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Top headlines
Lead story
This week, powerful Santa Ana winds and an extremely dry landscape turned the Los Angeles area into every Californian’s nightmare. Several wildfires, almost unstoppable in hurricane-strength gusts, tore through thousands of homes. Schools and businesses burned.
People whose homes survived may now face another risk: When smoke and ash from urban fires blow into houses, they can leave behind toxic chemicals. Colleen Reid, an environmental health researcher at the University of Colorado, has been working with homeowners since the 2021 Marshall Fire outside Boulder, Colorado. She explains what residents there have learned, and she shares advice for dealing with smoky homes, including how to safely clean them.
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Smoke from several wind-driven wildfires spread through large parts of the Los Angeles area in early January 2025.
AP Photo/Ethan Swope
Colleen E. Reid, University of Colorado Boulder
The chemicals emitted when buildings and vehicles burn can find their way into nearby homes. Studies show the health risks can stick around.
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Environment + Energy
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Ming Pan, University of California, San Diego
The state is seeing a sharp water divide this year, with lots of rain in the north while the south has stayed dry. A hydrologist explains what’s happening.
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Annalisa Bracco, Georgia Institute of Technology
The oceans have been much warmer than average for the past two years, and the planet just set another global heat record. What’s going on?
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Stan Meiburg, Wake Forest University
Enforcing environmental laws isn’t a job that makes people popular. But polls show that Americans generally want more environmental protection, not less.
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Politics + Society
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Wayne Unger, Quinnipiac University
A New York state court judge is due to sentence Donald Trump in his hush money case to ‘unconditional discharge.’ What does that mean?
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Health + Medicine
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Nikki Crowley, Penn State
The government linked alcohol with seven types of cancers, prompting the US surgeon general to call for warning labels on beer, wine and liquor.
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Ashley Bradford, Georgia Institute of Technology
The study offers insight into how marijuana access may alter treatment patterns for patients with anxiety.
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Science + Technology
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Aaron J. Masino, Clemson University
Doctors have an overwhelming amount of individual patient data and medical research at their disposal to make diagnoses and treatment plans.
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Economy + Business
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Lauren Kaufmann, University of Virginia; Helet Botha, University of Michigan-Dearborn
Some investors are more open than others to considering the risk that their money might not have the impact they’re seeking.
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Education
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Angie Nga Le, Rutgers University; Phuong Nguyen-Hoang, University of Iowa
How states fund their schools may matter more in the coming years as the Trump administration prepares to change the federal government’s role in education spending.
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