looked like chili but without the meat — just beans,” the 12-year-old said after lunch on a Friday at I.S. 318 Eugenio Maria De...

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia launched a national campaign on Thursday to plant 700 million trees in one day as part of an ambitious conservation initiative that aims to plant 50 billion trees by 2026. The reforestation campaign has been a personal project of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed since 2019. Tesfahun Gobezay, state min...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Until this week, a company with zoning approval in Tucson could have relatively unlimited access to Tucson’s water system, even if it was going to use millions of gallons of water. Now, with the unanimous passage of a new ordinance by the city council, any large water user that wants to gain access to Tucson’s...

MIAMI (AP) — Officials have shut down early the remote krill fishery near Antarctica after trawling for the tiny crustacean — a vital food source for whales that also helps fight climate change — exceeded the seasonal catch limit for the first time. The unprecedented early closure of the fishery follows a report by The Associated P...

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday proposed canceling a public land management rule that put conservation on equal footing with development, as President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to open more taxpayer-owned tracts to drilling, logging, mining and grazing. The rule was a key part of efforts...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists in Australia have identified the oldest known fossil footprints of a reptile-like animal, dated to around 350 million years ago. The discovery suggests that after the first animals emerged from the ocean around 400 million years ago, they evolved the ability to live exclusively on land much faster than...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A genetic study of Asian elephants in northern Cambodia published Thursday reveals a larger and more robust population than previously thought, raising hopes the endangered species could slowly recover. Researchers from the Fauna & Flora conservation group collected samples from elephant dung in Cambodia...

LONDON (AP) — Eight healthy babies were born in Britain with the help of an experimental technique that uses DNA from three people to help mothers avoid passing devastating rare diseases to their children, researchers reported Wednesday. Most DNA is found in the nucleus of our cells, and it’s that genetic material — some inherited...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Sixty years ago, residents of a canal-crossed borough in Mexico City could pluck axolotls — the large salamander reminiscent of a tiny dragon — out of the water with their hands because they were so plentiful. Now it’s almost impossible to find them in the wild. That’s why scientists from Mexico’s National Autono...

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — Archaeologists in Virginia have unearthed the foundation of a building from the 1700s that once supported the nation’s oldest surviving schoolhouse for Black children, William & Mary announced Wednesday. The university in Williamsburg said the foundation is nearly completely intact. Archaeologists also unco...

SHOHAM, Israel (AP) — Archaeologists believe they have found one of the oldest burial sites in the world at a cave in Israel, where the well-preserved remains of early humans dating back some 100,000 years were carefully arranged in pits. The findings at Tinshemet Cave in central Israel, published in an academic journal earlier thi...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Archeologists studying ancient civilizations in northern Iraq during the 1930s also befriended the nearby Yazidi community, documenting their daily lives in photographs that were rediscovered after the Islamic State militant group devastated the tiny religious minority. The black-and-white images ended up scatte...

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Utility workers excavating trenches to expand underground gas networks in Peru’s capital unearthed two pre-Incan tombs on Thursday. One was empty, but the other held the 1,000-year-old remains of an individual, alongside four clay vessels and three pumpkin shell artifacts. This isn’t the first time Cálidda, the co...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The bottom of the world is front and center for a partial solar eclipse next week. Antarctica, New Zealand and a sliver of Australia are in prime position as the moon slips between the sun and Earth, obscuring a good portion of our star. The action unfolds on Monday local time Down Under, two weeks after...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A newly launched supply ship has run into engine trouble that is preventing it from reaching the International Space Station. Northrop Grumman’s capsule rocketed into orbit Sunday from Florida aboard SpaceX. But less than two days later, the capsule’s main engine shut down prematurely while trying to boo...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A supply ship arrived at the International Space Station on Thursday after a day’s delay due to a premature engine shutdown. Astronauts used the space station’s robot arm to pluck Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus capsule from orbit as they soared over Africa. The 11,000-pound (5,000-kilogram) shipment should ha...

The autumnal equinox arrives Monday, marking the start of the fall season for the Northern Hemisphere and the spring in the Southern Hemisphere. On the equator, the sun will be directly overhead at noon. Equinoxes are the only times when both the north and south poles are lit by sunshine at the same time. In the Northern Hemisphere...

BOSTON (AP) — Amid renewed interest in foraging for edible wild plants, mushrooms and other foodstuffs, experts caution aspiring foragers to prioritize safety, plan carefully and learn proper identification. Here are some things to consider before venturing out to gather food from forests, urban landscapes and elsewhere. It’s criti...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch government has agreed to return thousands of fossils to Indonesia from a world-renowned collection, after a commission ruled that they were removed in the colonial era “against the will of the people,” the education ministry announced Friday. The historically significant trove known as the Du...

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Australian scientists tested the strength of bite-resistant wetsuits by allowing sharks to chomp the materials at sea and found that the suits can help keep swimmers safe. Fatal shark bites are vanishingly rare, with less than 50 unprovoked shark bites on humans worldwide in 2024, according to the Internation...

NEW YORK (AP) — As a wet tropical system chugged north toward the Bahamas on Saturday, its threat to the Carolina coast might be determined by its unusual interaction — maybe even a rare dance — with another tropical system that could steer the mess out to sea. A still unnamed and developing tropical depression — likely to become I...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA introduced its newest astronauts Monday, 10 scientists, engineers and test pilots chosen from more than 8,000 applicants to help explore the moon and possibly Mars. The six women and four men will undergo two years of training before becoming eligible for spaceflight. Acting Administrator Sean Duffy...

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have discovered a new dinosaur from Argentina with powerful claws, feasting on an ancient crocodile bone. The new find was possibly 23 feet (7 meters) long and hailed from a mysterious group of dinosaurs called megaraptorans. They prowled across what’s now South America, Australia and parts of Asia, split...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A cluster of space weather satellites blasted off Wednesday morning to cast fresh eyes on solar storms that can produce stunning auroras but also scramble communications and threaten astronauts in flight. The three satellites soared from Kennedy Space Center shortly after sunrise on the same SpaceX rocke...

NEW YORK (AP) — An undersea submersible has spotted crabs, worms and fish thriving on the surfaces of World War II explosives thought to be toxic to marine life. “We were prepared to see significantly lower numbers of all kinds of animals,” said study author Andrey Vedenin with the Senckenberg Research Institute in Germany. “But it...

NEW YORK (AP) — A retired Wall Street financier was arrested Friday on charges that he lured dozens of women, including former Playboy models, to be sexually and physically assaulted during encounters in his Central Park penthouse in a soundproofed room described in court papers as “The Dungeon.” Howard Rubin, 70, was arrested Frid...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s first radar images from a new Earth-mapping satellite show the Maine coast and North Dakota farmland in incredible detail. The pictures, released Thursday, are from a spacecraft that rocketed into orbit from India two months ago. The joint U.S.-Indian mission, worth $1.3 billion, will survey virtu...

Boeing is getting back the ability to perform final safety inspections on 737 Max jetliners and certify them for flight more than six years after crashes of the then-new model killed 346 people, the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday. The FAA said it decided to restore the aerospace company’s authorization to issue airwort...

Federal regulators have detected possible radioactive contamination in a second food product sent to the U.S. from Indonesia, even as recalls of potentially tainted shrimp continue to grow. The discovery adds to questions about the source of the unusual problem. U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials last week blocked import o...

NEW YORK (AP) — Shohei Ohtani topped Major League Baseball’s jersey sales for the third straight year heading into the end of the regular season as Paul Skenes and Cal Raleigh entered the top 20. MLB’s top seven remained unchanged from its listing at the All-Star break. Ohtani, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ two-way star, was followed by...

The Census Bureau plans to use U.S. postal workers as census takers in at least two locations during field tests next year for the 2030 census, which will determine political power and federal funding. The statistical agency said Friday in a notice to be published next week that it will test and assess the feasibility of using post...

ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta’s airport has forfeited at least $37.5 million because city leaders have refused to disavow diversity, equity and inclusion programs as mandated by President Donald Trump’s administration. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the world’s busiest airport by pa...

CHICAGO (AP) — President Donald Trump’s transportation department has been pulling back grants already announced for recreational trails and bicycle lanes, telling local officials their projects fail to promote road capacity or are “hostile to motor vehicles.” The department recently sent letters to local governments in at least si...

It is now significantly harder for non-U.S. citizens to obtain a commercial driver’s license under new rules the Transportation Department imposed Friday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said an audit that was done after a deadly crash in Florida last month that was caused by a truck driver attempting an illegal U-turn showed t...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Naturepedic, a mattress and furniture company based outside Cleveland, has been planning to introduce an upscale upholstered headboard late this year or early in 2026. But President Donald Trump has thrown those plans into disarray. On Thursday night, the president announced on social media that he was slapping a...

MAGNOLIA, Ky. (AP) — The leafy soybean plants reach Caleb Ragland’s thighs and are ripe for harvest, but the Kentucky farmer is deeply worried. He doesn’t know where he and others like him will sell their crop because China has stopped buying. Beijing, which traditionally has snapped up at least a quarter of all soybeans grown in t...

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The truck that arrived ahead of schedule at Allyssa Canoy’s home in Fairbanks brought enough heating fuel for the frigid winter months ahead — and a surprise bill for $2,600. Canoy and her two sons have checks arriving that will cover that expense and leave some money for the boys, too. Starting Thursday, Alas...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran early Sunday over its nuclear program, further squeezing the Islamic Republic as its people increasingly find themselves priced out of the food they need to survive and worried about their futures. The sanctions will again freeze Iranian assets abroad...

Thieves who made off with 12,000 bottles of craft whiskey in a rare U.S. liquor heist this summer did more than just snag nearly $1 million worth of product -- they also spirited away nearly half the stock of a single malt distillers had worked for more than a decade to make. Now the Skagit Valley Sheriff’s Office is investigating,...

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Moldova’s pro-Western ruling party appears on track to top polls in a critical parliamentary election that was overshadowed by Russian interference claims. The race was widely viewed as a geopolitical choice between a path to the European Union or a drift back into Moscow’s fold. The tense ballot pitted the...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine overnight into Sunday, killing at least four people, with Kyiv suffering the heaviest assault. It was the first major bombardment since an air attack on Ukraine’s capital left at least 21 people dead last month. Separately, U.S. Vice President JD Vanc...