KENDRIA LaFLEUR

Luke Choat slides on a small snow covered hill Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, in Richardson, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
A powerful winter storm’s heavy snow and sleet cancels flights and closes schools across US South
Another blast of winter storms is closing schools, snarling flights and putting millions of residents on alert across parts of the Deep South and south-central U.S.
 
FILE - Notebooks are stacked on desks in a classroom at A.G. Hilliard Elementary School, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
Texas education board approves optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools
Texas’ education board has voted to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools. The approval Friday follows other Republican-led states that have pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms.
 
A road crew repaves a road in the Forest Hills neighborhood in the Queens borough of New York, Monday, July 1, 2024. As areas across the U.S. continue to experience extreme heat, employers have taken steps to protect workers from high temperatures. (AP Photo/Daniel P. Derella)
How employers are taking steps to safeguard workers from extreme heat
As areas across the U.S. continue to experience extreme heat, employers have taken steps to protect workers from high temperatures. UPS has added more cooling equipment to its vehicles and facilities.
 
This undated image made from a video provided by Project RattleCam shows a "mega den" of rattlesnakes in a remote location in northern Colorado. California Polytechnic State University scientists recently put up a webcam on the den, which they say is one of the biggest they've ever seen. (Project RattleCam via AP)
Webcam monitors hundreds of rattlesnakes at a Colorado ‘mega den’ for citizen science
A “mega den” of rattlesnakes at a remote location in northern Colorado is now available for live, round-the-clock viewing online.
 
Opal Lee sits in a rocking chair while waiting to give interviews on the porch of her new home in Fort Worth, Texas, Friday, June 14, 2024. Habitat for Humanity built Lee the home on the same lot where as a child a white mob destroyed her family's home driving them away. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Opal Lee gets keys to her new Texas home 85 years after a racist mob drove her family from that lot
The 97-year-old Texan known for her push to make Juneteenth a national holiday has been given the keys to her new home.
 
Fish swim around brain coral deep below ocean at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico Saturday, Sept. 16, 2023. Sheltered in a deep, cool habitat far from shore, the reefs in the Flower Garden Banks boast a stunning amount of coral coverage. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Climate change is hurting coral worldwide. But these reefs off the Texas coast are thriving
Far off the Texas coast there is a beautiful surprise in the Gulf of Mexico that draws divers from around the world: a stunning amount of coral coverage on undersea mountains.
 
Workers hand off plants during operations at a vertical farm greenhouse in Cleburne, Texas, Aug. 29, 2023. Indoor farming brings growing inside in what experts sometimes call “controlled environment agriculture.” There are different methods; vertical farming involves stacking produce from floor to ceiling, often under artificial lights and with the plants growing in nutrient-enriched water. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Lots of indoor farms are shutting down as their businesses struggle. So why are more being built?
Across the country, more indoor farms are launching or expanding even as others founder. This summer marked the groundbreaking of a huge vertical farming operation in Virginia by the California-based company Plenty Unlimited.
 
Southside Independent School District police officer Ruben Cardenas, left, greets a student arriving at Freedom Elementary School, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, in San Antonio. Most Texas school districts say they are unable to comply with a new law requiring armed officers on every campus. The mandate was one of Republican lawmakers' biggest acts following the Uvalde school shooting in 2022 that killed 19 children and two teachers. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Texas wanted armed officers at every school after Uvalde. Many can’t meet that standard
A vision of putting an armed guard at every school in Texas is crashing into the reality of not enough police or funding.
 
This undated photo provided by Carla Gates shows Gates and her husband, Dallas mail carrier Eugene Gates Jr. On June 20, 2023, Eugene Gates collapsed on a homeowner’s property when he was making deliveries on a suffocating hot day and later died at a hospital. (Courtesy of Carla Gates via AP)
Mishmash of how US heat deaths are counted complicates efforts to keep people safe as Earth warms
Death certificates don’t always reflect the role that extreme heat played in ending a person’s life even when it seems obvious it was a factor.