That Ukraine International Airlines flight in Tehran appears to have been downed by an Iranian missile, possibly fired by mistake. Iran’s civil aviation chief disagrees.

After severe earthquakes recently damaged Puerto Rico, hundreds of thousands are without water.

Australians prepare for another weekend of fire.

In Island Park, Idaho, a fight over roadkill and wildlife overpasses becomes a referendum on government control.

The Trump administration wants to scale back a bedrock federal environmental law to make it easier to build oil and gas pipelines.

A study finds that Trump has learned little as president "and appears unlikely to do so over the remainder of his tenure."

Key dates on the political calendar for the coming year.

See also: "The surreal lives of 2020 campaign spouses: What happens when your loved one wants to be president.”

In the US, the average new mother with insurance will pay more than $4,500 for her labor and delivery. In Finland? $60.

Watch: Britons try to guess how much different health care items cost in the United States.

The beds in the athletes village at this year’s Tokyo Olympics will be made of cardboard (that can support up to 200 kilograms).

Scientists use fibers that change color when put under strain to understand why some knots work and some don't.

Minimalism may seem pleasantly slick, but it relies on maximalist assemblage and unsustainable excess.

Something we missed, from July: Jill Lepore finally opens her best friend's laptop, 20 years after her death.

Read more stories like this in our editors' longreads picks.

Today’s National Book Award winners and nominees are surprisingly homogenous: not for skin color or ethnicity, but career path.

"Understand what ‘I do not understand’ means." A biologist offers tips on working in the same office as a physicist.

Pictures of daily life during the climate crisis, as rendered by Hayden Williams.

Nafissa Thompson-Spires writes about reaching a certain point in life: get a hysterectomy, or die.

Why children's television is deliberately weird and mesmerizing: because kids don't have adult-like comprehension of TV until age 12.

Among 28 petitions received by the Ohio Medical Board for medical marijuana treatment: "being a Bengals or Browns fan."