DETROIT — As Canadian wildfire smoke continues to drift south toward the United States, air quality in Michigan worsening, prompting officials to issue warnings.

The Michigan Air Quality Division issued an advisory Thursday for elevated levels of fine particulate (PM2.5) in the eastern Upper Peninsula and all counties in the northern Lower ...Read more

Any time you spend two hours in Walnut Creek, California, local business leaders may be tracking you. The city’s Chamber of Commerce has paired with a tech company to clock visitors as they move in and out of the city.

The technology is from Arrivalist, a travel-industry-focused company with a platform that uses mobile location datasets to ...Read more

CHICAGO — A chatty animated amphibian starring in videos for Bad Bunny’s recent album has launched the Puerto Rican crested toad — an endangered species native to the island — into newfound fame, following years of quiet, collaborative conservation efforts involving Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo.

“They’re kind of famous now,” said ...Read more

BOSTON — As white sharks return to the Cape, researchers are helping the public chomp on shark hotspot data from last summer and fall.

The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s “White Shark Logbook” has been updated with last year’s acoustic detection data of tagged apex predators.

More than 100 individual sharks were detected along the...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Southern California’s air quality regulators are set to vote this week on new rules aimed at phasing out the sale of gas-powered furnaces and water heaters in the region.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District, or AQMD, which covers all of Orange County and large swaths of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino ...Read more

Reddit Inc. sued artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, saying it has used the social media company’s content without permission to train its AI models.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that Anthropic attempted to access Reddit data more than 100,000 times since last July. Reddit said this “...Read more

NEW YORK — An air quality alert was issued for New York City, as well as parts of New York State, New Jersey and Connecticut on Wednesday in response to southern-drifting, hazy smoke from Canadian wildfires and rising ozone levels.

The smoke is coming from fires in the central Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The National ...Read more

Father’s Day is coming up, and I’ve been testing a few things that dads would love.

You could get dad another tie or bottle of after shave, but he’s probably got too many ties, and how much aftershave does one man need?

Here are three suggestions to surprise your dad.

Arcade belt

Belts were an area of my wardrobe that I knew could be ...Read more

The Bay Area has lost more than 11,000 tech jobs so far in 2025, a slump in hiring punctuated by disclosures of fresh layoffs in the region by some big players such as Google, Walmart and Microsoft.

The protracted hiring slump is a reminder that the tech industry is no longer a robust engine that helps to power the Bay Area economy.

The tech ...Read more

Officials issued an alert Wednesday as air quality was expected to reach unhealthy levels in all of Wisconsin until noon Thursday.

Sensitive groups should consider moving all activities inside especially those with asthma or people with heart disease. Officials asks those with health conditions to keep outdoor activities shorter and less ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — More than 90% of popular freshwater fish in Southern California are carrying human-infecting parasites, researchers say. This poses a significant danger for those who like to eat freshly caught freshwater fish. But there are ways to protect yourself.

The parasites are called trematodes. Two species of the flatworms were ...Read more

One of the most pivotal decisions I made as a gamer happened in a Software Etc. in 1996. Back then, I was armed with $60 and had visions of a new video game, but I was unsure of what to buy. The clerk gave me two recommendations: “Wave Race 64” and “Sid Meier’s Civilization II.”

I wavered between the two. I trusted Nintendo titles ...Read more

This week a reader writes concerning portable power stations. I mentioned my mom has one at her home.

“I am a senior dependent on medical devices, i.e. oxygen concentrator, nebulizer. Whole house generators are just too much money. The internet is full of (suggestions), but I don't know which or if any of them would meet my needs. Would ...Read more

When it comes to pool safety, you can never be safe enough. And, like any accident, you never know. According to the American Red Cross, 69% of young children who drowned were not expected to be in or near water.

That brings me to the SwamCam, touted by the company as a first-of-its-kind AI-powered drowning detection system designed to help ...Read more

STONE HARBOR, N.J. -- Lenore Tedesco doesn’t need to venture far to witness sea-level rise. She tracks its relentless advance from her window at work.

Tedesco, executive director of the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, stood by the nonprofit’s large conference room window in late May, surveying an expanse of salt marsh known as Scotch ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Air quality alerts remain in effect for yet another day for the entire state of Minnesota with concentrations of wildfire smoke so thick the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has issued a rare hazardous warning.

The MPCA uses a color-coded scale when issuing alerts, with purple and maroon signaling when the air is the ...Read more