A Florida teen accused of being the mastermind of a Twitter hacking attack that compromised accounts belonging to VIPs pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to multiple counts of fraud.

I recently took a drive-through COVID-19 test at the University of North Carolina. Everything was well organized and efficient: I was swabbed for 15 uncomfortable seconds and sent home with two pages of instructions on what to do if I were to test positive, and what precautions people living with or tending to COVID-19 patients should take. The instructions included many detailed sections devoted to preventing transmission via surfaces, and also went into great detail about laundry, disinfectants, and the exact proportions of bleach solutions I should use to wipe surfaces, and how. My otherwise detailed instructions, however, included only a single sentence on “good ventilation”—a sentence with the potential to do some people more harm than good. I was advised to have “good air flow, such as from an air conditioner or an opened window, weather permitting.” But in certain cases, air-conditioning isn’t helpful. Jose-Luiz Jimenez, an air-quality professor at the University of Colorado, told me that some air conditioners can increase the chances of spreading infection in a household. Besides, “weather permitting” made it all seem insignificant, like an afterthought. While waiting for my results, I checked the latest batch of announcements from companies trying to assure their customers that they were doing everything right. A major U.S. airline informed me how it was diligently sanitizing surfaces inside its planes and in terminals many times a day, without mentioning anything about the effectiveness of air circulation and filtering inside airplane cabins (pretty good, actually). A local business that operates in a somewhat cramped indoor space sent me an email about how it was “keeping clean and staying healthy,” illustrated by 10 bottles of hand sanitizer without a word on ventilation—whether it was opening windows, employing upgraded filters in its HVAC systems, or using portable HEPA filters. It seems baffling that despite mounting evidence of its importance, we are stuck practicing hygiene theater—constantly deep cleaning everything—while not noticing the air we breathe. How is it that six months into a respiratory pandemic, we still have so little guidance about this all-important variable, the very air we breathe?

A so-called “inappropriate and offensive” comic panel was removed from several newspapers after readers complained about the funny and entirely uncontroversial column. The image depicted two women at a grocery store, one Black wearing a face mask and a shirt that read, “I can’t breathe.” The other, a white woman with blue eyes, told the Black woman, “If you can’t breathe, then that silly mask off!”

China vowed on Tuesday to retaliate if the United States persisted with "hostile action" against Chinese journalists who may be forced to leave in coming days if their U.S. visas are not extended.

A huge explosion rocked Beiruit, Lebanon, Tuesday devastating entire buildings and leaving an unknown number of people dead and wounded. Lebanon’s health minister Hamad Hassan confirmed that there were a large number of injuries and widespread damage. Footage of the blast showed a large plume of dark red flames and smoke before a massive explosion threw up a mushroom cloud; powerful shock waves shattered glass, collapsed ceilings and pulled down balconies. A witness on the ground who works for the United Nations, but does not speak on their behalf, was near the port when the explosion happened. She told The Daily Beast that bodies were scattered from the blast. “There was dark smoke from a fire and then a massive blast and everyone fell to the ground,” she said. “A lot of people didn’t get up.”

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company, is opposing a debt settlement deal with Argentina as the country grapples with soaring poverty and the pandemic.

Two new studies from different parts of the world arrived at the same conclusion: that young children not only transmit SARS-CoV-2 efficiently, but may be major drivers of the pandemic as well.

Any attack against entrenched racism will run into a formidable barrier: White people who support progressive causes yet oppose efforts to make their schools and neighborhoods more diverse.

DNA tests are cheap and ubiquitous. For some donor-conceived people, they can unearth long-buried truths about their ancestry—and lead to unorthodox reunions.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday he was taking antibiotics for an infection that left him feeling weak, chuckling in an online video about "mold" in his lungs, having spent weeks in isolation after catching the novel coronavirus.

Throughout the South and across the Midwest, people spend their summers waist-deep in water and elbow-deep in huge Catfish. It’s every bit as extreme as it sounds, and is illegal in most states. Unsurprisingly, it’s a controversial topic among freshwater enthusiasts. What exactly is Catfish noodling? Who in their right mind thought of it? And why is it a hot topic among catfishers and conservationists? We waded into these muddy waters to try and make sense of the issue.

Destined to be the most wanted book this Christmas, Walliams weaves a richly imaginative fantasy adventure that is vividly brought to life with Tony Ross’s stunning illustrations. The year is 2120. London is in ruins, the people are hungry and darkness has fallen across the world. Prince Alfred, a sickly boy of twelve, has never known life outside Buckingham Palace. But evil forces are at work, and soon Alfred must do battle with the King of the Beasts – the Griffin… Walliams’s legions of fans will be enthralled by this page-turning tale of myth, magic and the most Machiavellian of villains.

Despite a warning to Catholic authorities in San Francisco to follow the local health order, a city official said the leadership of SS Peter and Paul?s, one of the city?s most famous churches, helped a young couple organize an illegal indoor wedding. Now several attendees and the newlyweds have tested positive for the coronavirus, guests say.

After Paxton's guidance, the Texas Education Agency reversed course and announced that the state won't fund schools that remain closed under a local public health mandate.

In Graham, elected officials and activists are sparring over limits on protests and what constitutes free speech.

Google?s collection of AR animals in search now includes 23 insects. The latest addition comes just a month after Google adds added 10 AR dinosaurs to its collection.

Lawmakers demanding an end to the liability shield for Big Tech should have thought about that when they enshrined it in the new version of NAFTA.

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