USA TODAY US Edition
‘Happy they’re back’ after drug addiction
The proudest moment of Kim Humphrey’s fatherhood wasn’t when his son aced a test, got married, or became a dad himself. It was the day his son turned himself in to the police. That day, Humphrey said, was the day he got his son back after a 10-year...
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Black gay men seek a voice in Congress
This fall, a 27-year-old Black gay man named Elijah Manley is the best-funded challenger to 20-year veteran Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, who is facing the political fight of her life to remain in Congress. ● At 59, Wasserman Schultz, a...
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Support often scarce for grieving workers
In March 2019, Diana Wisdom’s teenage son, Bryce, texted that he had blood in his urine. Rushed to the hospital, he was diagnosed with a rare form of kidney cancer. Doctors removed his right kidney. It was just the start of 16 months of treatment....
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This is no ordinary presidential library
Barack Obama’s presidency was like none that came before. That’s also true of the Obama Presidential Center, being dedicated June 18 on the South Side of Chicago. The edifices that presidents build after they leave office reveal their preferred view...
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Genetic testing ‘a slap in our face’
When the International Olympic Committee announced it was banning transgender women athletes from competing in women’s events beginning with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, Veronica Ivy was disheartened, but not necessarily surprised. Ivy, who is...
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‘One rule’ for 179 years: Patriotism, not politics
SOUTH BOSTON, VA – Inside this cavernous warehouse off U.S. Route 58, thin strips of red and white cotton cascade over nearly every surface. The strips are piled high in plastic bins, sprawled over tables and fed underneath bobbing needles. The whir...
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Algorithms amplify pressure on parents
Riddled with postpartum anxiety, with a 3-year-old and a 1-yearold on either hip, Kristin Gallant, of the viral brand Big Little Feelings, remembers looking around her neighborhood and scrolling social media for a clue. A clue, she said, as to what...
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2-year-old born deaf can hear with therapy
TARRYTOWN, NY – For Sierra Smith and her son, Travis, who was born deaf, a new gene therapy has been life-changing. The therapy, a surgically delivered drug developed by Regeneron, called Otarmeni (rhymes with “harmony”), recently received accelerated...
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Young people losing faith
Bathed in the glare of her classroom’s fluorescent lights, Kit Vontz mulled how others her age felt about the nation’s future. h “There’s so much going on right now, and it’s kind of overwhelming,” Vontz, 18, recently told the small group of other...
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Surging costs bite into pet adoptions
Olivia Sablan would do anything for her 3-year-old golden retriever, Lemon, including cutting other parts of her budget. • “She’s my whole world,” says Sablan, 27, a postdoctoral student in Seattle studying atmospheric science. Sablan rescued and...
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Teen summer job outlook is gloomy
School is almost out for teenagers across the country, and those hoping to land a summer job may have a tough time finding one. ● Last summer, teen hiring fell to its lowest level in nearly eight decades of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and...
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‘Buy before you sell’ is opening new doors
Last year, when Matt Gehr and his wife, Amber, decided to upgrade their condo for a single-family home, they had some advantages. ● Among the biggest: just enough savings to be able to swing a 10% down payment on a new place without having to sell...
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Do drivers hate cyclists?
Bicyclists and drivers have a long, fraught history in the United States, and spring 2026 shows that sharing the road still isn’t going so well. In Florida, court records show a man was charged with attempted murder and other counts in March after...
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Parents, educators fear for kids’ health
On an April evening, nearly 100 bikini-clad saunagoers descend on Othership Flatiron, the sauna-and-ice-bath spa that has become an Instagrammable landmark of New York City’s wellness scene. Inside, a DJ blasts house music as people h rotate between...
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Some taking the long way
More than 50 years after Black players finally were allowed to join major college football teams in the American South, Black players populated about half the roster spots in the Football Bowl Subdivision with a record 9,617 participants in 2024-25,...
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Music to kids’ ears: Playing piano for fun
Darius Partovi started taking lessons in classical piano when he was 7, but he soon grew restless and gave them up. It wasn’t until COVID-19 shut down schools that he returned to his keyboard out of boredom. He heard about a local teacher, Payam...
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In crisis mode, USPS delivers proud history
Newman, Jerry Seinfeld’s nemesis in his eponymous sitcom, famously (and ominously) said that “when you control the mail, you control information.” That was something Benjamin Franklin, the Renaissance man and Founding Father, knew very well. He’d...
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80 years later, Dutch still tend soldiers’ graves
By 1947, some 18,000 American soldiers had been buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten. At the end of World War II, the Dutch shared a simple message: “Leave your boys with us. We will watch over them like our own, forever.” • They...
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A new lease on life after serving 25 years
Harry Ruiz should never have been convicted. That’s the conclusion a New York judge reached on April 27, leading him to toss the botched murder conviction. Ruiz knows he’ll never get back the 25 years he spent in prison for a murder he has always...
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The cradle still rocks
MEMPHIS – At 87 years old, Pastor Juan Shipp listens with narrowed eyes to the soul-gospel strains of one of Memphis’ oldest groups tuning up beyond a recording studio window. Members of the Jubilee Hummingbirds talk and laugh, loose and unhurried,...
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TV journalists race for seats in Congress
Eric Sorensen changed channels in spring 2021 from starring on sunny local TV to running for Congress in a stormy midterm election season. In a campaign ad at the time, Sorensen, a former Quad Cities meteorologist, told Illinois viewers whose votes he...
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Built to keep families together
When Denise Chattams lost her Ohio home of 18 years, her family had to split into pairs to stay where they could: a friend’s house and a daughter’s apartment. The high school teacher, then 55, shared a bedroom with the toddler nephew she’d agreed to...
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Bird-watchers hooked on Jackie and Shadow
BIG BEAR LAKE, CA - Every morning with her first cup of coffee and every night before she goes to bed, Roslyn Ward of Australia checks on a family of bald eagles more than 7,500 miles away in California. Like millions of other people across the United...
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In the U.S., the push to free her is growing
Wearing his only well-fitted suit, Harold Jezler pushed through a crowd of government officials, journalists and executives inside a ballroom blocks from the White House. • The acupuncturist scanned the room as guests in suits and evening gowns shook...
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As treatment center unravels, chaos grows
Robert was at work when the call came. ● It was his wife, and she h was frantic. She said she’d just hung up with their daughter’s therapist at Asheville Academy, the residential treatment center where they’d sent their 14-year-old to live four months...
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Here’s where Earth’s glow is growing
Our night sky is getting brighter and brighter – not because of the moon, but because of artificial lighting. • While outdoor lighting is a necessary part of modern society, its widespread use has reshaped natural darkness, affected human and animal...
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Drones set to deploy to safeguard schools
DELTONA, FL From 2022 until 2024, there were 1,000 school shootings across the country, 10 times more than just a decade earlier. And about 800 people were killed or wounded in those shootings. • With brutal realities like that, schools are...
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Mother’s Day isn’t always a celebration
Kendall Williams, 53, won’t be seeing her youngest son this Mother’s Day. But that’s nothing new. Williams has been estranged from her son, who is 30, since September 2023, when she decided to cut off contact because she felt the relationship had...
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U.S. Catholics relate to Leo as one of them
It’s been nearly 1,000 years since King Henry IV stood barefoot in the Italian snow to beg forgiveness after clashes with Pope Gregory VII and over two centuries since Napoleon imprisoned Pope Pius VII in France. Now, a new battle is underway between a...
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Third-country deportations face scrutiny
Pheap Rom thought he was being transferred to another detention center when he saw “Eswatini” on his paperwork last fall. Instead, the 43-year-old Cambodian refugee was put on a plane to the small African kingdom and held for months in a...
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Cuban Americans are split on path to future
Ninety miles from Florida shores sits Cuba, an island that’s recently become a focus of President Donald Trump, and remains a continual pressure point for Cuban Americans, some of whom told USA TODAY they feel increasingly severed from the country...
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Gambling 101
When Michael Farber was a hospitality major at Kent State University, one class persuaded him to take a gamble and move to Las Vegas. • Farber, a 2015 graduate who works for a beverage distributor in Vegas, said the university’s Casino Management...
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Gen Z keeps editing themselves
“TO BE CRINGE IS TO BE FREE.” It’s a slogan that Generation Z loves in meme form, but in practice, they’d rather play it safe. Gen Z − the cohort born in the years 1997 to 2012 − is obsessed with cringe, or more aptly, with avoiding it. From the...
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Festival weighs USA’s 250th amid divisions
Ronnie Mack leaped onto a small stage in the dimly lit public library. He stared at the two dozen people sitting in the audience. Then he took a deep breath before telling them he’d been wrestling with a question. • On this recent and unseasonably warm...
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Americans waver on love for royalty
A red carpet unfurled on the tarmac. Musicians with brass instruments performed “God Save the King.” Along Pennsylvania Avenue, British flags flapped in the wind. King Charles and Queen Camilla landed in the United States on Monday, April 27, for...
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Inside the world of mom influencers
Women in pink pantsuits and floral, ankle-length skirts dropped their spoons into their empty Chobani yogurt cartons and opened their phone cameras as Becky Kennedy began her keynote speech at the Mom 2.0 Summit on April 17. • Kennedy, a clinical...
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Gunfire turns glitz into chaos
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump had taken his seat on the dais just a few minutes earlier and was talking with other VIPs when a series of loud bangs rippled through the jampacked Washington Hilton ballroom. Chaos erupted at one of Washington’s...
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Do nickels still make common cents to use?
Last year, the United States Mint pressed the last penny. ● Penny preservationists warned that the death of the one-cent coin might seed dire consequences: coin shortages at checkout counters; confusion over how to pay bills not ending in zero or five;...
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Women-only retreats in a fight for survival
Reshma Saujani used to get invitations by the dozens to speak at networking events about her experiences as a woman building two nonprofits, struggling with fertility and running for Congress. • So far this year, the founder of Moms First has received...
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Companies aim to stamp out carbon footprint
From driving electric vehicles to installing solar panels, many Americans are trying to reduce their carbon footprint. For Earth Day on April 22, USA TODAY takes a closer look at the companies doing the same. To better understand which U.S. companies...
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Grieving Louisiana city desperate for answers
SHREVEPORT, LA – Residents of this historic riverfront city remained shaken a day after a gunman opened fire and killed eight children in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since January 2024. They were looking for explanations and authorities were...
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With no competitors, Keytruda cash rolls in
Just a few weeks after President Donald Trump’s December promise that prescription drug prices would plummet “fast and furious,” Patricia Brown checked into a California clinic for an infusion of Merck & Co.’s blockbuster cancer drug, Keytruda. ● When...
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Grocery prices go up, down, à la carte
Grocery prices are on the rise, but not all foods are seeing increases, according to a new price analysis of some common food staples. CouponFollow analyzed the monthly consumer price index average food price data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and...
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NY bodega motivates kids about A’s, B’s, C’s
Around 5 p.m., the corner bodega at Heberton Avenue and Ann Street comes alive. ● Peals of laughter spill out onto the sidewalk, mixing with the jingle of a passing soft-serve ice cream truck and shouts of kids playing in neighboring yards. A gaggle of...
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IN U.S. TERRITORIES, A LACK OF IDENTITY
Kevin Méndez can still smell the scent of freshly baked bread wafting out of his local panadería. He still hears the nighttime chirps of the coqui frog and pictures the skateboard-toting children crowding palm-tree-lined streets at the end of a school...
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CAN BIG BEND STOP THE WALL?
PRESIDIO, TX – For Denisse Carrera, it’s the dark, starry nights. For Mike Davidson, it’s his 49 years paddling the Rio Grande. For Bill Ivey, it’s the ghost town business he built with his father, and now his son. In a state with a historic...
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AI school flips learning on its head
Matt Shenker recently witnessed a group of fourth and fifth graders at Alpha School Scottsdale doing what he said boys that age do: calling each other fat and making jokes at each other’s expense. ● At most schools, a teacher or staff member would step...
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Vast migrant centers planned across U.S.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have spent months advancing a controversial effort to drastically expand its detention space by buying up warehouses nationwide and converting them into holding centers. Internal documents show the...
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Growing number are fighting the addiction
Ryan didn’t open his phone with the intention of finding porn. But when the 11-year-old came across it on his social media feed, he was intrigued. As he watched, he experienced a rush of curiosity and excitement. • Soon, his brain was hooked on that...
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Earthlings set return to moon after long void
Humanity is headed back to the lunar surface for the first time in more than half a century – but first, a flyby. • Four astronauts are set to orbit the moon during NASA’s Artemis II mission. Hitching a ride atop the Space Launch System rocket, the...
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Fei-Fei Li sparks AI boom but keeps humanity at heart
On Feb. 18, Fei-Fei Li made headlines. The company she cofounded, World Labs, announced it had raised $1 billion – with a B – in funding. Now it’s poised to bring artificial intelligence into 3D. That’s the “spatial intelligence” that will make it...
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Angel City plays to win for women, their community
If you’re heading to your first Angel City Football Club home game at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, you will experience a vibe. Girls wearing too-large player jerseys − their dads in pink wigs. PodeRosas, a group of Spanish-speaking supporters, chanting,...
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Generation Z and the demise of the house party
We used to be a proper country. Where dancing on sticky living room floors, sneaking beers from our parents’ refrigerators and bumping music on stereos were hallmarks of adolescence. • Gen Z, apparently, doesn’t know that. Or at least not to the same...
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Pressure building in airport impasse
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers deployed to ease security lines at airports across the country, the pressure on the White House and Capitol Hill to end the monthlong shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security reached its highest...
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Young people may wonder: Why even try?
For decades, the American dream meant upward mobility, but many young people today define it as simply achieving stability. • To them, securing housing, a stable career, health care and education are essential steps toward living comfortably, according...
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When tragedy hit, this grandma helped teens heal
At 4 a.m. every Wednesday, Peggy Winckowski wakes up to make breakfast. She reminds her husband, Bill, to stay in bed and she gets ready. “I don’t walk out of that bathroom without my face on,” she says. “I’m going to have my earrings on. I’m going to...
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Sarah Bond believes gaming has power to connect us all
Sarah Bond fondly remembers sitting next to her father playing King’s Quest II – solving puzzles, navigating mazes and unlocking doors – all in an effort to rescue the beautiful maiden, Princess Valanice, from captivity. • At age 6, Bond had no idea...
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‘Dark’ things unfold with sheriff on watch
JASPER, AL − On a brisk December morning in Walker County, Alabama, the temperature in Sheriff Nick Smith’s office is a welcome shelter from the cold. Down a flight of stairs from where Smith sits, into a chill that grows with every step, Anthony...
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Can nuclear power end water crisis?
In the middle of the desert sits a sign: “Caution docks may be slippery.” They are not. In fact, there’s not a drop of water to be seen at Antelope Point Marina, which once sat near the shore of Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir. The...
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New era of protests is missing its music
In late January, Bruce Springsteen released “Streets of Minneapolis,” memorializing Minnesota residents shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, weaving “ICE Out Now” chants into a chorus of Trump-era resistance. A few weeks later, U2...
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Mother turns her unthinkable loss into advocacy
Maybe, for the first time since her son’s death, Rachel Goldberg-Polin can grieve. ● Or so she told her therapist. ● But how would it happen? ● Goldberg-Polin imagines herself in a grocery store. In the cereal aisle, she’d spot a box of Cap’n Crunch on...
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‘Only in America’: A love of country drives her mission
Every Fourth of July, Emma Bloomberg had a tradition when she was growing up. She and her little sister, Georgina, would stand before their father and recite the Declaration of Independence. • The document’s ornate, English Roundhand script wasn’t easy...
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Colleges get dressed for NIL success
When the University of Tennessee athletic department switched its apparel provider from Nike back to Adidas last summer, the biggest clue as to why was hidden within a sentence seven paragraphs into the university’s announcement. ● Tennessee’s new...
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Aaron Parnas rises to his media moment
Vice President Kamala Harris skirted tradition in September when she picked liberal prodigy Aaron Parnas instead of a cable news host to helm the first tour stop for her tell-all 2024 campaign book, “107 Days.” “Thank you for giving me the best job in...
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Foreign spies swapping sex for secrets
The foreign woman was attractive, well-dressed and confidently at ease. • She struck up a conversation in person with the former American soldier – at the time, a senior defense contractor – answering his questions about the company she said she worked...
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Channing Dungey knows how to make television magic
Channing Dungey loves stories. It started with books – she was reading at age 2 – and blossomed thanks to Saturday nights with her mom. “I grew up with a mom who loved old movies,” she says. Channing, mom Judith, and little sister Merrin would gather...
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Following a dream, from ‘trailer girl’ to country superstar
When Lainey Wilson was 9 years old, she wrote a song called “Lucky Me.” • She still remembers every word. • That same year, she got her first pair of bellbottoms, her first horse and her first glimpse of the stage that would indelibly shape her future:...
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New gold rush sweeps across American West
SDENVER loshing chilly river water around his black plastic pan, Kevin Singel tilted it this way and that, catching the sun, looking for a telltale glint: flecks of gold. • “Right there,” exclaimed the longtime prospector and guidebook author. “We got...
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