Search results for

Many Alaskans are watching the lower 48 suffer through the cold and snowy winter with one reaction: envy. That's because Alaska is enduring the opposite, facing record high temperatures and extremely low snow totals. Alaska Public Radio Network's Annie Feidt reports that the unusual weather has made it difficult for residents to enjoy the winter sports, like skiing, that are popular in the state.

Several members of Congress are convening a field hearing on January's toxic water crisis in West Virginia, gathering in Charleston to listen to officials testify about the safety of the water. While officials testified that the water was now suitable for drinking and bathing, there is one word nobody would use to describe the water: safe.

The winter weather in Britain is even worse than people expected this year. For more than a month now, the British Isles have been battered with storms that have destroyed train tracks, blocked roads and flooded large parts of the country. And as NPR's Ari Shapiro reports from London, there's no end in sight to the dismal weather.

Much of the attention on the Olympic slopestyle events has focused on snowboarders, but the downhill event is also done on skis. Devin Logan enters Tuesday's competition as the world's top-ranked female freestyle skier. And at 20, she'll compete before she can legally celebrate with a beer.

When Congress hits its debt ceiling at the end of the month, don't expect another big confrontation. House Republicans don't have the appetite for it and can't even agree on what points to negotiate.

The Obama administration is again delaying a part of the Affordable Care Act that requires most companies to provide employees with health insurance. This time, smallish firms — those with fewer than 100 workers but more than 49 — get a reprieve until 2016.

As an acoustic engineer, Trevor Cox has spent most of his career getting rid of bizarre, unwanted sounds. But in The Sound Book, Cox turns up the volume on those sonic oddities. The book explores weird echoes and unexpected noises from around the globe — including "whisper galleries" and a chirping pyramid.

Air bags stored in backpacks are saving the lives of backcountry skiers, snowboarders and snowmobilers. They look something like car air bags, but they work on an entirely different principle. These keep you safe simply by turning you into a larger object, and that helps you rise to the top of debris.

Governments, schools and companies keep track of your race. The statistics are used to track the proportion of blacks and whites who graduate from school. They tell us how many people identify themselves as Native American or Asian. They help us measure health disparities. But there's a problem with all those statistics — and the deeper way we think about race.

The housing bubble in Afghanistan was created by the influx of international organizations and their thousands of workers over the last 12 years. As countries pull out of Afghanistan, rent prices are tumbling, vacancies are soaring and sales have flatlined.